I was sitting around the other day thinking about the first band I played in we were a southern rock cover band so we played a lot of biker bars and the like, anyhow one of the lead guitarist friends killed himself. Well the dead guys brother starts having all this weird stuff happening at his house doors closing and opening, noises at all times of the day and night, his brothers childhood room(the living brother lived in the home they both grew up in) would stay very cold no matter what. So the brother and his wife contact a phychic and she tells them its his dead brothers ghost and the he cant cross over, so to help him they need to A) Have a birthday party for him and B) hire a band to play it. Need less to say we were said band, I don't think really anyone else at the party knew this they thought it was some kind of memorial, we actually didn't find out until after the fact. So in effect I've played an exorcism. Any way thats the strangest gig i ever played, just wondering if anyone out that had any stories of the unusual.

P.S. I know this is very weird but I promise on all that is bass that it's true.

we played at a YWCA and the show got shut down half way through our set because the old folk's home across the street complained about the noise. a lot of the kids really wanted to see us finish so this kid's like "oh you can play in my basement" so we go over there and the house is super dirty and there's cats and dogs everywhere (one cat is eating from this big pile of food on the kitchen counter). anyways, we go down into the basement and the room we're playing in is painted all pink and it's full of junk so we start putting all the junk in this other room. we get into the other room and it smells like complete poop... so i turn on the lights and the floor is lined with news paper and the floor is covered with animal poop... like this is where the family has all the animals go to poop, not in the back yard, on the floor in the basement. our set went good and all the kids had a good time, but i'll never forget that poop room.

we played at a YWCA and the show got shut down half way through our set because the old folk's home across the street complained about the noise. a lot of the kids really wanted to see us finish so this kid's like "oh you can play in my basement" so we go over there and the house is super dirty and there's cats and dogs everywhere (one cat is eating from this big pile of food on the kitchen counter). anyways, we go down into the basement and the room we're playing in is painted all pink and it's full of junk so we start putting all the junk in this other room. we get into the other room and it smells like complete poop... so i turn on the lights and the floor is lined with news paper and the floor is covered with animal poop... like this is where the family has all the animals go to poop, not in the back yard, on the floor in the basement. our set went good and all the kids had a good time, but i'll never forget that poop room.

Which show was that and where?

I truely wish I would have been there lol.

I'll take this to PM now :D

Peace

-Benny

Played a Native American Arts/Crafts/Dance fair. It was a 4 hour gig, but we played 15-20 minute sets (told to by our contact.) Duing this gig, our contact had all kinds of crazy things she wanted us to do (likedrag our speakers to the door to attract people driving by (didn't happen.) The event was not advertised well enough and poorly executed. The person that hired us wanted to blame us for low turnout. After they gave us the sign to shut down, it was like being let out of prison.

We played in a beef cattle pavilion at a Fair once as a Christian Metal Band.

Midway airport in one of the terminals...talk about a bad load in...even had to go thru security. It was last minute pickup gig electric bass drums and sax and it was the worst sounding area i have ever played in.
Then at the end of the gig the sax player gives me twenty bucks and says "here is for parking...thanks for coming out" I almost strangled him.

KFC parking lot.

wow i wanna hear about this kfc parking lot

My all-female blues trio played at a wedding reception in the bride's mother's backyard and after the gig the mother (who was a biker mom) tried to get all of us in the hot tub with her.

We respectfully declined. :smug:

Strangest gig - I filled in for a band that was playing an outdoor art festival. It was all original tunes and was a combination of classic rock and middle eastern music. Interesting to say the least. We rehearsed a couple of times previous but when I got there the "band leader" says to me, "hey man, I think if you just improv'd the whole night it would be really cool! I was digging what you were playing in warmups". So basically I just soloed the whole night. It was about 35 degrees, windy, raining, and there were about 5 people there other than the artists making sculptures and paintings.

So that was pretty strange for me.

