We've all had them. Sometimes it's the gear, sometimes it's your bandmates, but mostly, you just suck.

My most epic fail could be written as an ongoing Netflix series, seriously. This one takes the cake though...

So, I'm at FHA 2013 and it's my turn to perform. Emmett, Greg, Kevin and Don are all there. I've been pretty busy with all the administrative things that come along with event planning and then all of a sudden, I get to be creative. I was so excited.

And so totally unprepared. So, I try something new. I had been working on Shine on you Crazy diamond until 2 the night before, although you would never have known it. So, about 4 measures in, I stop. Chuckle, look around nervously. It really sucks and it's not my amp / pedals. Blank stares. All my Stick friends were feeling it, the nervous sideways glances (is he okay?, etc.)

I try to Joy of Man's Desiring and get to the second section and just freeze. It's like revenge of fail. Even worse. It dawns on me that I have to get room keys from everyone before breakfast and I'm thinking, how and when TF is that going to happen. And then, there is just awkward silence. I am "Wall of Ice" frozen.

Like Carbonite.

I have officially reached the bottom. I play Clocks (out of tune) and exit.

For the second set, I am joined by my friend Navid on Santur. I revert to my little keyboard amp and switch to my more familiar Paduak 10 string. We do a short improvisation which goes well and then we play Mercy Street. I exit early and feeling like I've mended the universe.

When I see Emmett the next day, he mentions it, gingerly. "Sorry that went down the way that it did", he's pretty gracious about it. I am reminded that failing is only bad while it's happening. It still stings, but not like it did in that moment.

I reply, I'm glad it happened because now, I know how to better prepare so that NEVER happens again. I still fail, daily, but nothing to that extent. That was indeed a fine learning experience.

xxxx

Wow! I could certainly empathize. We've all had those moments. You can't have any kind of performing life without some epic train wrecks. Right away I could think of three or four but one stands out in particular only because one of my best friends added insult to injury. I always file this under ... if you can't trust your friends to pile on, who can you trust.

So this is early on in my Stick playing and I'm playing a solo gig at the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room in Ann Arbor. I have a good sized crowd and there's a table off to one side where my wife, one of my best friends John, and his wife are sitting. I'm well into my set and along comes "Here, There, and Everywhere" by the Beatles. A tune I've played a million times and a tune I know inside out. For some inexplicable reason, as I'm playing the intro and getting ready to hit the very first verse, I realize that I suddenly have no idea how it goes. I just trusted that my fingers would play the right thing. Well ... they didn't. This atonal thing came out of the speaker and I tried to play it off but at the same time, I glanced over to my friend John and made a sour face. Along comes the second verse and I realize I'm going to do the same thing. More atonal hell. Another sour face aimed at my friend John. After some improvising, I come up to the third verse. As I'm about to massacre the melody yet again, I glance over at my friend John. At this point, his hands are over his mouth, his face is fire engine red, and he is laughing beyond control. At that point it's pretty much all over for me.

I finished the tune. The audience clapped. I looked at them and said something like "ever have one of those days where you look right at your closest nephew, get a sudden attack of dementia, and then ask ... what the hell is your name?" That managed to get a chuckle out of the crowd and I moved on.

I already shared this with Gene, thought I'd post here.Really a great thread.

So... I just got my Bach Invention #1 all memorized last Friday, and I thought to myself "Self, you should go and play this for some people" so I secured a spot for myself at the local open mic. A harmless dive/tavern type spot where people have a chance to go and play out. Really, it's pretty safe. Nice people, and the talent there is usually... ummm quite drunk, and about 85% horrendous at playing music. Pretty safe environment, really.

I have played Stick there a couple of times and left the place with all kinds of new friends.It usually goes pretty well. I am known for being a good player (Well, not any more! hahaha)

Well I got about halfway through and just crashed. All I could do was laugh good lord what a train wreck, bloody epic! and it was so damn awkward like everyone felt uncomfortable as I'm, like hacking my way through the piece lol I just wouldn't give up (I mean, who cares, right? hahaha) The good news is that the Invention will never bother anyone ever, EVER again hahahaha thaw-hack-tap tap-tap-thwap-hack

I ended up basically being so rattled I could not even tap (I have been playing for, like 41 years - I have a TON of stage and studio experience hahaha this NEVER happens) Anyways, I treated the Stick as a guitar and strummed chords and sang a weak version of "More Than Words" and "I See Fire"

lol my friends were laughing so hard, oh man! And some oilfield workers felt sorry for me and bought me supper hahaha One guy said, "Good thing you decided to quit doing that weird pressing thing and play that thing like it's supposed to be played, cause what you were doing was not good."

lol funny. I am still laughing about it, what an exhilarating experience! the "Tractor Jacks Bach Fiasco"

It was still fun - not my first train wreck and won't be my last.

