Cool 
We set some pyros off and burned some guy who was sitting on the front of the stage. Lucky not to get sued. Would have done these days. We also used to set off red smoke bombs. The dye made all our stage wear red. Iām sure it did the same to peeps in the audience.
Last Thursday, St Pats day. Had a gig in a small dive bar that wasnāt Irish and wasnāt featuring the NCAA bball tournament. Drummer didnāt show. There was not a single person on the āconcertā room of the bar, and only a couple in the bar room. Whole band was drinking. We treated it as practice.
Oops Duble postā¦
What? Practise drinking?
I played at a ski resort lodge that had a ballroom. Just acoustic guitar/sing. I was required to use their built in sound system. First song was a collage where I would hum some harmony over a couple of spots, but other than that no vocals. Sound was pretty good through the stage monitor! Unfortunately the vocal mic was loud as hell in the room, guitar was not even ON. So, the folks in the room got to hear random humming every 30 seconds or so. At the end of the song (about 8 minutes) someone walked up and told me. I didnāt have access to the locked closet that had the mixing console in it. About 20 minutes later they found someone to unlock the closet, said the fixed it, they left instantly. I went on stage to find that they turned on the guitar, but turned off the mic YAY! I just played guitar the rest of the night.
EDIT: I would add that Iāve never had anything truly terrible happen, but the number of shows that everything went right is in the significant minority. The above story is pretty much a summary of all the playing live Iāve ever done. It is always something.
Thatās happened to me a couple times, and both times everybody looked at ME as If I was going to play them. Which I actually did. A bar band without a drummer is like a marriage without sex
We had that once as well. Drummer started to let us downb after a whole bunch of gigs were booked. Had to quickyl use a drum machine on one gig 
What I thought of after the show is that I could have looked for āGuitar Proā versions of songs on Ultimate-guitar.com and downloaded directly to the TabToolkit app on my iPhone which I was carrying. Most song files have drum midi tracks that this app uses and plays through a sample set of drums. I could have muted the rest of the instruments except the drums and plugged in the iPhone through the PA. You can even set a countdown. Could have worked. Iāll be prepared next time.
Three stand out for meā¦
Playing a long gone amphitheatre that was called a āmusic gardenā in a seaside town, this venue was actually on the promenade by the sea - in fact unbeknown to us it actually jutted out over the sea. First issue. I had borrowed a synth from the lead singers brother to augment my rig, unbeknown to me he had lifted the earth to stop a ground loop. This loose wire had got itself tangled with the live wire. During set-up I was blown across the stage as I plugged the synth into my keyboard amp, and feel lucky to be alive - And this is also why I am a real obsessive about on-stage safety. If it has a ground pin it has it for a reasonā¦ NEVER mess with it. My poor amp was toast, but incredibly the keyboard survived. Later in the same gig, with a spare amp deployed, unbeknown to us the tide had turned and was rising under the stage (remember I said the stage jutted out over the sea) Now we were OK, but it turned out that under the stage there were grilles that allowed water to come through. As the evening wore on progressively more of the audience were getting splashed as jets of water were forced through the grilles. For our last number the entire audience were huddled at the back about 50 feet from the stage. 
In a rather more pretentious time (you know what Iām talking about 
) I was playing in another band where one of the songs had this big classical-esque piano/strings intro. As the guitarist was introducing the song, I realised I had somehow completely forgotten how it started. As he finished his talky bit he looked over to me and all I could remember was it was in Dm, So I played a huge Dm chod and shouted ā1-2-3-4ā Fortunately the drummer and bassist caught on and went into the verse. The guitarist just looked at me like I had gone mad.
We did this gig for a nursing charity that supports the drummers severely disable daughter. It was quite a big thing, with sponsorship, a CD and a big live show followed by a live radio spot in a different venue up the road. We had planned everything with the promoter, and the BBC. We had two drum kits, and two sets of guitar amps, set up at both venues, all we would have to do is get the keyboard rig into the van up the road (literally 200m) and loaded in. We would be out of the main venue by 10:30, into the second venue by 10:45, sound-checked ready for on-air time of 11:15. It didnāt happen quite like that. One of the acts in the āgalaā show was a stand-up comic who over-ran - And just basically ignored the persistent flashing red light in the orchestra pit. Which threw our set time out and by the time we loaded out and into the second venue the show had gone on-air. My keys were carried on their stand out of the van still plugged into the amp and plonked next to the drum kit during someone elseās set, and switched on. I got the 3-2-1 from the floor manager and had to go with the intro not having set any level, not even 100% sure that the sound was the right one. As it happened it was the best we ever played. Shame it was the last time that particular band played together. But it was at the time, pretty much the most stressful thing I ever did.
