On one of my first public performances, I opened with Holy Moly - which went OK, but the reaction was fairly muted and polite so I wonder if they cottoned on because it's usually very powerful.
It was a group with a few couples, so I chose the friendliest looking couple to do anniversary waltz for - usually a closer but I was cutting my routine short and wanted to end well. Of all the things to go wrong, I fluffed the bl**dy hindu force! They saw the double backer in the face up cards, I went red and just said, "oh, the cards must have been jumbled up... we'll try something else", pocketed the deck and grabbed my ropes. I went into a rope routine but because of the damp squib of the first effect, the total cock-up of the second effect, I was a nervous wreck - I ended up mumbling through it, losing track of where I was and cutting that one short as well.
I made my apologies and backed away quickly... not how you want the first performance of the evening to go
I had a long sit down and a stiff drink, then decided "blow it, it can't be any worse" and continued doing magic for other people. Everything went perfectly
