Today, I'm behind the space bar.

I'm sharing some of my biggest onstage failures and flops.

Plus I'm sharing a few that you all submitted on Instagram.

So let's all join in the misery together and celebrate our failures.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Behind the Space Bar.

This is gonna be a super fun episode. First off, I've,

I've taken a couple weeks off of recording, uh, new content,

been working on some things I've been trying to get done, um,

and I'm super excited because I'm sitting down today. Uh,

I've got a stack full of, uh, of notes here, uh, content to record.

And this is at the top of the list because this is a episode, this is content.

I've really, really been looking forward to getting out.

So I reached out about a month or so ago on Instagram, and I said, Hey,

I wanna talk about some of our biggest onstage failures,

biggest onstage mistakes, um, uh, if you're willing to share those.

And I had a few of you reach out some, you know, dmd me the story,

so it's not public. Um, but some of you shared some really,

really fantastic stuff,

and I've got a couple stories I want to share personally, um, uh,

about my own kind of failures and mistakes I've made on stage.

But I think it's important before we dive into today's, uh, uh,

kind of misery and we all wallow in our own misery, uh,

I think it's important to, uh, just talk about why failures are,

are super important. Uh, there's a really great show, uh,

and I've talked about this years and years ago, uh, called Marvelous Mrs.

Maisel. It's in its final season now, and it's a show my wife and I love. Uh,

and it's about this, this, uh, lady, Mrs. Maisel who becomes a comic.

And it's kind of her story through failure, through learning how to be a comic,

how to develop a, a good show, uh, put on a good show, and, um, eventually,

hopefully lead to success. Uh, and one of the, I believe it's in season two,

one of the best bits I heard is, um, uh, uh, Mrs.

Maisel's, manager Susie, talking about the, the, the value of bombing. And Mrs.

Maisel had a particularly bad show where things went bad,

and she talked about how you've got a bomb to get to the good,

you've gotta do a lot of bad to get to the good. And it's just that idea of, um,

you know, I, I often talk about, I'm not sure what's more important,

quantity or quality,

but I can guarantee you that the only path to quality is through quantity.

So that's why last year, for instance, I did a video every single day. Um,

some of them, the audio was messed up,

and some of you have let me know multiple, multiple times, thank you. I,

I get the point. Uh, some of them,

the camera shots were a little odd as I got into the new space,

and some of you have let me know multiple, multiple times, thank you, I get it.

Um, but through that process, through cr continually creating,

through continually producing quantity,

it's slowly but surely leading me to quality.

And there's still always room to improve Kaizen continuous improvement,

that constant process of getting 1% better every single time.

But if our goal in stepping on stage is simply to avoid, avoid failure,

then we'll never step on stage in the first place.

And I was really reminded of this, um, uh, about a week ago,

I went to my daughter's ballet performance, and, um,

she's four years old at the time. I'm recording this first time ever in ballet,

um, maybe first or second time on stage. But it was fascinating watching, uh,

everyone as they got on stage.

And you would see the kids that would just stare at the other kid,

kind of watching them to, to, uh, for signs and signals.

And for the younger kids,

the teacher was out front kind of giving directions and leading them.

But I thought it's really easy to look on and say like, oh, man,

these kids just, they're not getting it. What a waste of money,

because the parents paid all this money for their kids to be in ballet to just

get on stage and flop. But I thought, man, that's building the reps,

that's building the muscle for these kids soon, you know, in the future,

to stand on stage, to sing in front of people, to speak in front of people,

whether they're future CEOs, they're future creatives, they're future musicians,

um, whether they're recording podcasts, YouTube tutorials, whatever it is,

that process of standing on stage exposing themself, uh, to,

to potential failure, uh,

in becoming okay with mistakes is what's gonna eventually lead them to success.

So, okay, soapbox over. Um, uh, no more preaching this episode.

I wanna get into some of our failures and mistakes. Um,

I'll start with one of mine and I'll,

I'll maybe sprinkle a few of mine in there. Uh, before I do that though,

I wanna let you know if, uh,

you're wanting to get into using Ableton live on stage for tracks,

or maybe you've been using Ableton live on stage for tracks,

and it's just not the most flexible way, you're, you're kind of stuck.

It's taking forever to build a set. You, you can't edit your songs easily,

you can't jump around easily, you can't customize them easily, then, um,

you need to move from the way you're doing it to a proven process.

And I'm gonna share, uh, my exact proven process,

something I call the three-part framework for using tracks.

I'll teach you exactly how to do that, plus give you a free template. Uh,

all you have to do is head to from studio to stage.com/template.

You can download that free template, which is available, um, uh,

for every version of Ableton Live, intro Lights Standard and Suite. Um,

you can head there to learn more information. Plus,

when you download the free template,

you can enroll in my free six day email course where, uh,

I'll show you exactly how to set up that template and exactly how to use it. So,

again, if you're looking for a better way to use tracks or, um,

learning for the first time,

how to use tracks from studio to stage.com/template is the best place to go.