I've got 2 that stand out foremost. First was when my band played at a green party convention. Our setlist went from funk/rock/jamband kind of stuff to classic rock and old timey country. I'm not a huge fan of the green party, the whole thing seemed.... I dunno, anyone ever see the South Park and the huge cloud of smug Along those lines

The second one and possibly the best. I was asked to sub for a bands bassist because he was in jail. The band was this crappy little blues group who were playing at this dive native bar called the elbow room. I show up and I'm the only white guy there besides the guitarist/singer who looks like Doc from back to the future. We set up and I'm playing through this old Acoustic 360 rig, which I was quite happy with. I'm assigned a girlfriend for the night who was this little native lady who looked to be in her 40's even though she probably wasn't. She was wearing huge owl glasses and a white sweater with a huge sequin christams tree ( it was march). We start playing and it's all classic rock/ 12 bar blues Proud Mary, Mustang Sally ect kinda stuff. This dude gets up on stage...plastered.... and gives us 80 dollars so he can sing a Wooly Bully/Blue Suede Shoes medly. So of course money talks and we're off. He's randomly switching between the 2 songs and whenever he forgets a line he jumps straight to the course of the song that first comes to mind. It kicked ass. Our drummer was an angry midget, well, not a midget, but really small and angry and loved to do the fist pound thing and let everyone know when he nailed a song. Halfway through the second set my assigned girlfriend is making out with someone who looks like a coal miner which crushed my heart to this very day. Anyhoo, I got paid and made it out alive. The wierd thing about this, the crappiest bar I've ever been to? It had those automatic motion sensing toilets in the bathroom. Whoda thunk it?

Shoot I don't think I can top playing at an exorcism! LOL


Note: The following mess can mostly be attributed to consumption of massive quantities of alcohol.

This was at the former ski slope/ lodge in Sky Valley, Georgia.

We were playing outside on a deck over looking the ski slope for the last day of the season. The club had set up a bar made completely of snow and our rhythm guitarist/singer went over and stole a couple of bottles of Jagermeister or something and being that we were so cold, we all drank copious amounts to "keep warm". We also got stoned out of our gords. I think I over did it, ok, maybe we all did, we were kids and being crazy.

I remember playing about three or four songs and then things got fuzzy and I didnt know where I was. When my eyes cleared I and my bass were laying on the deck wedged between the bass drum and the railing around the deck (the deck was only about 5 feet wide)
The other guys were playing a song and trying to get me up.
I get up and start playing, but I can only remember a song or two more.
The next thing I know I open my eyes and I am COMPLETELY ALONE on the deck, its night time. The band is gone, the skiers are gone, everyone is gone, but all of our equipment is still set up and powered on outside on this deck.

I spotted an extension cord going into a window of the ski lodge behind the drums, so I walk over and look in- no one in there either, I open the window and climb in. I found myself in the lodge's kitchen.

I had planned to unplug our extension cord and climb back out, buut....
After warming up a bit, I realized that I was hungry as a bear so I look in the fridge and find some nachos and other things to eat.
I ate a big pile of nachos and some other stuff and while I was munching away I look at the lids on one of the things I was eating- it was dated from like a year before!!!
Suddenly my "eyes were opened" and I started looking at all the stuff I had snacked on and realized that it was old and had fur growing on it,etc.

I immediately started feeling sick and managed to run to the bathroom, where I managed to make a pretty bad mess.
At this point I was cold, hung over,sick, and angry for being left behind and generally miserable so I drove home leaving all the equipment laying where it was.

The next day (Sunday) I go to the lead guitarists house and pull him out of bed and make him go with me to pack up everything in my truck. He told me the rest of the story, well, what he could remember:

We actually played for about 3-4 hours (though I only remembered maybe 7 songs) then it started to get dark so every one walked over to a club nearby. They thought I was either with them or had went home.

I have never been that drunk again, if anything, that experience made me quite cautious with the drink.

I played at a Sufi service (Eat Dance and Pray). They wanted a repeating low frequency note to be played during the service. Try playing even whole notes on a open low "B" for an hour!

