Brian Krashpad
Well-Known Member
If you were feeling bad about your last gig, this is the thread for you!
So, Crash Pad (my main band) plays a few gigs a year. This was one (on 16 January, I've only just recovered from it) of our recurring ones, a benefit for a tiny "low-power community radio station" called WGOT (not an NPR station) that is always out of money. We do a couple of these a year, over the past few.
Benefits tend to be clusterfecks, and this one was especially clusterfecky. The station manager insists on having these benefits in venues that don't have full bands regularly, which means there's no potential crossover crowd of "regulars" in addition to station supporters. Sometimes the venue doesn't even have a PA, and we've had to make do with my ancient practice PA.
I had no prior knowledge about this downtown club, so I went down the night before just to make sure there was a PA, as had been represented. There was, but it was very minimal. A couple 15s for mains, no monitors. Some mics and stands. I met the manageress and the guy who ran karaoke there (who would be there for our show to mind the PA), gave them some vinyl and band stickers, and crossed my fingers.
Sh*te went downhill from there.
The morning of the show our rhythm guitarist messaged me that his Dad was in hospital and that it might be his last illness. So, now we had to play as a trio instead of 4-piece. (This happened in 2025 too, but with other causes.)
Night of show. Downtown parking here in Gainesville has gotten to be insane. I had to park a block and a half away, and lug or roll all my gear to the club. By the time the missus got there a couple hours later, any such free spots were all gone. She had to pay $30 USD for 3 hours of parking, at least it was just out back of the club and not blocks away.
The two openers' sets were OK, although the PA couldn't keep up with the full band in the middle slot (first act was a solo). At least I hit up the solo act, who frankly is more than a little crazy, and he agreed to play bass on our closing song, so our bassist could switch to rhythm (I brought a second guitar rig in hopes this would happen).
So it was time for our set, and that's when the real fun began. I set up stage left, as I always do, to lessen the exposure of my "bad side" where my neck is all disfigured (although I also cover it with a scarf as well). This also allowed me to avoid having to use a music stand, as I could set my lyric book up right on top of the main on that side, and hopefully also being so close to the main, I'd be able to hear my vocals, since there were no monitors.
But being on the left side of the stage also put me on the same side as was blocked by a big pillar about 10 or 15 feet out from the stage, which put me in a shadow (compared to the rest of the band), and ruined all the photos the missus took of me at the mic. On top of that, as it turned out, only one of the two mains actually worked, and it was the one opposite from me. So I could only barely hear my vocals, if that. My voice totally blew out multiple times. Not a break or a squeak blowout, mind you, just nothing. Nada. Zip. All of a sudden vocal silence for a few syllables or so. And my guitar, which had had no problems previously, continuously went out of tune. Should've just chucked it in favor of a backup. Ugh.
The only bright spot was the photos of the last song, where we played as a quartet, with the opener guy on bass. Since I run around maniacally for that song, I wasn't at the mic and in the shadow of the stupid pillar for much of the song. The missus took a spit-ton of photos of the closing song, and Google photos made a couple moving GIFs of those, and I later made couple myself.
Here are a few stills (I hope):
This shows how I was in the shadows at the mic, way over on the right.
And the aforementioned moving GIFs, couldn't post them inline, they really are worth a click:
New photo · Friday, Jan 16
https://photos.app.goo.gl/x6XdRoTo2CQTRpWJ8
New photo · Friday, Jan 16
New photo · Friday, Jan 16
So, Crash Pad (my main band) plays a few gigs a year. This was one (on 16 January, I've only just recovered from it) of our recurring ones, a benefit for a tiny "low-power community radio station" called WGOT (not an NPR station) that is always out of money. We do a couple of these a year, over the past few.
Benefits tend to be clusterfecks, and this one was especially clusterfecky. The station manager insists on having these benefits in venues that don't have full bands regularly, which means there's no potential crossover crowd of "regulars" in addition to station supporters. Sometimes the venue doesn't even have a PA, and we've had to make do with my ancient practice PA.
I had no prior knowledge about this downtown club, so I went down the night before just to make sure there was a PA, as had been represented. There was, but it was very minimal. A couple 15s for mains, no monitors. Some mics and stands. I met the manageress and the guy who ran karaoke there (who would be there for our show to mind the PA), gave them some vinyl and band stickers, and crossed my fingers.
Sh*te went downhill from there.
The morning of the show our rhythm guitarist messaged me that his Dad was in hospital and that it might be his last illness. So, now we had to play as a trio instead of 4-piece. (This happened in 2025 too, but with other causes.)
Night of show. Downtown parking here in Gainesville has gotten to be insane. I had to park a block and a half away, and lug or roll all my gear to the club. By the time the missus got there a couple hours later, any such free spots were all gone. She had to pay $30 USD for 3 hours of parking, at least it was just out back of the club and not blocks away.
The two openers' sets were OK, although the PA couldn't keep up with the full band in the middle slot (first act was a solo). At least I hit up the solo act, who frankly is more than a little crazy, and he agreed to play bass on our closing song, so our bassist could switch to rhythm (I brought a second guitar rig in hopes this would happen).
So it was time for our set, and that's when the real fun began. I set up stage left, as I always do, to lessen the exposure of my "bad side" where my neck is all disfigured (although I also cover it with a scarf as well). This also allowed me to avoid having to use a music stand, as I could set my lyric book up right on top of the main on that side, and hopefully also being so close to the main, I'd be able to hear my vocals, since there were no monitors.
But being on the left side of the stage also put me on the same side as was blocked by a big pillar about 10 or 15 feet out from the stage, which put me in a shadow (compared to the rest of the band), and ruined all the photos the missus took of me at the mic. On top of that, as it turned out, only one of the two mains actually worked, and it was the one opposite from me. So I could only barely hear my vocals, if that. My voice totally blew out multiple times. Not a break or a squeak blowout, mind you, just nothing. Nada. Zip. All of a sudden vocal silence for a few syllables or so. And my guitar, which had had no problems previously, continuously went out of tune. Should've just chucked it in favor of a backup. Ugh.
The only bright spot was the photos of the last song, where we played as a quartet, with the opener guy on bass. Since I run around maniacally for that song, I wasn't at the mic and in the shadow of the stupid pillar for much of the song. The missus took a spit-ton of photos of the closing song, and Google photos made a couple moving GIFs of those, and I later made couple myself.
Here are a few stills (I hope):
This shows how I was in the shadows at the mic, way over on the right.
And the aforementioned moving GIFs, couldn't post them inline, they really are worth a click:
New photo · Friday, Jan 16
https://photos.app.goo.gl/x6XdRoTo2CQTRpWJ8
New photo · Friday, Jan 16
New photo · Friday, Jan 16