So first I wanna share a, a, a bit of a story. Uh,

and I believe I've shared this before on the podcast here, but, um, this is a,

a musical, not Ableton related, not tracks related, uh, thing. Um,

so no real context there. But this was, uh, back when I was in college and,

um, one of the bands I played in, um, uh,

for college was a band where we do a lot of, um, not orchestral,

what's the word I'm looking for? Choir, right?

We'd have a lot of big choir arrangements. Um, and so, uh,

with choir tunes often comes a lot of key changes, right?

And this was a kind of southern gospely type context.

And so lots of thematic theme changes, uh, key changes.

And if you've ever heard of one of those songs performed or been in particularly

a church where they're performed, you know, it kind of starts low.

And then we have a bunch of key changes,

and eventually everyone has to stand up at like the third verse, right?

Or going from the second verse into the second course.

And so we're at one of those moments. I'm playing an electric guitar.

We're in a, um, an auditorium, uh, at the school I went to of of,

of probably 10 to 15,000 people. So it's, it's packed.

I believe this was even for a conference, potentially. So a lot of,

lot of eyes on and ears listening, a lot of eyes watching. And so, um,

I think we're in the key of g if I remember correctly. Um, and, uh, you know,

typically key changes I was used to are like a whole step key change.

So we'd go from G to A, but you, you get to that context of music,

and sometimes there was like the rare,

awkward key change that would be a hole and a half, right?

So instead of a whole step hole and a half. So in this case, uh, I was,

I was pretty, pretty confident this was a whole step key change,

and we get to go to that transition. So, uh, you know,

we're on a decor building three and four, and,

and then I go and just hit the loudest acord you've ever heard in your entire

life, not realizing that in fact this was a whole and a half step key change,

and I should be on B flat instead of a, um, and so that was a,

a really fun moment of just blaring the,

the most massive half step down wrong,

incorrect chord that he could potentially play. Uh, but in that moment,

I was reminded of something my guitar teacher told me a long time ago when I

first started playing guitar, which is,

you're only a half step away from the right note.

So I just whoop popped up there and we were good. Uh, but a, a guy that, um,

was a, he wasn't a teacher,

but he was kind of in charge of the bands at the school I went to. Uh,

loves to remind me of that story. He says it's one of his favorite stories. So,

Scott, that one is for you. Okay, so I wanna get to, um, we'll,

we'll run through a couple of these,

some really good ones you guys submitted to celebrate. Uh,

let me know in the comments, uh, as you hear these, if this has happened to you,

or, uh, if, um, you have a great story you wanna share in the comments.

So first, let's start with my buddy Chris. Chris y submitted this one. Uh,

he first reached out and asked for some clarification, but he first said, uh,

I was performing a, a pop song with my wife,

only to realize there was only sound in the in ears, no sound in front of house.

So imagine stepping on stage, pressing play on Ableton,

you start performing this song, and he's like, rocking out.

It's him and his wife in tracks, and everything's going great,

and it sounds fantastic. Uh, and I reach out and I said, well, Chris,

kind of what happened? And he said, well, we finished verse one,

and we realized the audience had no response, whatever whatsoever.

They're just completely deadpan.

So he took his ears out and he realized with horror that there was no

audio coming from Ableton coming from their setup whatsoever to the

audience. So he very, very quickly, uh, did some rerouting and, um,

in Ableton and on his soundboard, and was able to get audio, uh,

going before the course.

So just imagine sitting there performing in front of a group of people feeling

like, man, this is the best we've ever sounded. You're rocking out,

got good stage presence, and then suddenly you look and go,

why is no one responding? That's because no one could hear a single thing. Okay?

Uh, this is a good one. Uh, LED Rebels,

or l e d Rebels on Instagram reached out and said, um,

and this has happened to me as well too, said that, um, someone,

I won't name names forgot to plug in the laptops power supply.

So this is really, really easy to do, particularly on laptops. You know,

you've got redundant laptops or, um, and, and, uh,

L e d Rebels or Lead Rebels, uh, uh, instant. Um,

they had an audio laptop and a relo laptop. And so it's, you know,

easy to maybe do one and not the other. This case,

they forgot to plug in both laptops, which is very fun. Um, it's easy to miss,

right? You got a lot of cables on Sage. But, uh,

l e d Repel said that both the audio laptop and the relo laptop went

down mid show. So, um,

that's always a fun experience because you're suddenly playing music is super

loud, you've got visuals synced up, and then just black, right? My buddy,

uh, Jeremy used to say, uh, when it works, it's fantastic.

And when it doesn't work, it's just black, right? Um, this has happened to me.

So thanks l e d, uh, or Lead Rebels for sharing that one.

That's also happened to me, not because of, uh, power supply.

This is another start I wanna share. Uh,

but because my computer was not powerful enough, and so this was, um, uh,

I was working in Florida at the time on staff at a church there. And, uh,

we wanted to do something different for the college ministry. And, uh,

so what we did is we kind of arranged like a, a set probably five songs,

uh, piano. We had a, um, acoustic piano. Uh,

I think the Worship Leader is on acoustic guitar, if I remember correctly. Um,

I was playing like keys and then tracks. And so it was, you know, no drums,

it was all loop based, that sort of thing. Um,

and spent a lot of time on arrangements.

I think I came up with some actual pretty cool arrangements of some songs we

were doing. Had those loaded into Ableton. The problem was,

is I was using a laptop at that point that I had gotten in college that was

probably six years old,

and it was probably four years too old to be using on stage, right?

So about four years before this, I should have replaced it to get a laptop. Uh,

it was too slow four years ago, and I kept holding onto it four years longer.

So anyway, the laptop was just super, super not powerful enough, um,

and, uh, had an interface that was not, uh, it was fire Wire.

Can't remember which one. It was like kind of square with a circular thing.

I can't remember which fire wire that was,

but that tells you how long ago it was. So, FireWire Connection, uh,

I believe I even had a, like, FireWire card for my computer.

That's how old this was. I had to put a card in, which then allowed FireWire,

you know, long story longer. Um, we start the first song,

everything sounded great. It's a really cool vibe running in stereo.

So we're getting some cool painting and movement happening with tracks. Um,

everything's just great. And then computer just completely dies.

Interface won't connect. Um, it's not power. My, my, uh,

power supply was plugged in in that case. Uh,

and it was just that the computer was not powerful enough to run tracks.

That interface did not work well with that computer.

So we ended up doing the rest of the set just acoustic and, uh,

just complete utter disappointment, both on behalf of me,

the worship leader who was kind of the,

the guy in charge and was leading that particular time. And, uh,

I think everyone kind of went, oh, well,

that was kind of a massive disappointment. So that was a phone one for me.

Here's a, here's another good one that has happened in a church scenario. Chris,

um, Chris went through, uh, uh, Chris, which cohort did Chris? Uh,

Chris went through our connected stage cohort couple years ago, uh,

worship leader in North Carolina. And he reached out and shared this,

which I thought was just a really, really great experience. So he said, um,

instead of starting tracks at the beginning of church service,

the drummer fired a dead mouth song, uh, in iTunes. So just imagine,

um, uh, going to start a church service. Everyone's kind of anxiously awaiting.

They're anticipating the start and suddenly they hear a dead mouth song, uh, uh,

play through front of house, probably cranked pretty,

pretty loud cuz it was the first song. So, similar experiences happened to me.

I was the one who did it.

I'm not gonna name the person's name cuz I didn't ask their permission for this,

but, uh, a band I was in college. Our drummer went to start, uh, a song.

And this was like post the, uh, the sermon post.

The message was a church scenario in context. And, uh, so it's a very small, uh,

low somber, introspective moment. And suddenly he,

he triggered a song that starts four on the floor kick drum. Super,

super loud. So, super fun moment with that. Okay. Um,

Cody reached out. Cody said he had a situation where, uh, he had set up, uh,

some routing in Ableton with Midi and that did not work properly.

And so they ended up going into a whole completely different song with different

key and very, very heavy tracks when they were supposed to repeat,

repeat a section. So imagine just, uh, pretending you're in the moment,

repeating a section of a song, uh, and instead of, uh, of repeating that, uh,

suddenly goes into a completely different song with, uh, uh,

different key change. And not only that, but lots and lots of track. So Cody,

thanks for sharing that one. That was a really good one. Uh, Florian,

this one's a, this one's kind of a, a deep cut. Um, uh, if you know,

and I think I have it back here somewhere, uh, yeah, it's back,

back there on my desk there. Uh,

but Florian said someone changed their Dante patch for their direct out

xbox.md, which is a great box that I said I had sitting there, uh,

which Florian then had to fix during the intro of the song. So,

um, fun moment for Florian, which, uh, which I'm sure, uh, was very,

very enjoyable for, uh, Florian as well as everyone else involved.

Another one from Florian,

Florian said that Ableton shut down on both computers at the same

exact time. So that's definitely a fun bug. Uh, I've pur, uh,

I've never had that happen where you've had a redundant system and both

computers failed at the same time. Uh, I hope it was at a point where you could,

you know, reboot the computers or reboot Ableton and recover, but, um, yeah,

so that's, I guess that's the situation. I I always think of that meme with,

it's like two toilet paper holders and it says even redundant systems fail

sometimes. So, uh, that was really good. So Florian, thanks for sharing. Okay,

I've got two more I wanna share, uh, one from my good buddy David,

and one from Kay, who is a lifetime subscriber on the site. Uh,

before I do that though,

I again wanna remind you if you're wanting to get started with using tracks on

stage and you wanna hopefully avoid some of these mistakes that we've shared

here, uh, today, um, then head to from studio to stage.com/template.

