kudzurunner
6337 posts
Aug 25, 2017
5:52 PM
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Here's a fun topic for a summer weekend: the idiot check.
I define idiot check thusly: When, after you have walked out of your hotel room the morning after a gig and are just about to close the door, you turn around and walk back into the room, as though for the first time, and give it a once-over just to make sure you haven't left anything behind.
Same for a gig: You've been paid, you've loaded out, you're ready to go. But you turn around and walk back into the club and give the stage (and all proximate areas) a once-over, just to make sure you haven't left anything behind.
Talk about:
1) Things you've left behind because you forgot to make an idiot check
2) Things you've found when you went back in and made that idiot check.
3) Things that somebody else has apparently left behind when they forgot to make an idiot check.
4) Anything plausibly connected with the idiot-check phenomenon that deserves to be talked about here.
Several times I've left toilet kits behind. Several times I've left power strips behind--both in hotel rooms and on stages.
I'm sure I'll think of other things, but that gets it started.
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indigo
387 posts
Aug 25, 2017
6:46 PM
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Hotels:
Electric shaver,adapter plugs,but the best(worst)example of a failed idiot check was when we were on our way overseas to a family wedding.It was going to be a formal affair so i packed a suit,tie etc.
At the stopover hotel in Hong Kong i carefully hung the suit in the wardrobe for the night.
Yep, forgot about it the next morning.Expensive mistake.
Clubs:
My virginity.
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jbone
2347 posts
Aug 25, 2017
7:57 PM
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I once left my briefcase of harps at a jam. It was 70 miles from home! Luckily the guy who was hosting recognized it and called me the next day. He kept it for me til the next week. Lucky!
Last time we played and then stayed in a hotel- and it was a well known one whose name shall not be mentioned- we were packing up to leave next morning and I saw something under the table so I grabbed it an tossed it to my wife, thinking it must be an undergarment. Which it was, but NOT HERS. Or mine. The management was totally unprofessional about the whole thing. From then on we have used hotels only when there was just no other choice.
Not doing an IC has lost me mic stands, music stands, guitar stands. Even a harp or two.
Experience teaches. Jo and I BOTH do an IC individually before we head out. Since we're out here on the road it's double important to make sure we keep all our stuff. It's never cheap or easy to replace things you have painstakingly added to your gear pile.
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hvyj
3460 posts
Aug 25, 2017
8:09 PM
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Well, I'm pretty systematized, with specific places in cases for all my items of gear, and a space in a case for each and every item, which I usually leave all packed between gigs and systematically pack up after each gig, so I rarely leave anything behind or forget to bring it along, and it all fits neatly on a little collapsible four wheeled cart I use to load everything in and out with. So...
Once upon a time during a 3 day holiday weekend I packed up after playing a gig at a local venue I played at regularly and frequently patronized when I wasn't playing there. All my cases packed up, my amp cover on my amp, my pedalboard in its case with all the cables and power supples securely stashed away, what i call my paying gig bag with spare cables, fuses, etc. accounted for, and my harp case with my mic in it all firmly placed on my cart ready to roll out when someone compliments me on my playing and offers to buy me a drink. So, I park my cart out of the way in a corner and amble on over to the bar where I start talking with some really nice people and have several drinks before going home.
Not until midway through the next day did I realize that I had left my cart at the venue. So I pick up the phone to call them only to learn from a recording that they were closed for the holiday. At the time I hadn't accumulated spare equipment suitable for public performances, and my spare gig quality harps were in my harp case (or at least the 7 most frequently keys were, leaving me with my trusty spare F#, Db, B, etc.). Fortunately, I didn't have any other paying gigs scheduled for that weekend. But I had been looking forward to playing with this really good band which had invited to stop by their holiday gig to sit in. I couldn't get enough instruments and gear together to feel comfortable about doing that, so I decided not to go and felt very disappointed.
Before I left my house the following day, a musician friend of mine ( who was among the people I had been drinking with ) called to let me know that I had left my gear at the venue and it was locked in a closet in the manager's offfice for safekeeping. Moral of the story? If you have a place for everything and systematically put everything in its place every single time, you are still not idiot proof if you forget to take it all with you when you go.
Last Edited by hvyj on Aug 25, 2017 8:27 PM
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Gnarly
2287 posts
Aug 25, 2017
8:32 PM
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I left my heart in San Francisco
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JInx
1330 posts
Aug 25, 2017
9:07 PM
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Yup me too, toilet kit...a nice one that was a gift
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Truth2012
65 posts
Aug 25, 2017
10:55 PM
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Long day at work and half asleep on the train. My stop comes up. Quickly jump up just about to step off the train, I quickly look back and realise I have left my very expensive hand/power tools on the train luggage rack!
Mad panic to get them before the train pulls out. Phew!!
