Gigs from Hell - Trombone Edition?

[sirisobhakya]

My inspiration comes from the page “Gigs from Hell (Funny Gig Stories)” on Facebook. I believe everyone here, each of whom most likely has much longer playing experience than me, would have at least 1 or 2 gigs from hell of his/her own. Would you like to share (or vent)?

I shall start.

Two friends and I formed a band out of necessity: the bosses know we can play music, and there was an internal “talent show”, so they want us to be the representatives of our business unit. One as vocal, one acoustic guitar, and one trombone... we don’t even want to call ourselves a band. But whatever.

September 2019. It was an open house day of another business unit, and they requested us to help play. Time slot 1 hour, from 12.00 to 13.00. Prime time since it is lunch break.

The day before the gig, we talked with the organizer to get everything we need: 3 note stands and 3 microphone stands. Not much, right? They promised. My guitar friend also asked for speaker connection and sound check, about which they replied they will supply the wire and jack, and the sound check is not necessary, they have everything under control and it should be plug-and-play.

Yeah, sure.

The gig day. We came to the venue at 11.30. No note stand and only 2 mic stands. The organizer said they will fetch the stands, but after 10 min they said this is all they had. We had to borrow the company’s music club’s own stands from another building, which was locked and needed another 15 min to get the key and another 10 min to haul back to the venue. It was now 12.05, and the mics and the connection jack were not properly set up, which took another 10 min to correct.

At last we were able to start at 12.15. But the organizer decided to test another mic during our performance. Great. “Check check one two zzi ah” sporadically all the way through the gig. And because the time was shortened, the songs that were prepared specifically for me (because I need to prepare and practice the most, and also the songs in which the trombone line is prominent) were cut.

The attendance was abysmal also, since there was a product demonstration elsewhere, and we were even told to play softer than normal because otherwise we would disturb the demo.

Did I mention the gig was also free?

Another one was around March this year, amidst the beginning of the CoViD-19 panic in Thailand. The CEO of an affiliate company, who is acquainted with our direct boss, throw a party for the members of some kind of investment course he and our boss attended. All of the members of the course hold high management positions in various leading companies.

The CEO is kind and gentle, and always look after us well when he calls on us to play, so we take the gig without any forethought. Turned out as the worst decision our band has made.

A few, but prominent, guests were extremely loud and rude. And worst of all, they acted like female staffs (who are regular, professional employees of the company) were showgirls of some sort. The guests dragged them onto the stage, touched their hand, arm, and hip, and even hugged them. Our vocal girl (who is admittedly very good looking) also took that kind of abuse. My friend on the guitar even commented “this is the first time I feel glad I have a p***nis”. The CEO didn’t help. We reckoned he was either too drunk already, or he has to show hospitality as a host. Our boss was also inferior to him so he could not do anything. Female guests (around 4-5) also did nothing. They even cheered.

The party dragged on until around 23.30, and even then the rude guests wanted to continue. Fortunately the CEO called it off. I arrived at my home at 01.00 the next day, and I had to wake up at 04.30 to go to work...

My guitar friend and I agreed: “Out country is still a developing country because we have elites like these.”

[Vegastokc]

Wow, that recent gig sounds like an episode of Mad Men or every drunken fraternity party at university ever.
I can't imagine stuff like does not still happen here in the states somewhere, but with media being what it is, if it gets exposed all the involved parties will get lambasted and/or forced out of their positon.
I have nothing to share that comes close to that; my worst experience would still just be anecdotal in comparison.