Another good topic. For me, it's probably this video taken in 2013 with my old band And The Traveler.



We were playing at a brewery that was offering free drinks to the performers. Mix that in with having not eaten all day, and my drummer and I partaking in a bit of the ol' jazz cabbage right before the set and I was in a difficult mindset to begin with.

To top it off, somehow the sound guy ruined our monitor mix and then left the board. When we sound checked, everything was great and I was playing great. Come show time, I was drunk, stoned and all I could hear was cymbal wash. You ever have one of those nightmares where you're performing and you just forget all your parts? Well, someone had the good grace of filming me living that nightmare. It might be hard to hear in the audio, but this is far and away the most embarrassing performance I've ever had.

I have since then vowed to remain sober during performances, though I don't really smoke any more and I was never much of a drinker. I can't wait to live through the performance that tops it.

Hey I think it's cool that you shared this story and I really appreciate it.
As a result I looked up a video of you playing Clocks.

I admit that I am no fan of Coldplay -- I usually cringe when I hear them.

However I must say that I really enjoyed your rendition of their song!
It's like it's MADE for the Stick. The melody really carries it through as an instrumental.

Nice work Gene, I dig the vibe.

Yeah, this thread is a guilty pleasure.

Flint, I enjoyed hearing that you found an aspect of the song that you did like. I thought the same thing about Josh's video, but in kind of a different way. I'm certain Josh could find fault with all of his parts, but I thought Josh was doing rather well, I'm mean that is pretty complex music - especially considering he had a guitarist / singer that was intentionally clapping out of time and encouraging the audience to do the same.

Don't know the guy, but who does that? And who is the one guy up there still playing in time.

The guy with the Stick - check it about 3 minutes!

I like that we find something, anything, even in our failures, that can help each other out. So, yeah, here's to failing, and then getting the eff back in the huddle.

In my experience. It's a funny thing about the truly gifted (I am not among their numbers..I'm Ok with that) or at least a particular species of em. You can throw a red lobster restaurant's full of clams and afterwards they go (with genuine appreciation) "hey, man, that thing you did right after the bridge was really cool". .. maybe it was the only thing you DID do "right"...maybe you didn't even notice yourself as your neck grew hot with failure - but they noticed

those folks...it's like they are wired to find the beauty and that's what they experience. Maybe the rest of it it is noise...or silence, or window dressing or just the deal...I dunno.

Funny Gene mentions FHA 2013, because I epic failed FHA 2014 open mic. My old piano teacher, Mr. Ruggero, said that like American elevators, musicians should perform with 150% capability vs. what they are performing. Stated another way, a performance song should only be 2/3 as hard as what you are capable of. Well, I tried to play at 75% capability, because I wanted to be able to do something I wasn't ready to do.

I tried Sounds of Silence. It was bad. Lucky for me, Dale Ladouceur and Tim Longfellow bailed me out with vocal and piano backups. It went much better that way. I was able to let go of my Stick errors, because Tim was covering for them on piano, so I just made sure not to lose time. Dale helped my vocal confidence by blending voices. For some the event demonstrated the spirit of community. Had these two not helped, it would have been pretty rough on my psyche, but they did and I am thankful.

I am late to the party as usual but since I was at FHA 2013, I can give an audience perspective. I do remember Gene starting a few pieces over, but I also remember him finding his groove and playing a killer version of Mercy Street which was very inspiring. I should also mention his fantastic set at Stick Night at NAMM 2017 - his pedal set up was awesome too.

On top of that Gene spent the whole FHA making everything was running smoothly for the rest of us and he gave a great seminar on how to learn new tunes - I am still using what he taught me.

I have fallen on my Stick face many times and the key is to (1) move on to the next piece and (2) try to evaluate what you need to practice afterwards. It is very easy to beat yourself up in the moment. Usually, the audience is on your side and they will cheer you on as you recover into the next piece.

My biggest stage catastrophe was an outdoor gig where my band was one of five bands playing. The band before us ran over which meant our 10 minute set up became 5 minutes. My rig had a computer, audio interface, synth, and Stick/pedals. The audio interface failed. I used my Yamaha S80 keyboard to control softsynths, so my backup was the built in sounds in the keyboard. However, the keyboard had been retuned by another player who used it in our rehearsal space and since I had never tuned it, I had no idea how to reset it.

I had to play all my keyboard parts on Stick on the fly. It was not pretty. That was the last time I relied on a computer/softsynths on stage. I have used my iPad and LinnStrument but my main keys are hardware only. While I have seen Mainstage used by every major act I have seen in the past few years, they ALWAYS have two identical MacBooks running Mainstage.

I am toying with the idea of using my iPad for effects and have tried it out twice. But my Zoom pedal is always in my Stick bag just in case.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk