Originally Posted by
GuitarGeek
When I saw Rik Emmett, he was performing in a duo with another guitarist. At one point in the show, the other guitarist leaves the stage and Rik does some of his solo guitar pieces from the Triumph days. When the backup guitarist came back onstage, they started playing the next song, and it was clear they weren't tuned up to each other. Apparently, while he was backstage, the backup guy had retuned his guitar, presumably to an electronic tuner, which put off pitch from Rik. So they stopped the piece they were playing after a few bars, tuned up, and then restarted it.
I've got a bootleg of Jimi Hendrix where he has an organist sit in on a few songs. The thing is, when the organist came onstage, Jimi and Noel didn't bother tuning to him, so for the entire duration of the part of the set the organist played on, he's just out of tune enough for it to be noticeable.
As I understand it, if you're playing an open air venue, the weather can affect tuning pretty badlly. You go onstage and the heat causes the wood on the guitars to expand or contract (I forget which), and it causes the guitar to go out of tune. If it starts raining, the change in humidity will cause the guitar to go out of tune. There's a video of ELP playing a stadium show in Japan (Tokyo or Osaka, I forget which) where it started raining during the show, and I think that not only caused Greg Lake's guitar to go out of tune, I think it also caused problems for the Moog (which was difficult to keep in tune to begin with).
If you're lucky enough to have an air conditioned dressing room, and you tuned up there, then went onstage (indoor or outdoor), the change in temperature can cause the guitar to go out of tune. I think Jake E. Lee said the first time he played onstage with Ozzy, that last one happened, he tuned up backstage, then during the first number of the show, his guitar went out of tune.
And sometimes, somebody sits in for a song or two who doesn't bother tuning up (as with the above cited Hendrix example). When I met Percy Jones I asked him about playing at NEARfest, and he said it was a disaster, in part because John Goodsall didn't bother tuning to Percy or Marc Wagnon. I think Percy said before he had a chance to even think, John had already counted in the song and they went into it, and he thought "Oh dear".
The funny thing is, due to the nature of amplified music and the vagaries of room acoustics, often times, if the venue is big enough, the audience won't even notice. I'm sure Mick Jagger has sung more than a few songs off key, the way he runs around onstage, but you typically never hear people who've seen The Stones comment on it.
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