I played at a Sufi service (Eat Dance and Pray). They wanted a repeating low frequency note to be played during the service. Try playing even whole notes on a open low "B" for an hour!


Thats where one of those looper/samplers would have been handy!

KFC parking lot.

i work at a kfc, you should come play my parking lot:p

This isn't strictly my gig but I was there. Some friends of mine in an Irish band got a gig in Loos prison in Northern France.

It's a grim, Victorian-looking place with old, dark landings, cast-iron bars and cell doors recessed into the brick walls.

It's where English crooks caught in Europe choose to do their time because it's better than English jails but close to home.

Guards searched every piece of gear as we carted it in.

I was disgusted to see the food being slopped out to prisoners in their rooms -- nasty looking cabbage in huge metal tubs and french bread.

We set up in a large hall, with a curtain behind the stage. Their roadie, who had driven all night, then fell asleep on the floor.

The crowd filed in -- a load of dubious guys in shorts, many of them holding hands. My mates played the gig and all was going well.

Suddenly, the roadie started screaming. Guards rushed in, sirens wailed, heavy metal doors clanged shut.

He had got tangled up in the curtain in his sleep and had a nightmare that somebody was strangling him.

We packed up and legged it. Nobody searched the gear on the way out -- just as well, because one of the PA cabs had a large chunk of hash in it.

A French friend who was with us explained that it's far easier to buy drugs inside their jails than on the outside.

Cheers

Mark

Thats where one of those looper/samplers would have been handy!

Duh! I wish I would have thought of that. It never occurred to me to do that. I'll know better next time...

in fact, i would have enjoyed the sufi concert. in a john cage style.

i mean it. :smug:

my band was invited to a festival in belgium, called the graspop metal meeting....we thought its a little festival made by some weedheads... :-D we were terribly wrong!!!
we played at 12 o' clock in front of 10'000 people audience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that was hot!! I met the guys from Mastodon, Zakk Wylde, Kerry King to name a few...!

The strangest gig I played was in the parking lot of a small town Wal-Mart. Not weird enough? I live in Louisiana? Still not good enough? This gig was the night before Katrina hit, we weren't in New Orleans but we had so much wind and rain that it almost blew the stage away. We were playing for a church that was having a back to school deal and the wind did blow there tent away! What fun!

I played atop a building for a company cocktail. Not really fun.
Also a gig in prison, a bit impressive.my band was invited to a festival in belgium, called the graspop metal meeting....we thought its a little festival made by some weedheads... :-D we were terribly wrong!!!The Graspop is the second biggest metal festival in Europe, right after the Wacken. :)

I played atop a building for a company cocktail. Not really fun.
Also a gig in prison, a bit impressive.The Graspop is the second biggest metal festival in Europe, right after the Wacken. :)

yes....NOW i know, haha!
next year we'll be playing wacken too!! not kidding!

A toddler/primary school in front of 50 parents with scared/screaming/almost deaf children.

Imagine 50 descent parents staring at you while covering their children's ears.

The band before us was some dad playing didgeredoo and after us there was a couple singing children songs.

:hmm: :D

Trout camp, somewhere in northwest Pennsylvania. For several years during the late 80s, I sat in with a "drinking band" that played out in the middle of nowhere, down in the woods by a river, at an encampment of several hundred fishing fanatics that would prepare for the first day of trout season by partying heavily the whole weekend. They'd build a stage out of pallets and tarps and bring in several portable generators for the band, which was paid in beer, food and other favors. They even "elected" a mayor and sheriff and appointed deputies to run security. One year the generator got shut down before I turned off my Bassman amp and fried the power supply. The same year I fell off the stage, hit the ground, rolled, and continued playing without missing a beat! (So the video shows.) We wrote an anthem, "He's Trout Fisherman" (sung to the tune of "Secret Agent Man'). And the highlight of the evening was the Gulden's Award, where the person who was most passed out was stripped naked and covered with mustard.

