When was the last time you made a fool of yourself behind the kit (or other percussion)?

when I was studying at MI in LA we would do these performance evaluation performances for credits.

this one happened to be in the main big theatre which was full of people

It was the end of a semester and I needed credits so I looked at the list for the performance evaluation and saw "Misty Mountain Hop"

a song I had been playing along to since I was a kid...I thought it would be cake

so I get up there with musicians I have never met and count off the tune.

all is going well until that one point where the drums break and they reenter with the closed roll into the fill around the toms to kick back into the riff.....ya know the part I mean?

well when I went to jump into that fill I completely train wrecked it and got the whole band waaaaaay off track.....every player just about broke their neck they looked back at me so quickly

I eventually found my way back on track but not without being mortified in front of about 100 people ....all musicians waiting to perform

Tim Pederson who was the instructor ...and a fantastic drummer by the way....was very nice when I handed him my sheet for him to give the credits

as he was writing he said to me...."there were some nice moments in there"

it was a horrible feeling

I vowed at that very moment that this would NEVER happen to me again
 
bobdadruma ..I love your playing. Just awesome.

I haven't played in years but a few of my old time goodies...

In the middle of a waltz, I spaced out and went to 4/4 I believe. Didn't realize it but a 6 minute waltz is murder. The singer reminder me after the song that I couldn't do that. I was green.

A really good singer sitting in with a country band, I started in wrong time signature and I just had to try to make it work. It didn't I even apologized to the singer after the tune and he said, I didn't hear anything. I knew better and I was not happy.

I know that there were many others and I hate letting a band down.
 
Last Thursday night at church during practice, I started a song with 16ths on the HH, and the bandleader brought the song to a screeching halt and told me that I should be playing straight 8s. So everyone was just staring at me. I felt like hiding. LOL
 
I scoured my brain and I honestly never had a situation where I felt like a fool onstage. Everything is OK when I am on stage.

I guess the closest thing would be doing a solo that went nowhere. That's mild compared to some of the things here.
 
A couple new bandmates and I were playing an open mic the first night we met and played together. We did a little sound check but nothing too serious- I could hear them while I was playing. I figured we'd be all right, and no pressure was on since we only were playing three songs-- all of them 4/4. Granted, we had only played the tunes two or three times a piece.
Well, the first song goes okay for a group of musicians playing together for the first night. The second song, only the banjoist and I were playing while the singer/guitarist just sung. Well about halfway through, I don't know if I got louder or the sound guy turned the banjo down, but we both got way off and I screwed up the little bridge part. I felt horrible, but I don't think I had any control over what happened. Anyway, the guitarist forgot the words to the next song's second verse, so that made me feel a little better.

But the hostess made a joke out of me... You know, since drummers are sooooo easy to make fun of... She was performing next and said "I wish I had someone to play a little snare drum beat on this first song, but you have to play it on beat" everyone but me laughed.
That ticked me off a little because it was her soundsystem that was faulty. So I yelled from the crowd as I held up my snare "here.. Do it yourself!" she just glared at me.

Not my best moment, but it was only an open mic...I think she still doesn't like me whenever we go to play there.
 
Ouch! That hadta hurt!. Did the room go dead quiet when you told her to do it herself?

That was mean on her part. F her, she fired the first shot.
 
I can't recall what happened with the crowd. I just did my best to get the hell out of dodge.

I could tell the crowd of performers didn't take too kindly to our kind when I walked in with my big ol' bass drum, snare, and pies. They acted like I was an alien there to probe them with my drumsticks. Hahahaha it was a rough crowd.

But yeah, she fired the first shot, so I shouldn't feel bad about the comeback. Heck, even I could've played the simple 3-chord progression she played for all her songs while she tried out drumming. Although I couldn't have hit those high notes though as my falsetto ain't what it used to be.
 
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