Ok last one promiseā¦
Was working the house spot for a Royal Gala performance, loads of big stars appearing with the Queen in attendance, BBC was there and all that, Bob Monkhouse comes on and starts telling bad jokes, suddenly right in front of me this guy stands up and shout at the top of his voice āBob Monkhouse is a total WA_KERāā¦ Stunned silence for what seem like an eternity followed by a masterful recovery from the old wa_ker himself. Then two rather large men in black suits appear and literally lift the offender out his seat still in a sitting position and carry him offā¦
Later on this troupe of Maori dancers are on stage doing there thing, suddenly for reasons that never got explained the tech Director called a scene change in the middle of their set, dutifully the fly man brought in the next set, a large shopfront set flown in from above, CRUNCH right on top of one of the dancers head, they wobbled around for a bit then did a kind of side step dance off stage left and promptly collapsed, funny as fluckā¦
Keep them coming, all good! 
Some great stories from you guys!
As a covers band we were booked by our agent to play a bowling club. When we arrived it turned out to be a crown green bowls club, and the crowd, made up mostly of octogenarians, kept requesting waltzes! I remember playing Nights In White Satin and Mull Of Kintyre as waltzes 
The last thing I remember about that night was an old boy walking out of the hall with his fingers in his ears!
Again with the agency we were set to play a surprise birthday party at a local golf club. We were set up in the bar and the main party was in the main hall with double doors which were closed. When the birthdayee turned up everyone kept quite - the double doors opened and everyone shouted HAPPY BIRTHDAY - our queue to play Happy Birthday To You. As we started up the double doors swung shut and we played the whole song to the barmaid and empty bar!
We bought a smoke machine. One of our friends at a cricket club had a curry-night at a local church hall which had a stage. Before the meal we closed the stage curtain and started up the smoke machine. Halfway through the meal we noticed āseepageā from under the curtain. When we eventually got behind the curtain to start our set we couldnāt see sh_i_t! When the curtain opened the smoke poured out and everyone got smothered
Ahh, I miss them days!
HAHAHAHA - I wish Iā;d been there to see that.
Great stories!
Weāve had a similar experience with our cover band: we were booked for a dance night, so we expected we could play a lot of dance classics, but it turned out to be a ballroom dance nightā¦ 
We did have a few quick steps in our repertoire, but not enough to fill three hours, so we ended up playing regular pop/rock songs with a different beat, like Tequila Sunrise with a samba beat etc.
We managed to get through the night, but told our agent never to book us at a dance night again! 
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Yup!
Ok Ok very last one, double promise
Hungarian State Ballet during the 80ās so still iron curtain times. The Hungarian crew all hand picked with minders and interpreters (no English speaking crew!!!) During dress rehearsal the opening scene required the stage be tastefully washed with a mist of dry ice. Well we had these large kind of kettle things with a fan blowing down a pipe, you put the dry ice onto a basket and lowered the ice into the hot water via a handle and the dry ice mist comes out the pipe.
So the Hungarian crew just plonked the blocks of ice onto the baskets and lowered the handle, resultā¦ a very small amount of dry ice mist emitting from the end of the pipes, very undramatic and not what was required.
It was explained to them that you had to break the dry ice up a bit to get more mist, so (you can see where this is going)
Opening night, full house all the posh people down the front, best seats and all that. curtains open, orchestra starts, crew lower their dry ice handlesā¦ Fwoosh, stage disappears, dry ice flowing like water off the front of stage, starts to fill up the orchestra pit, orchestra disappear just the conductors head sticking out the top, conductor disappears starts to fill up the front rows of the stalls, audience start to disappear. HAHAHAHAā¦
The bloody crew had decided to smash the dry ice into little bits before dumping it into boiling water!!!
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KING HELL
The old one two, Split ā¦
Little dribble was ruddy hilarious in itself.
Plus it reminded me of Spinal Tap mis-measurement of Stonehenge. OK
So I was already splitting my sides when you laid the death punch.
Your writing was IMO great ā¦ I checked by reading it aloud and it took three times before I could get through without choking.
Would you be OK if I did an audio reading of your short story and posted it in this thread?
Hey, glad you liked it Do with it what you want, itās all out there now.
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Audio Short Story:
Splitās Worst Live Gig Experiences: Hungarian Ballet
Cheers
That just made meā¦ (Iāll leave that up to your imagination) great voice you have there, brilliant and honored and slightly Iām not worthy all at the same time 