This spectacle ran for 13 years, but I only did it for 3 or 4 years -- I don't remember, really.

Trout camp, somewhere in northwest Pennsylvania. For several years during the late 80s, I sat in with a "drinking band" that played out in the middle of nowhere, down in the woods by a river, at an encampment of several hundred fishing fanatics that would prepare for the first day of trout season by partying heavily the whole weekend. They'd build a stage out of pallets and tarps and bring in several portable generators for the band, which was paid in beer, food and other favors. They even "elected" a mayor and sheriff and appointed deputies to run security. One year the generator got shut down before I turned off my Bassman amp and fried the power supply. The same year I fell off the stage, hit the ground, rolled, and continued playing without missing a beat! (So the video shows.) We wrote an anthem, "He's Trout Fisherman" (sung to the tune of "Secret Agent Man'). And the highlight of the evening was the Gulden's Award, where the person who was most passed out was stripped naked and covered with mustard.

This spectacle ran for 13 years, but I only did it for 3 or 4 years -- I don't remember, really.

That sounds like it was fun,actually, it sounds like some of the "redneck functions" that I have played at, except mine were never that organized....

My all-female blues trio played at a wedding reception in the bride's mother's backyard and after the gig the mother (who was a biker mom) tried to get all of us in the hot tub with her.

We respectfully declined. :smug:

Now would have been one hell of a Gig!:hyper:

I played Sing Sing (yes the prison) twice in the early 80's. Think about the end of "Airheads" lol.

I accompanied my HS' choir once on upright - as a favor for my little sister (then in choir) & a friend who was the director. I was working the midnight shift at work, and the rehearsals were during the day, after school. I stayed up to go to this rehearsal, and no one was ready. (If any of you work midnight shift, you know what I mean!!) On top of the complete exhaustion, it was a "jazzy" tune, which meant I had to play my upright, which ordinarily should not be a problem, except that I only play it once per year. My upright would not work with my Ampeg BA115, so I had to use my Ampeg B-15N portaflex (over 100lbs!!!), a beast to carry anywhere.

On the night of the show (knowing that I have to be at work in 1.5 hours, I show up to the HS auditorium. There are hundreds of middle school students running all over the place. I finally get my amp and bass upstairs (no one besides me is allowed to touch my basses), and begin tuning my bass, in the hallway. Because I wound the string incorrectly, it snapped as a I tightened it. I locked my gear in the local english classroom & went home for a string (I had taken my backup set out of the case for some reason...) Fortunately, I lived only a tenth of a mile from the gig. I jumped into my car where, given the parking situation, I was almost closer to my apartment than the school. My car was on its last legs due to a complete lack of preventive maintenance, too, so I barely made it. I was able to restring the bass, and haul my bass and amp into the auditorium just in time to accompany the choir on the "jazzy" Christmas tune. To top it all off, there was no music, so I had to play by ear, while turning down so low that I couldnt hear myself.

I got home just in time to change into work clothes & then do quality control work on the midnight shift. Fiddleedee. My little sister thought I was the best though, and I did get a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble from my friend.

Probably worst gig ever.

The first gig I ever did was at the opening of a shoe store. We played inside the store for about 20 min. They figured out that they couldn't talk to the customers, so we got moved to the sidewalk out front.

wow i wanna hear about this kfc parking lot

I'll see your KFC parking lot and raise you an IHOP parking lot, on a rare cold November evening. :BRRRRRR:

I swear my fingers have never been so cold.

if i may tell someone else's story...

a friend of mine's band played a Co-op in downtown austin. now, in case you don't know, a co-op is like a commune. everyone lives close by, little rooms, many shared common living spaces. lots and lots and lots of hippies. so this band plays, and everything goes fine until halfway through, when... in walks a man who, just days ago, decided that clothes were too constricting, they were a symbol of the oppressive regime, whatever you wanna say... he was buck naked, painted all up (someone painted rings around his... little friend), and dancing, drinking, and having a good time. he stayed in the back, mostly, until the band stopped playing. then he walked up to each of the members (of the band, perv!) to shake their hands and thank them for coming to his birthday celebration. he asked the guys to take a picture with him. awkward.

we stuck around a bit longer, and the thing devolved into a dance party. cool, alright. then, the naked guy got even drunker, and became touchy. huggy, even. we ran for the van. that was the end of our night.

