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Hope you guys don't mind me kicking off a little venting session. I had one of the worst gigs of my career last night. First, let me say my Thursday night show is definitely the best gig I've had. I love the bar, the owners are awesome, the people are great and I have stage and plenty of room to really get all my equipment going. However, last night things just went wrong from the start and kept getting worse.

It started with load-in. I start at 9:00 so I usually arrive around 7:30. This gives me plenty of time to setup my rig and relax a bit with the patrons before I start my show. Well last night they had a big dinner crowd and the location of some of the tables at which people were still eating prevented me from setting up much of my rig. As a result I was running behind and didn't get to do a full sound check.

So at 8:55 I go to the bar to have them turn off the music. Well they're so swamped that it took about 10 minutes to get this done. So I start-up 5 minutes late (not a huge deal but I'm a stickler for being punctual) and as I fire up the first song (a regular recorded track that I use as a final check of the rig before I start Karaoke) I notice the right speaker is silent!!! UGH, I didn't get to sound check it because of the delay and now I'm gonna pay. So after some quick research, I determine that the speaker cable is to blame. I dig out my back-up which is a 1/4-1/4, which means I need a banana plug adapter to plug it into the amp. Can't find the stinking adapter. Finally after a couple minutes of searching I remember that I used it with the band a few weeks ago so it's in a different case. Found it!! Plug it in and sure enough, I've got a full PA again.

So I'm up and running and sing the first song, the crowd's kinda out of it but I see regular singers out there so I'm figuring I'm in good shape. Well then SHE came. A woman that I've never seen before comes up and starts asking me to look up different songs for her. She couldn't decide what she wanted to sing. Gave me the infamous "Let's Rock This Place" then suggested I lookup Prince or Michael Jackson? This went on all night, she hovered and hovered, I'd ask her to excuse me so I could get a the console or something and would ultimately have to almost physically move her just to do my job. Well this got me totally off my game. I tried everything I could think of to get rid of her but she was drunk and wouldn't go away!! I was nice and professional with her but getting very annoyed on the inside. Totally threw me off and my show suffered. Thanks to her and my need to protect my equipment from here, I couldn't leave my chair. What was worse still was her constant hovering seemed to scare off a lot of my regulars. One told me at the end of the night that she didn't come up with her songs because she didn't want to go near that "crazy chick". DAMMIT, wish I had known that sooner.

Then about 2 hours in, Microsoft strikes!! The laptop completely froze. The music stopped at the beginning of a song and I couldn't get anything to respond. First time this has happened with that laptop. Finally after getting an application error popup, the mouse and keyboard started to respond and I restarted all the software to get the music going again. Now I'm completely shot, stuck in my chair, having equipment problems, trying not to get annoyed.

Luckily, other than driving over a traffic cone on the way out of the lot, the teardown and load-out when pretty uneventfully.

Just a bad gig for me. I never felt like I was in control the whole night. Never got in my groove and just ended up doing a terrible job. It was a long ride home. Thank god it was only one night and in a gig that I'm pretty sure will still be full next week.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

We've all had one of those to varying degrees if we've been doing this for any length of time at all. I had a CDG player quit on me one night - totally quit. Had hubby run home, grab my old jVC that didn't have inserts and just mic'd it to get through the night. Nobody cared but I guess these kinds of events are just knocks on the head to appreciate the nights when everything just goes great and as expected. Glad you got home okay!

Been there ..a few times
The good thing is you kept your cool and finished the night alive !!

Those nights happen..but your professionalism eventually won out !!

Next time --take five minutes and get yourself a shot of something !!!!

Horror story time!

At one of my regular gigs a few months ago, I was setting up around 8pm and while lifting one of my speakers up to place on the pole stand, I knocked one of the clubs house speakers off the wall. Now, this wasn't some pro-speaker, but an old Cerwin Vega home speaker from the 80's...essentially a giant wooden box, hung seven feet in the air.

Where did it fall? Directly & squarely onto my left big toe. I knew instantly it was broken from the intense pain and shooting stars that suddenly appeared around the bar. After having a bar patron help me replace the fallen speaker (undamaged BTW as my toe received the full impact) I hobbled about finishing my setup. As I felt my toe swell and throb, I had to then start the show and be "Mr. Happy KJ" for the next four hours. Then as luck would have it, it was a GREAT night and I was extended for an extra hour until 2am.

