A couple of years ago I played in a band for a short period. I wasn't really in a good place to start a band: I'd just moved in a new city, I didn't feel comfortable within the "scene", felt everybody was judging me and just thought I couldn't write a song for shit. But this friend of mine insisted I start this band with him and this other guy I didn't know (now we're great friends).
We started playing shows and I wasn't confident in the songs, we were playing a cover or two which is something I loathe, and the bass player was making an ass of himself on stage berating the audience, throwing himself on the ground, basically doing some sort of Jay Reatard impersonation—which is cool if it's a hot show, but if it's your third gig and you're playing in front of 15 people who are just staring at you and politely applauding is kinda sad. So show after show I get more annoyed.
We finally play in this really cool squat at this really cool festival organized by this collective I'm part of with some great bands I really really liked. We're opening. After maybe a third of the set my guitar strap shits the bed mid-song, leaving me to try and play it while balancing it against my body, failing. Bass player and drummer acknowledge the situation and keep playing, going into some improvisational-half cover of something completely random. I'm going "hey, anybody got a guitar strap?" but nobody can hear me over bass and drums. I see the bass player start to walk towards the back of the room and I think he's going to help me but instead he's just spitting fake blood on the audience trying to get them to hit his bass so it goes "boom" or something. I'm still trying and failing to play. This goes on for what feels like 20 minutes, but is probably less than 5. I have to yell into the mic to make them stop playing and fucking listen to me that I need a new fucking strap. Somebody from one of the other bands finally helps me. I scream "LAST SONG" with the voice of somebody who's having a nervous breakdown and we play whatever the last song was.
I felt like such a useless piece of shit after, it almost ruined the whole weekend for me.
We never played another show or practiced again and I quit the band a few days after.
They went on to become really good now that the bass player switched to guitar and they got this other bass player—they still play one of the covers though.
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