About the worst I've done was a sqaure dance gig at an old folks event.
Was pretty lame...

A fiftieth high school reunion. One of the attendees was the mother of our singer and the event planner. She insisted we play. Well, to say the least, they hated us. I was smart enough to bring some period music and they enjoyed dancing to the Glenn Miller I played between sets. Too bad because it was one of the best rooms acoustically that I ever played!

I'll see your KFC parking lot and raise you an IHOP parking lot, on a rare cold November evening. :BRRRRRR:

I swear my fingers have never been so cold.

I call with a McDonald's opening. I have pics of it somewhere.

Last year I did a fun outdoor gig with this pop-rock group at a pet festival/concert put on by a local radio station. The event was called "Pet-A-palooza", I thought that the whole thing was a trip. It's hilarious playing for 400 people and 200 dogs!
:hyper:

The weirdest gig i played was hardly a gig, it was a fund raiser for a school and no one was listening to us, so we all swapped instruments and butchered smoke on the water, we were then greeted by a guy at the end who said it was the best version of smoke on the water he'd ever heard. And the drummers dad who was furious because we played it.


Possibly the weirdest gig i've ever heard of was when my dad went to see Anthrax. I cant rememer exactly what happened but it involved seeing a man flying 30 feet after being hit by a car,being chased out of a pub by some nasty manacunians because of his t shirt which said, I'd rather suck a pitbulls dick than see cerebral fix. He then got a lift to some guys flat in a pizza van where the guy opened the door wielding a huge kinfe. THEN in the morning their car was parked on a council estate and the brakes were stolen, which they didn't know about so they then drove home, got to a hill and found out they had no brakes.

Strip club closes down on a Saturday....the very next Friday, the place reopens with live music. I get a call from a local cover band to fill in for a bassbra that's ailin. No renovations to the bar, runway stage with lights and all. Posters of coming "attractions" covering the walls. And, no one bothers to tell the "regulars"...it was a trip.

Xmas eve '92 I played with the rest of my extremely inebriated band on the roof of the singer's flat above a video store on the main road in the town we lived in.

We were on a ledge 2 ft wide with a 6" wide 12" wall between us and a 3 storey drop! A crowd rapidly gathered outside since everyone was leaving the pubs along the road as it was closing time (11:30pm in those days).

The crowd grew so big that they washed into the road and eventually completely blocked it.

At this point we thought maybe we should call it a night - however any attempt to get inside the flat via the window was met by a hail of empty bottles/coins etc so we just carried on.

A couple of taxis tried to get through the crowd but the crowd just climbed on them (think the beginning of the film Fame).

Naturally the taxi drivers were less than entirely happy about a bunch of stilletto clad ladies dancing on the roofs of their livelihoods so they called in backup. In the shape of 4 taxis line abreast which attmepted to clear the crowd by driving straight threw them - slowly. The crowd enjoyed the elevated aspect that this new selection of vantage points gave them and so jumped up and down on them all the more. Much to the disgruntlement of the drivers...

Things were getting desperate - at this point our rhythm guitarist (all 14 stone of him) decided the best way to calm everything down was to launch into Johnny Be Good, and do the whole Chuck Berry walk thing along the top of the little 18" wall between us and certain doom!!! I kid you not, he bounced his fat arse all the way along the wall and back - no thought for his own safety at all :bassist:. Now the crowd wouldnt let us stop playing Johnny Be Good (10 mins of that will kill anyone).

Round about now the police turned up, and started clearing the crowd. We escaped inside and fortunately due to the ridiculously bizarre accessability of the entrance to the flat they never figured out which door to knock on to give us an earful.

Which was probably lucky!