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jbone
2348 posts
Aug 26, 2017
6:09 AM
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Last time we traded travel trailers, we forgot all of our mic stands/p.a. stands under a dinette bench. We called immediately and blasted back to the dealer to retrieve them before the cleanup crew got in there. Salesman had grabbed our stuff and put it in a shopping cart and waited for us to get back for it.
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Andrew
1631 posts
Aug 26, 2017
6:30 AM
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I haven't been to a hotel for a long time, but when did, I got into the routine of putting EVERYTHING in the same place - top drawer of the bedside table.
Use a variety of places and you will lose things.
If you have gear that is too big, you'll have to devise your own method - maybe the bottom of the wardrobe, or the space next to the wardrobe.
I once left a PAYG phone unawares in the pocket of a jacket that I left in my parents' wardrobe. Took me about a year to discover the jacket and the phone, by which time the SIM was void.
I noticed that the contract used the verb "choose" half a dozen times - "if you CHOOSE not to use the phone". I thought about disputing their keeping of my £15 (I had clearly made no CHOICE, and I had witnesses to prove it), but didn't have the energy to pursue it.
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Andrew.
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Last Edited by Andrew on Aug 26, 2017 7:06 AM
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Littoral
1524 posts
Aug 26, 2017
9:28 AM
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Loading out of a New Orleans hotel room I left my harp box on the side of the car when we pulled out. At the time my box was a big fishing tackle box and it had everything in it. Ididn't know until about 6 hours later. I called the hotel and spoke with security and they said they'd look. The next day they called back and said they found it out back in a dumpster. I paid to have it mailed back. Chromatics were gone but everything else was there.
Serious fortune.
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nacoran
9587 posts
Aug 26, 2017
12:51 PM
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I could have used an idiot check the other day. I dropped two cards out of my wallet at a store, including my debit card, then, for an encore, locked myself out of my apartment at 1 am after forgetting to run to the laundry room to take my last load out. Didn't even have a shirt on. The day set me back $26.95- $3.95 for a prepaid credit card to put money on my laundry card since I didn't have my debit card and $23 dollars for the lockout fee from maintenance. (It was actually $25, but he didn't have change for a ten and didn't want quarters.)
I'm being more careful with my shorts... I bought a couple pairs the other day at walmart, the same cut, and they seem to have very shallow pockets. I've dropped money at least twice, and my debit card at least once.
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LittleBubba
351 posts
Aug 31, 2017
6:18 AM
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I just failed my idiot check two weeks ago at an evening outdoor gig. I left a reverb pedal and wall-wart somewhere on stage. I had even brought a shop "trouble light" to illuminate my area on stage for the tear down, but nonetheless..... however,our bass player spotted them and picked 'em up.
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Andrew
1633 posts
Aug 31, 2017
7:27 AM
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I left the bottom half of a music stand at a gig last night - luckily the boss found it afterwards and took it home.
(I had a rucksack - if I'd been carrying stuff in my hands, I might have realised)
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Andrew.
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Last Edited by Andrew on Aug 31, 2017 7:28 AM
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JTThirty
321 posts
Sep 01, 2017
2:51 PM
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I can relate. I got home from a gig and the next morning received a message from the band leader asking how much used harmonicas were going for on eBay. He's a guitarist, so I didn't quite know why he'd want to know. THEN, the idiot light when on and I checked my gig bag and discovered I left behind 8 harps in a small case. The next gig at the same venue, I left behind my amp cover. I was brand new and I wasn't used to toting the amp with a cover.
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MP
3458 posts
Sep 01, 2017
6:36 PM
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I always do an idiot check.
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shakeylee
699 posts
Sep 01, 2017
9:53 PM
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One of the most important harmonica players in Philadelphia is Joe Becton.
One Saturday night,I played a place that he played on Friday night .
Right where I was about to put my harps was his full set of MB's.
Too funny. I still tease him that I should have kept them ??
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shakeylee
700 posts
Sep 01, 2017
9:54 PM
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I also have left guitars behind,that I had to get the next day.
I have lost microphones that way too.
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LittleBubba
352 posts
Sep 02, 2017
11:38 AM
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I worry about theft during a gig too. I generally close my harp case and take it with me on breaks. There are thieves in almost every crowd, duh. I can absorb a vocal mic theft, but not my harps or harp mics.
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AppalachiaBlues
53 posts
Sep 02, 2017
1:36 PM
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The need to double and triple check increases with age. I'm over 50, so I find I need to check more carefully these days ;-)
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LevelUp
10 posts
Sep 02, 2017
5:18 PM
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Ex left her wedding ring in a hotel we stayed in while traveling.
One of the cleaning staff stole it and sold it for drugs.
We only found out because the staff woman in question had been a loyal employee for 20 years and told her boss out of guilt.
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