Last night was another Wednesday. And like last Wednesday, it was replete with technical problems. PA system cutting in and out, and for the first time in my history as a bass player (around 15 years) I actually broke a string on stage.
Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, as I keep a spare set of strings in my gig case, for just such an emergency. But last night was different. To explain why, we have to go back a couple weeks, to a friday night at about 10:30.
My phone rang. It was Adam, the guy I usually play with on Wednesdays. When he’s not a guitar player, Adam’s just about the best bass player on the planet, and he holds down the bottom end in a very talented band. They were playing in town, but I was staying home instead, in my pjs, watching Moulin Rouge.
“Dude, I busted an A string, and I have no spares. Any chance you got one?”
The principle corset scenes were over, and Nicole Kidman was standing on an elephants head, so I threw my clothes on and brought him the spare.
And until last night, I had completely forgotten the whole thing.
So there I was, on stage, and suddenly – sproing! No A string. I was stunned. I actually started laughing. No spare string, no spare bass, no music. Fortunately Adam had his bass in the car, so I ran out to grab it, and the rest of my night went more or less alright.
For Adam though, he had a recurring sound-drop problem that we couldn’t trace. Bizarre. It didn’t wreck the night or anything, and the dance floor was still full at 2am, so the night turned out alright in the end.
It’s puzzling though, that after years of playing, we’re suddenly afflicted with all these ghosts in the machine.
:)
Breaking a string is not as bad as breaking a hip, but you’ve got a ways to go yet to do that on stage.