Strip club closes down on a Saturday....the very next Friday, the place reopens with live music. I get a call from a local cover band to fill in for a bassbra that's ailin. No renovations to the bar, runway stage with lights and all. Posters of coming "attractions" covering the walls. And, no one bothers to tell the "regulars"...it was a trip.

haha nice. id get a good laugh out of playing on a stage like that

My last band played for a Bat Mitzvah.

We were a Christian hardcore/metal band.

It was awesome.

So in effect I've played an exorcism.

Did it work? :confused:

My last band played for a Bat Mitzvah.

We were a Christian hardcore/metal band.

It was awesome.

That pretty much rocks hard!

HI

Id have to say I played a couple Gay Pride parades when I lived in California. No offense to my gay friends but I've never seen anything quite like it. Sorta like a 3 ring circus!! The major sponsor was a sex lube company for one and the other one had a bunch of people marching around Palm Springs looking like the Village People. Bazaar to say the least. Not to mention our drummer for the Palm Springs gig was a total homophobic and was downright angry that he was in the middle of it all. Me any the keyboard player had tears in our eyes laughing at his reactions.

Ive got tons more stories but I think the above is the strangest couple

Rob

I played a couple nudist dances. The guitarist in my former band was/is a hardcore 'clothing optionalist' and this gig was for his group N.I.F.T.Y

Naked Iconoclasts Fighting The Yoke

Anyway the first year about 40 naked people showed up. Some completely naked, some wearing just shirts, others just wearing socks. Mostly older hippies with lots of sagging. We were a classic rock band and they loved the music. We did it again the next year and only 3 people showed up (it was a beautiful day out after weeks of rain so they probably headed down to the local nude beach).

And yes, my clothes were on both times. However, my guitarist was completely naked. Too bad he didnt sling his guitar a little lower... if you know what I mean : (

I played solo piano an old folks home for no particular reason at all.

So I'd play a jazz standard and they would say "I was 20 years old that Oscar & Hammerstein classic came out!" or "Oh, you're playing my favorite dance song!"

Hoo boy, that was a frickin' load of monkeys, that gig was. I got paid $150... and would gladly do it again for $150

I'll see your KFC parking lot and raise you an IHOP parking lot, on a rare cold November evening. :BRRRRRR:

I swear my fingers have never been so cold.

I'll call with the story behind it.

It's been a while, but I drove by that particular KFC last weekend so the memories flooded back into my head.

About four years ago I was in a band with my highschool friends, and we wanted to play a show on Valentine's Day. We happened by a park that had a band playing for MLK Jr. day, so we went to check them out. Turns out they were a ska band (we were playing ska at the time). They were trying to set-up a Valentine's Day show as well, and we went to brainstorming. Somebody in their band's dad happened to own a KFC in our area, so we set it up. My band brought the PA, they provided the venue, we all profit.

Setting up that show (and the THREE that followed) was a beast. It was my first experience booking bands, dealing with parking, security (read: none), and sound. Scouting out the location the day before, dealing with people parked in the parking lot... you get it.

We ran that show there four times and never had an issue. Lots of kids would drink in the parking lot, but meh. We all had a good time, nobody got hurt, and the cops were all very supportive, if not confused as hell over our location.

In fact...

Proof.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g126/SpoiledGrape/pics_2071.jpg

Haha i can't beat that KFC carpark but i used to be in a weird rock/ska band with a s sax player playing this rough little fair.

Playing in a random alleyway on a piss small stage that shook everytiem the drummer hit the kick (he has always prided himself on doing fast 16th triplets with one kick) and a very odl lady comes up and ask us if we're familiar with the music of louis armstrong?
I'm just gutted we didn't bust any out.

Pardon my english but here goes my story

Couple of years ago i played in a crummy bar in Sudbury Ontarion and 10 mins before we start there was about 10 people in the bar.

The club owner says to me " theres an arena in front and the place gets packed for 20 mins betwen the periods...

