People ask you to play songs you don't know. Happens every time, and people look at you in disbelief a lot. "What do you mean you don't know "Fake Plastic Trees? Everyone knows that!" "Fine, you play it then."
People ask you to play songs they don't know, which you only discover when you get to the second verse and they stop singing. This happens a lot, because I can usually play a song by ear if I'm familiar enough with it. I do need support on the lyrics, though.
Someone asks to play the guitar and can't. This hasn't happened in a while.
Someone asks to play the guitar and then proceeds to play the song you just played, only better. This has only happened me once, and everyone shunned the other guy for the duration of the song and the subsequent ten minutes. Dude, check your ego at the door.
A group of drunken gay guys sing showtunes and drown you out.
Ok, so this has only happened me once. So far, anyway.
...someone says "just look at me for the chords. By the way, my guitar is tuned to to an open B-flat 7th and the song is in 17/4 time."
Playing something someone else has just done is the most amazingly rude thing to do. It's probably only excusably if you're Jimmy Page and someone's butchered the Stairway riff, or you're Deep Purple and someone's done a really bad 'Smoke on the Water' cover.*
One thing I hate, as a performing musician, is when playing at a big gig with many acts and someone does a song in your set. It's a real bugger if it's one of your better songs as well, because you then can't use it.
dave
* I saw Deep Purple in the Hong Kong Coliseum some years ago. One rather confused fan kept calling for "Stairway to Heaven". Eventually, in one of the encores, they started with the Stairway riff on a lone guitar, just like the Led Zep original, then straight into "Smoke on the Water".
...someone says "just look at me for the chords. By the way, my guitar is tuned to to an open B-flat 7th and the song is in 17/4 time."
dwenius did that to me once, bless him. It was a Grateful Dead number which appeared to require chords invented solely for that song. Fortunately it was just the two of us jamming at his place, rather than a party.
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Playing something someone else has just done is the most amazingly rude thing to do. It's probably only excusably if you're Jimmy Page and someone's butchered the Stairway riff, or you're Deep Purple and someone's done a really bad 'Smoke on the Water' cover.*
One thing I hate, as a performing musician, is when playing at a big gig with many acts and someone does a song in your set. It's a real bugger if it's one of your better songs as well, because you then can't use it.
dave
* I saw Deep Purple in the Hong Kong Coliseum some years ago. One rather confused fan kept calling for "Stairway to Heaven". Eventually, in one of the encores, they started with the Stairway riff on a lone guitar, just like the Led Zep original, then straight into "Smoke on the Water".
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