embarrassment in solos

[imradioboy]

Sometine in High school I split my hand open on my floor tom rim. I was bleeding pretty bad, and since I do not like the sight of blood, I almost fainted. I'm such a wuss.

[DjembeDog]

Mine was actually a pretty cool save from embarrassment.  Im playing "Moon Dance" in a quartet with a bass guitarist, electric guitarist and keyboardist when all of a sudden the power goes out in the place.  I was actually only just beginning to take a solo when the power went out so I just kept to the form and hoped that by the time the head came around again, the power would have also.  It didnt… so I followed the ambiance of the darkened room (lit only by patrons lighters) and started to leave the kit.  I played my way around the room playing tables, chairs, glasses, etc.  I marched corps and was a music major at the time so I was pulling out plenty of rudimental ideas as well as avant-garde twentieth century stuff with themes and variations on beer bottles. I was pretty into STOMP at the time, too, and that came in handy.  After about five minutes (seemed like an eternity at the time) I had completely run out of ideas as well as window panes and made it back to my kit.  Then I just started a soft buzz roll on my snare.  Yup, thats when the power came back on.  Bass player started back in with the changes and we played the tune out from there.  Man, tips were never as good as that night.  Oh, and we were video taping the gig, but never got the blackout solo on tape… the camera was plugged into the wall instead of on a battery!!

True story.

[percussionmonkey1]

That's so cool! maybe if something like that happens to me I'll try the same thing.

[marker]

I had a power outage situation, too, but it didn't work out so well.  I was playing in a tavern in a small coastal town, and there was rough weather outside.  Inside, everything was great, with lots of locals in attendance.....until the power went out.

I ripped into an enthusiastically received solo, hoping the power would come back on momentarily.

No such luck.  Running out of ideas and stamina, I stopped.

Then, it got really bad.  It turned out there was a bagpiper in the audience.  He got out his pipes, and played a familiar tune.  The crowd went wild.  Thus encouraged, he played.  And played.   And played.

Bagpipes over the moors can be romantic, and I like the "small pipes",  the kind with the bellows.  

But this was the full pipes,  very close up.  Very loud.  Very annoying, especially after the piper has shot his three songs, and is still playing anyway.

I was finally driven to the outside entrance, where the gale force winds sounded a lot better than the piper indoors.

I was SO relieved when the power finally came back on.

[Mightydog]

Somewhere, maybe at Pagpipe Cafe, there is a piper telling this story with his spin on it.