Played in the women's hat section in downtown Cincinnati Lazarus (now Macy's) during "Riverfest" (end of summer blowout).

Parchman Prison in Mississippi with a gospel group.

I played in a band for a performance of "You'll be in my heart" from Disney's Tarzan for the finale of a HUGE dance recital in the (then) symphony hall in Nashville. The studio owner's son is a great singer/artist, so he hired us to play. The playing was great-big stage great players etc. Hanging around all day with 3,000 4 to 16-year--old girls was not as much fun.

just every gig i play being in a metal band and sheffield having a mainly rock / indie scene and us playing with indie specially since where kinda post metal like isis neurosis the looks some people give are so great ;p

not sure if it counts bc its not paying but...

thursday... attica high school band... attica 'correctional facility' aka max security prison.

sure its for the guards and its my 2nd time (1st on bass though), but still

Some good stories here, for sure!

Three of my weirder ones:

1) Back in 1994, if I remember right, my band at the time played a benefit show at a teen center, for what turned out to be some kind of vigilante. Apparently this guy had gotten in a fight with some other dude who was trying to rob him and ended up breaking the robber's jaw; we were playing to get money for the puncher's legal bills. Meantime, the promoter has a fit and quits his job, leaving us on stage and ready to go, but with nobody in charge. And it turns out the audience is four teen punks, an aging metalhead, and a weird woman wearing black tights with words on them I can't print here, who stood right in front of the stage, headbanging all the while.

2) My current band used to play an annual show that coincided with the Mid-Ohio ComicCon right after thanksgiving. The show was in the back room of the Laughing Ogre comic book shop, surrounded by boxes of unsellable comics and geeks like you can't possibly imagine. Once Ted Raimi showed up and I kept yelling at him. This was actually our favorite annual show, but the management changed and they don't do it any more.

3) Last year we played at what we thought was a strip club. Cool, right? Well, it turned out to be, not a strip club, but a swingers club, which is a very, very different thing. For the life of me, I still don't know how we got that gig. Though the band largely kept out of trouble, there was a lot of stuff going on there that was, shall we say, different from our usual gigging contexts. Yikes.

In 1977, I was in a five-piece lounge band, playing pop covers & standards. Our sax player got us a gig playing at a local Elks Club. Everything was going fine (except that they didn't like to actually have to hear the bass)...until about mid-way through the second set, when this dude wearing a fur hat with antlers jumps up on the stage with us, grabs the microphone, and starts mouthing out some gibberish about how "...all Elks everywhere throughout the world..." have to observe this ritual:

Suddenly the house lights go way down, and the guy starts making these weird animal noises into the microphone. I look out into the audience - and notice that everybody in the room is also wearing their fur hats with antlers - and that they're all making animal noises too! Sort of a call and response thing apparently...

I leaned over to whisper to Louie, our sax player, to "thank" him for having gotten us mixed up in some kind of primitivist cult, noting that these Elks are among the strangest people I'd come across - and this coming from someone who at the time was on drugs (moi)!

MM

Upon moving to this small town my wife and I were asked to play at a Masonic Temple. I think the average age of this assembly was in the high nineties - low one hundreds.

Not too weird of an experience for my girl because she is classically trained on piano and violin, so she can pull out a nice repertoire of classical "greatest hits".

I, on the other hand, only play electric bass. Wondering what to play I dug in my closet and pulled out Bach's Suite V, that I had struggled to learn on upright in college. Had the piano accompaniment too, so was able to pull it off on my fretless. Very cool piece of music.

When they wanted another song from me I had to beg off. Shoulda pulled into Black Dog. And they never showed me the secret handshakes either, although one gentleman asked if I wanted to know why there was a backwards "J" on the penny he was holding. Hmmmm.....

I've had a few similar to some related here.

I've played on a stage made of two semi trailers out in the middle of the desert and that was cool! It makes a big, elevated stage and you really do feel like a rock star.

I played a gig on the loading dock behind a grocery store where they were having an employee party.

