Your Most Embarassing Moment On Stage

I'm sure we've all had' em. Let's share a few for laffs.
Here's mine : :oops:

We were playing a convention center gig in Winnipeg and the stage was set up on the floor. It consisted of 3 tiers.
The Stars of the show were on the lowest tier. Next tier was was shared by the guitarist, stage left, and keyboardist, stage right.
I was up on the top tier stage right, about 3-4 ft off the floor, and shared the top tier with the drummer, center, and back up singers, stage left. I was standing directly behind the keyboardist. I remember the top tier was only about 4-5 feet wide. My amp and cab were directly behind me and I had only an area about 2ft x 5ft to stand in. Directly to my left was the drummer, right in front of me was the keyboardist and his Yamaha, and to my right was a light stand.

A few songs into our first set was a song where all the instruments had a short 8 bar solo prefaced by the Star introducing the player. " On guitar from Nashville, Huey ........ " Of course none of us were really from Nashville.
Guitarist was 1st, keyboards 2nd, bass 3rd, and drums last.
When the keyboardist launched into his solo, I was right behind him in the very bright spotlight so I took a few steps to my right to get out of the light. I lost my balance, and fell right off the stage. Luckily the drop was only about 3-4ft so I landed on my feet. I did the splits, got my balance, and didn't pull my amp off but did split my pants.
Of course my solo was next and I had to play it on the floor.
The drummer saw me fall and was laughing his head off. Funnest thing I ever saw, he told me after-wards.
Lead singer told me he had turned to point to me for my solo but I was gone.
I've had a few others over the years but that was the most embarassing

Off the top of my head, I can't remember one big embarrassing moment, just a series of miscues and failures (forgotten lyrics, wrong keys, equipment malfunctions, inappropriate remarks into live microphones, etc.)...

Cheers, Tim

mines probably forgetting the chords that started one of our songs. i was pretty drunk and i ended up having afew goes at trying to remember them then i gave up and asked one of my friends on the side of the stage who had played guitar with us before.

not that big of a deal considering our drummer would forget every second song and come in with the wrong beat so we'd needa stopm show him the song then start again.

Jumped off the stage into the crowd at a talent show in college while playing a chuck berry style solo... the crowd roared their approval, when the solo finished I realized that I had no way to get back onstage without turning down and kinda crawling climbing back on stage... utter humiliation... I have a tape of the event and people were laughing their ass off about it... we still won!

But, I felt even more stupid than usual.

I was playing at a family reunion gig and I'm usually front and center of our group. We were playing our break song and my pants fell down. Really embarassing!!!

since this is the bass forum, i'll keep it on the bassman side ... our guy got drunk on New Year's Eve and was a whirling dervish onstage until he fell backwards down the stage steps.

to his credit, he never missed a lick!

Played a little gig in Ashland Oregon...small stage with a tiny house system....no monitors and the speakers were in front of the stage ....this was an acoustic gig, me another guitarist and a hand percussionist..folky bluegrassy jazzy jammy stuff..with a few covers to fill in..I was singing harmony for the first time really..3 part harmony's are NO JOKE...I couldn't hear my instrument, my voice, or the other guitar..I could hear the other guitarist vocals,and the percussionist so I had to play by feel, and sing, all around his voice...I was doing the lead parts instrumentally..and basically went through the motions...my fingers went where they knew to go, and I let them do what they do.much of this has improvisational parts ...all without hearing it..I was so frazzled over it, that I was scowling and *****y the whole time....still feels like the worse show I ever did, but the audience members I spoke too afterwards said it sounded great.My behavior though, was embarrassing. Ive learned that even if it ALL falls apart..take it with good humor, and go with it.

Pants ripping incident. Total crotch blowout & I was, uh, commando. Only realized it cause I felt a breeze where none should've been. Had to tie a shirt around my waist to finish the miserable gig. Lesson learned. Funny thing is is a friend contacted me last week saying she had a videotape of this show (from '84) & would send me a DVD of it. Not sure I wanna see it.

Once I forgot the punchline to a joke and had to be prompted by the singer. That sucked.

Overall, though, the worst for our entire band happened on a Thursday night when we were playing to practically no one. We finished up a tune and could hear the sound of slow, rhythmic clapping coming from somewhere in the club. Our singer said an enthusiastic "thank you" to our one apparent fan, when we suddenly realized the sound we heard was not clapping; it was a bartender making a batch of martinis and slapping the bottom of the mixer on his palm. Trust me, we ALL felt like crawling out of there that night.

I went to hear a friend's band play and the bass player got in an argument with his girlfriend between sets and took off. They talked me into playing bass for the second set. It was the first and last time I held a bass.

I was doing a concert at a college solo. It was a group effort of a bunch of solo artists. Well, that would have been fine, except the one who put it together was the only one who really got any press and coverage. So the entire audience was 99.9% his fans. We each had a set to do and it became apparent after the 1st performer that the only one that was going to make any inroads was their HERO. So I go on next and in all honesty, you can hear people coughing and whispering.
So I decide that I am going to get the crowd on my side and I start trying to do the "Hey, we're all here for a good time" thing. It went over like a **** in church.
Not one clap, not one acknowledgment that I was even up there pouring it out. Just a bunch of yawns and stretching.
Even now I feel ill at ease.
Finished my set, walked off stage and told the head guy that he would have to hog tie me with chains and snakes to get me back out on that stage again.
We were supposed to do a group thing at the end, I packed up my gear and went home.

"I lost my balance, and fell right off the stage."

been there done that, unfortunately. a few others of the too many:

drummer's kick drum slides forward, he goes to grab it during a stop in the song, misses his cue, whole band train wrecks horribly.

forgot to tune up from dropped D to standard tuning for the next tune and, well, you know...

teen years, playing the home town outdoor summer in the square "concert" with a tiny PA. "stroke me" by Billy Squire was the tune (WHY!???) and we all started laughing during the 'stroke me stroke me' part because, well, it's really stupid.

also teen years, playing the boys club, a small crowd of kids in a giant gym, the only time my parents have ever seen me play. Dad walks in, never breaks stride and walks right up next to me while we're playing, TWO INCHES from my face yelling, "it's too loud, you need to turn it down, too loud".

I didn't speak to him for a week.

Yes, I too have fallen off the stage. I blame the fall on my then-new wireless system (this was in the early 90's, I don't believe in wireless anymore). I was employing my new found, unencumbered freedom to move around the stage like an idiot, and suddenly there wasn't any. Stage, that is. There was still an idiot, cause that would be me, the long haired doofus lying under the guitar on the floor (again, it was the 90's, the hair is now short, though I remain a doofus).

If the audience had laughed that would at least be some kind of compensation for my pains, however it seemed the wireless system also produced a field of invisibility around me at the precise moment of de-equilibrium. The crowd remained motionless, in a united, arms-folded state of being un-impressed.

:?: