Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[David Allred]

Years ago, my then partner & I had rented out a pair of 2 x 18" JBL loaded subs.  Upon return, they informed us that they had a problem which one of the subs.  We opened it up and found one of the magnets in the bottom of the cabinet.  Apparently the box was dropped or sat down really hard.  My partner had the basket, VC up, on the floor in front of him as he sat in an office chair.  He was on the phone describing the problem to someone, using his shoulder to hold the phone to his head.  He had the magnet gripped in both hands, like a steering wheel, when he leaned over to fit the magnet back on the frame.  I don't think he got closer that 3" when the frame jumped off the floor, sandwiching his finger tips between the magnet and the frame.  The image of him pointing the speaker all over the room like a spot operator doing a ballyhoo is still vivid in my mind.  It wasn't funny, but tears were flowing I laughed so hard.

[Ed Hall]

The best lessons are hardest learned. When I was starting out I was hired to provide PA for a band at a college fraternity formal. It was Friday evening in the spring on campus. I was shown where to park to load in. The rear parking lot was on a slight incline but the doors into the hall only had one step. I was happy for that.

I pulled the Suburban and trailer around and parked so the trailer ramp was next to the doors. I didn't notice that I was facing uphill. I go into the trailer and start to remove the strapping that holds the equipment tight. I turn to place the strap on the shelf and when I turn back the amp rack is not there!

I turn the other way to see it rolling down and off of the ramp into the parking lot. It would seem that the wheel locks were not set! It left the lot and through an intersection. It had a good head start on me, but I was younger then and it only took about a quarter block to catch it. I did receive cheers from onlookers when I caught it.

The lessons learned: check for inclines when parked, double check wheel locks and always wear comfortable shoes.

[Chris Hindle]

Last century, festival situation.
Headliner was a fly-in. I was provider/Mixer for the main stage.
3 background singers.
One of them was quite pretty, but nothing really jumped out at me.
Second had the most beautiful eyes i have ever seen. And that's from 150 feet away!
Third had "ample assets" that didn't look gross under the stage lighting (as many do)
So, I labeled up the board "Girl", "Eyes", "Tits"
WTF, I'm on a 5 foot riser, not like I'm getting anyone looking over my shoulder, right?
After their soundcheck, i am setting for the second-to-last band, when "girl" comes up to the riser. I help her up, and she tells me of a couple of changes they want. No problem, i take down the notes. She starts to giggle, and says "Her name is Maria". I look back at her "Beg pardon?" She says "Tits, her name is Maria. I am Ruth, Eyes is Betty".
I guess she kept that little nugget to herself, because i never heard of it again.

Battle of the Bands setup, outside.
One of the groups is setting up. Bunch of 15-19 year olds. I am setting up the drum mics, and this 8 year old keeps buzzing around. i tell him to clear the stage before he gets hurt. He comes back, and i shoo him away again.

The band takes the stage, and guess who the drummer is. Yup. The kid I have been chasing away.
He's good. Really good.
He was able to keep a really decent groove going the whole set, while staring at me with ice picks in his eyes the entire set.
He didn't take his eyes off me once. (I was patch bitch and monitors on that gig)

Almost lost a toe to a flipped amp "refrigerator" rack, but that wasn't funny at all.

Chris.

[Debbie Dunkley]

First (working) band I was in at age 18....
We were booked at a private function held at a school hall. There was a raised stage one end covered in carpeting all ready for the band.
We set up everything, sound checked and were ready to play.
We got about half way through the first set and suddenly the guitarist and his equipment disappeared before my very eyes. The show had to stop abruptly of course...
The organizers had used gym forms to build the stage and didn't have enough rectangular and square pieces so they used triangle shapes and semi circles. Then they covered the pieces in carpet to cover the holes.
Obviously the guitar player had stepped in an area where there was a hole underneath the carpet and fell along with his amp through about 4 feet.
There were no injuries or damage but the funniest part was that he just kept playing till everyone else rushed to help him.

[Craig Leerman]

Many years ago I was providing backline for a gig at the 5th Regiment Armory in Baltimore. As I set up the drum set, my buddy Sheldon was rolling a road trunk across the stage and was talking to me. Suddenly he and the road trunk he was pushing disappeared as a section of the crappy stage collapsed. He was OK as he only fell about 4 feet and landed on the trunk.

The deck had simply broke under the weight of the trunk ( which was not that heavy). Further investigation showed that the wooden deck had rotted and many sections of the undercarriage were missing cross braces.

That was the reason I got into staging as there were only 2 stage rental companies in the area. One built nice safe stages but was really expensive and the guy who built the crappy stage that broke was really cheap  (a dollar a square foot and that included delivery and set up) but you got what you paid for. I figured there was room in the market for a nice and safe stage at a price in between the other two guys so I got into staging.

We laugh about it now but Sheldon could have been seriously hurt or worse.

[Joseph D. Macry]

This mishap had nothing to do with the sound system, BUT:
Working sound for a big band jazz show, the closing song for this one act went to the "shout" chorus, and all the players stood up for this last chorus. One trombonist lost his footing on the bleacher-style riser, and his legs slipped through the gaps as he awkwardly fell on his butt.

End of the song, the band leader checks on the guy who is apparently okay. "Don't worry, folks," band leader says to audience. "It's just a stage he's going through."

[Woody Nuss]

In about 1983 or so I was running the sound department for Univ of Georgia and we were doing The Blasters and a few openers outdoors on Legion Field. Sugar scoop subs, perkins mids, and radial horns stacked on a concrete slab stage. About midway through The Blasters, their TM/FOH Wally Hanley elbows me and says politely: "Hey, would you grab some guys and put stage left stack back up?"
The mids and horns had vibrated off the subs and fallen about six feet onto the grass. Luckily there were no audience members or security directly in harm's way. The best part was how nonchalant he was about it.

BTW: Art W.....you mixed this same stage with GO4 that same season.

[Hayden J. Nebus]

4th of July, early 'oughts, domestic US military base, R&B act. 6x SB1000 per side, stacked on the deck,  processed @ 80Hz, but no HPF. It's a busy weekend and gear is short, so the subs are split between 2x MA5000 and 2xMA3600. I point this out in the shop to the bean counting dept, who wants to hear none of it.

Cue show. BE is on our Verona, which is on an eztilt. He is sitting in a standard folding chair (dunno how he could see anything on stage), and apparently using the FOH L2130 feeder coming out the front of one of the racks for a footrest, with the aux master for the subs up at its 5:00 stop (max output) .

Mid show, suddenly FOH PA cuts out. It appears the distro's good and amp racks are up.

Guess what happened to the L2130 @FOH? Well, It suddenly gets plugged back in, and surpise! The rig's back with a pop, show keeps going, but now the subs are on fire! All the subs on the MA3600 are smoking, which turns to smoldering, which turns to flames licking out the grill, all in about 10 seconds.

The show doesnt stop. The flames consume the grill foam and there's some spectacular modulation of the flames by the low end.

I disconnect the burning ones and have 4  (armed) MPs from the barricade line sling up their rifles and start helping me pull the sub stacks apart, and two more  soon return with a novelty-sized can of Halon to get the fires out. We had two that didn't self-extinguish and got filled with Halon. The rest went back online.

This whole spectacle happened on stage.

After the show I felt compelled to apologize to the BE, despite his obvious culpability (I knew we were underpowered), and note how we're going to make sure the FOH feeder is out of reach from now on. In my remarks I manage to only mutter the word fire once out of the side of my mouth.

His response was priceless. "Wait, there was a fire?"

[Debbie Dunkley]

I have another little gem...
For a short time during my rebellious years, some friends and I formed a heavy rock / kinda metal band. I used to simply scream all night (horrible time in my singing career)... We played original songs and had developed a bit of a small fan base who were all very loyal and would follow us everywhere we played. Anyway, we used to get a
bit crazy and irresponsible back then.....
We were poor like all young musicians and used to make and build everything we could. The drummer made some home made thunder flashes. Basically open dishes with gun powder in them and wire running through attached to a car battery ( if I remember correctly)....we also had this crazy roadie guy who helped out for free but he really was an odd one.

So one night we were playing a self promoted show and a few of the fans mad it on stage with us rocking out. The crazy roadie decided it would be really funny to set off one of the thunder flashes just as one guy was standing over it.
Not a good result.... The guy lost his eyebrows, some hair and had 2nd degree burns over his face and arms. He was so high, he didn't even realize he had been burned. He ended up I hospital but the  show continued. I can't believe I was part of something so irresponsible... It could have been so much worse of course and we could have been in so much trouble but back then things were different I suppose  and nothing ever came of it. He recovered and still continued. to come to the shows!

[Bob Leonard]

I had played hockey my whole life, even some semi pro, up until about age 45. I was about 14, so maybe in 64', I had played a Saturday afternoon game and during the game was cross checked in the face resulting in another broken tooth. I was bleeding, my tongue swelled up, lip cut. etc.. My band at the time had been hired to play at the local VA, so the show must go on.

The PA was my Bogen and a pair of those giant University horns, loud and proud in 1964. So we start to tune up, play a song, and every time I sing there's a clicking sound coming from the PA. I couldn't figure it out, people kept asking if we were aware of the noise, and on and on it went until about the middle of the third set, when a piece of my tooth came out of my tongue and flew out onto the dance floor. No more clicking.

[ProSoundWeb Community]