I didn't have the balls to remove my shoe or look at the damage until later, so after unloading at home I propped my foot up on the kitchen table, marveled at my toes technicolor state and applied bags of various frozen vegetables to my foot for the next hour or so (while drinking some gooood single malt straight up I might add).

The next day was worse, could hardly walk and Monday I visited the podiatrist who confirmed it was broken. "A really nice job" was his comment!

THEN...I had to keep it taped and hobble about for the next 4 weeks while wearing a "Croc" on one foot...the only shoe that would fit without pain. It was very attractive, I must say, not to mention the JOY of hauling equipment around with a broken/healing toe. My wife gave me hell, asking why I was only wearing ONE croc and I said "Well if I wear both Crocs, people will just laugh and think I am a fashion-idiot, but if I wear one, everybody asks "whats with the one croc?" and I can explain the broken toe."

After this nightmare, if Steel Toed Karaoke Hosting Shoes existed, I'd buy em.

It always seems to happen when you have the worst hangover of your life, you just found out your girl friend is unfaithful and if you dont get the money for this gig you cant pay the rent. All you can do is relax and sort everything out. Been there done that!!!

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I don't mind when people vent. I've done it a few times myself.

I have to say though I would have told Miss Annoying she'll not sing again unless she stops interferring with me doing my job. I know some people just don't understand plain English when they're drunk, but threatening to take away their singing priviledges usually works. I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad night. Hopefully you won't have to deal with her again.

Broken toe, Ouch! The only story I have to compare it to is the night I had a Migraine. Usually I can take my medication and make it through, but this night I was caught without it. Being strong willed I was sure I could muddle through. Well I made it through the night, but by the time I got home it was so bad I was screaming in pain. My family gave me my meds as I was rocking in pain on the floor. They would have brought me to the emergency room, but I literally couldn't be moved. About an hour later the pain subsided enough I could go to bed. I will never be caught again without my pills at a gig!

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Boy I know that type. And what they ultimately decide on is always something stale and moldy that totally bombs. The singers who really know how to rock the place just confidently do it without any input from me or fanfare.

The only way I've been able to handle pushy singers like that is to motion them offstage and outside where I can talk to them. I just say "Cmon" with my hands and get them off the stage. It's too loud to comfortably talk at my station anyway.

It happens once or twice a week. And yeah it's very annoying.


This is my worst fear. I currently have a workaround for anything that might fail except the computer. If she goes down, that's it for the night. It would take me an hour and a half to come home, get my discs, and return. Might as well call it.

Sounds like you got through your night Tony. Bad things happen in multiples to me also.

the possibility of a puter crash is why i still keep an MP3 player. they never crash and can fill in the dead air while you reboot.

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas

I think we all have had nights similar. And it is ok to vent, in fact it is therapeutic for all of us to read a good rant now and then.

Late setups can happen when your venue is busy when you arrive. That you cannot control and is not your fault.

As for the customer controlling you by hovering at the booth. That is something you have to nip in the bud right away. She was breaking your rhythm and keeping you off balance. I would have politely said, I'm sorry but the bar will not let me allow you to be up here other than to drop off your song slips. Here is a book and some slips, I'm sure you will find something that works for you.

If she persisted then I would use Bab's line. I'm going to have to remove you from the rotation unless you move away from the booth and stop interfering with my work.

If that did not work then I would go to the bar staff and have them deal with her.


I feel for ya! I hate it when someone latches on and won't let go.

It sounds like you handled everything professionally and you were overly patient with the "heckler" and the show went on.

Sounds like you take a great deal of pride in what you do. Every once in a while you are going to have an off night....we all do.

Next show will be better.

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FlipSide Karaoke
Scott

Too funny. I hate those, "lets rock this place" singers. oh gawd.

Way to go keeping it together though, but I agree with Babs... get out of my face or you ain't singin' for the rest of the night!

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I had one of those Lets rock this place divas at the show I got rid of. Her famous line was pick anything from my history and I'll sing it. Now wouldn't you know I would pick one of the ones she actually is good at and she goes "no not that one" when her turn comes.

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