You can dial on my free track symbol,

which is available for every version available to live Light Intro Standard

Suite. Uh, and when you download the template, not only do you get the template,

you're not left to try to figure it out on your own. Uh,

I'm gonna take you through a six day email course.

So I'm gonna show you exactly how to set up that template and use that template

with your content. So again, if you want to get access to that,

head to from studio to stage.com/template. Okay. Um,

final two here. Uh, my buddy David, um, David and I worked together for a,

a bit in Florida. Uh, David said he forgot the entire verse, one of a song,

and he had no confidence monitor with lyrics. Uh,

lyric sheets and charts weren't allowed on stage. And so he's up on stage,

uh, singing leading worship in this context and completely forgot a

entire verse of a song.

So I often joke with my friends that are worship leaders,

you'll hear this in church sometimes. I mean,

you'll hear there's some other artists as well too,

but you'll hear people say you guys sing it out. Um,

but I joke that that's like the go-to that worship leaders in particularly use

when they forget the lyrics,

you guys sing it and then they step away from the mic and, you know,

regain their thoughts, regain their composure, um, because, um,

they forgot everything. So that was really, really fun. Um, okay, so let's, uh,

let's wrap up with Kay's, uh, onstage Failure,

which this is a pretty good one. Kay. Um, and Kay shared this one. And, um,

uh, Kay works with a lot of large artists, I believe in Germany. I,

I hope I'm getting that right, Kay. But, um, I know an across the pond a bit, uh,

uh, from here in South Carolina. And, uh,

Kay's done some very large like arena tours, lots of pyro, lots of time code,

that sort of stuff. So, uh, but Kay shared this, which I thought was really,

really great. So Kay said, my biggest onstage film,

it was my first show as a playback engineer operator for a huge act.

So again, imagine you've done playback before,

but it's your very first show for a massive arena act. Um, this is,

this is always not a good sign or a good start to a story. The MD,

the music director,

handed me the session four minutes before showtime to put it on my machine. So,

um, I, I'm not gonna try to preach in the middle of this,

but tell people all the time, like,

if you wait four minutes before a show and something goes wrong,

you can't be mad at the person or the gear that you know something went wrong.

It's like you're changing things four minutes before you're just inviting

mistakes in, right? So poor cases, he's stuck there. He gets the set, um, uh,

four minutes before he says it's a 15,000-person audience plus radio

livestream.

He said he started the intro and all the sound effects in the intro sounded

completely, completely wrong. Uh, when the click started,

he needed to stop the session immediately. Um, everything was just completely,

completely off.

He said as he dug in instantly that moment he realized that the tempo track was

set to 1 0 2,

but the session played everything at 128 bpm.

So he had to very quickly go in, reset the tempo track and say, no, no, no,

I don't need you to be 1 28. I need you to be 1 0 2.

Set that from follower to leader,

and he fixed it and he said it was the worst seconds in his entire life.

So, Kay, I, uh, apologize. You had to go through it, uh, through that.

Um, but hopefully the gig worked out. I mean,

obviously, I know you're still out there doing playback and working with a lot of

large artists, so, uh,

clearly, the MD realized it was their issue and not your issue. Uh,

but I'm glad that didn't stop. Kay, I'm glad that didn't stop.

David Flooring and Chris, uh, led Rebels, me or my buddy Christian,

from continuing to step on stage and continuing to perform.

So don't let your failures be the thing that stops you from stepping on stage.

Don't let the, the,

the possibility of failure is the thing that keeps you off stage.

Failures are a part of the journey,

and walking that journey and continue doing our craft and getting our reps in

is what's gonna lead us to do something really, really well. Remember,

quantity leads to quality. So I hope that's an encouragement for you today.

This was a fun episode for me, again, just to, um,

to have a moment to share some stories both from my own life about where things went

miserably, horribly wrong on stage, as well as sharing some of you guy's stories.

So, um, if you enjoyed this episode,

the best thing you can do is give me a, like, uh,

give me a comment if you're watching on YouTube. If you're listening on, um,

Apple Podcast on Spotify, then go ahead and follow the show. Again,

you can leave your rating review there. If you're listening on YouTube,

then hit subscribe. Enable the bell icon again. Leave a comment.

I want to hear from you guys,

what's the biggest onstage failure mistake that you've ever had? Um,

and let's own our mistakes. Let's own up to it so we can get better,

and so that we realize the path to success is paved with failures and mistakes.

Thanks so much for watching. Thanks for listening,

and we'll see you on the next one. Take care, everybody. Bye.