What´s YOUR most disagreeable situation on stage ?

[tubeast]

Top of my list:
"Ostpreussentreffen", closing ceremony, 1990 (I think).
Meeting of thousands of people that had been driven out of their home country during and after WWII. (That´s East Prussia, now part of Poland)
About 10.000 people in a fair hall, we were hired to play anthems (German and East-Prussian) and some pieces to give people a break between speeches.
Slightly boring, but everything cool so far.

All of a sudden, in a display of perfectly organised and choreographed action, a group of neonazi activists take the stage and seize the mike, emitting their propaganda.
They were shielded by a bunch of skinheads (fulfilling every single stereotype: big guys in jeans so tight their belly hangs over their belts, carrying baseball-bats, and you can´t really tell where necks end and heads begin).

When half-hearted action by officials to verbally (!) drive those people off the stage didn´t show any results for maybe ten minutes, we decided we didn´t really want to finish the "Ceremony" and play our National Anthem to these people, following the kind of speech we were forced to "enjoy". We didn´t really care to fend off their bats with our instruments, either, so we just got up and left early.
Scary, really.

[tubatooter1940]

Have had run - ins with same type of one gene, no-neck, mouth breathers.
Always there was trouble.
Playing in a beach bar near a seaport, we had no warning from sailors off a ship too long at sea until a chair flew right by my head. Instantly everybody in the joint was punching somebody - except us bandsmen. We were looking for a door not blocked or a way to make our own door out of there.
I had always told my wife if a fight broke out to go behind the bar into the office. A guy with a knife sticking out of his chest jumped over the bar after her and followed her into the office. She then ran out the office door into the parking lot . The guy followed her. She then ran around the building, came in through the main entrance. She worked her way through many people fighting to the band stand where she jumped up and ran behind me. She yelled, "If they get me they're gonna get you first."

[jhedrick]

Two here too (but shorter than Wade's)

1. One night in the quintet - T2 & horn duke it out on stage - finished night as trio. Next day - find new gig.

2. On upright bass playing Halloween gig in unheated barn (in Ohio) Temp in the 30's, fingers frozen stiff. Leader commits to play an extra hour. Next day - find new gig.

[TubaRay]

no specific gig, but:

generic Xmas gig

- gig, so far, is running 13 minutes over
- next gig is across town and starts in 47 minutes
- preacher still insists on a long-winded prayer at the end of the already-too-long show
- ' gotta PEE, and ' gotta DRIVE !

Hey! You stole my story!

[TubaRay]

Hay no kidding that should go into Dan's "best of tube net" folder.
multipl six mile parades! - yah
beers hanging off the sousaphone ! - yah
COPS THAT BELIVED IN JUSTICE ! - oh hell yea
This story has it all.
You ARE a legend !

You speak(or type) the truth!

[eupher61]

any time some idiot sound guy tries to 1) put the mic down the bell of my tuba 2)mic my tuba with a SM58 or something similar 3)worst--COMBINATION OF THOSE 2!!!

[oldbandnerd]

My very first concert with the community band. It was a end of summer festival event. I had only been playing for 6 months ( it had been 20 years since I last played in school ) and since it was a weekend performance I was the only euphoium player to show up. I had only had 3 rehersals with the band and I was horrible. I could barley play any of the music. I hope I never have to relive that again.

Practice,practice,practice

[Rick Denney]

My best story is no better than a near-miss.

I was playing in a German-style lodge band for a while during my time in San Antonio. Our leader was, well, very German to the point of being stereotypical (from a bygone era, if you know what I mean).

For some reason, he accepted a gig at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, playing German music at a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Let me put you in the picture. The GCAC is on Avenida Guadalupe on San Antonio's near West Side. (Wade and Ray know what that means.) The 100% Hispanic audience from the west-side barrio didn't have a clue what to do with us. To their credit, they tolerated us for a whole hour with only the occasional dirty look. Then, they thanked us for coming and sent us on our way. What nearly got us in trouble was that the leader had booked us for two hours, and he was offended that they shortened our time. He huffed and puffed on the stage--"They're giving us the HOOK!"--and made everyone really angry and uncomfortable.

That couple with the fact that he called, without prior rehearsal, Entrance March of the Gladiators, in five flats, with me as the only tuba player and still brand new on F tuba. I made the request to bring my Bb (since the normal contrabass tuba player wouldn't be at the gig). But he wanted the small tuba, even though I warned him my reading skills on the F tuba would not be up to snuff.

I never returned to that group.

But there was no bodily harm. Psychological harm, yes, but no blood.

Rick "who has been humiliated but not scarred while playing tuba" Denney

[windshieldbug]

Marching in a snow-filled Philadelphia Veteran's Stadium, where I may or may not have been myself a participant in totally characteristic Philadelphia snowball throwing, being accosted in said fashion, and I may or may not have actually witnessed the slushball throw that hit Jimmy The Greek, to which my lips are definitely sealed, although I think that aforementioned person would probably now be considered a national hero.

[eupher61]

Klezmer band. Great musicians individually, lousy band en masse.

last gig...a Bar Mitzvah. DJ going for the kids, bring in the klez for the adults for an hour or so. 15 minutes into our set, the father comes over, pays us, and says they're going back to the DJ.

Next to last gig...private party, rich neighborhood, nice house. 7pm start. 4 of the 5 are there, so we start. Hour and 15 later, the leader show up. He'd been photocopying music for the band to play that night.

[Mark]

Park concert. 80-piece orchestra on a ten-foot high stage that was only big enought to hold 30 comfortably and had no safety railing.

It's very hard to concentrate on playing the music while repeating, non-stop, the mantra "Don't scoot the chair back".

[bearphonium]

Park concert, but we marched in, since, after all, we are the One More Time Marching Band. The ENTIRE low brass section (two trombones, two euphs, and the tuba player) all march with different instruments than we play in concert. I had my tuba, out of the gig bag, and next to my chair, but was dealing with a decent place to park the sousaphone, but everyone else had their concert horn in a case. The drums need to transfer from marching harness to stands.

As most of us are moving into place, once the clarinets and flutes sit down, we are beginning our first piece. No drums, no low brass, and a scurrying trumpet section. I beleive that our director was a bit nervous, because he started one other piece at about 1/3 the tempo we'd been plaing it, and it sucked.

Ally"who played the last combo gig we did with the sousaphone only"House