When I was 17 I was playing in a Top 40 band and we were hired to play after hours in a strip club for the owners' wife's birthday party. That one got really wild! I was in heaven all night long!

But I have to say that one of the strangest happened when I was about 16. Somehow or another we got booked into a bar in a small town near where we lived (Lubock Texas is surrounded by many small farming towns). When we got there we couldn't find it and finally a kid who was at a convience store we stopped at for directions volunteered to show us where it was (he rode his bicycle while we followed).

This place turned out to be an old, dilapidated barn at the edge of a vast cotton field. There was nobody there and we were standing around wondering what in the world to do when this old cowboy pulled up on a tractor to ask us what we where doing on his property!

Of course we were all longhaired, hippie-looking kids which wasn’t working in our favor as we tried to explain to him that we were the band that was supposed to play at the "bar" that night. We finally got things worked out and he let us in to set up.

This place was still very much a barn, it had a dirt floor, a crude bar built to one side with mismatched barstools, some extra lights hanging from bare cords from the roof (there wasn't a ceiling) and old christmas lights strung along the walls. There were a few tables, some made from large cable spools and chairs of every conceivable type.

That's when we noticed that the stage had been framed in with 2x4s with chickenwire nailed to it and a door at one side that, upon further investigation, locked from the inside! The only light in the stage area was a single floodlight in a socket that was nailed to one of the rafters and some christmas lights strung along the back wall. There was only one 4 plug electrical socket. We were a four piece rock band with a 9 piece drum kit (with riser) two Marshal half stacks, bass rig, full P.A. and lights! That was not going to work!

The guy was able to run two other extension cords and we pared everything down to the absolute minimums. While we where doing that the guy was asking us if we play any Willie Nelson or Waylon Jennings etc., and became rather "unapproving" when we tried to explain the type music we played. He told us that we "ain't gonna have a very good night" and left.

Now there we were, a bunch of kids 70 some-odd miles from home, out in the hicksville sticks in a barn owned by some old guy who looked like he could get a starring role in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"...AND WE'RE IN TEXAS!!! In a few hours the place was going to start filling up with rednecks wanting to get drunk and listen to country & western music! We were going to die!!

Fortunately we had several hours before we were to play and we had quite a bit of southern rock in our set list (we did live in Texas after all)so we used the time to "countrifiy" some of our other songs. One of the guitarists did know a few Willie and Waylon songs that he played with his father from time to time, so we learned those too!

So anyway, We started playing and we're doing okay despite being razzed about being "hippies" and being too loud yadda, yadda. But we didn't have enough material to avoid playing our harder rock songs. What saved us was as the crowd, it turned out to be 30-40 people, got drunker and rowdier (there were some fistfights and bottles and furniture were thrown, the chickenwire was there for a good reason!) to our amazement they started calling for CCR, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin!

So we made it through the night alive. The owner paid us fairly and despite the fact that someone ran into our equipment truck while trying to navigate out of the "parking lot" we escaped unscathed!
_________________________


Most recent strange gig:

We were invited to play at the local showing of the Vietnam Memorial. We were a little iffy about this as we thought that it should be a solemn occasion and having a classic rock band blast off would be disrepectful. However, the organizers said that there were going to be all kinds of family events during the presentation andit would be great to have music from the era. They assured us that it would be fine and really wanted us to play, especially because our guitarist is a vietnam era vet, so we agreed.

Well a week out from the gig and we still haven't heard final agarnements from the organizers, last we had been told it was to be at one of the city parks but we weren't sure which one. Low and behold, it is being held at one of the cities largest cemetaries! We were committed and couldn't gracefully refuse.

So the night (yes, night) of the gig we show up and set up on a stage right in front of "The Wall". While we're doing this "The Reading of the Names" is underway and once we are ready they stop, move the lecturne, and we let loose with "Roadhouse"! About 10 seconds into the song we overload the generator and the entire memorial plunges into darkness! It took them 15 minutes to reroute us to another generator, in the mean time we are trying to improvise an acoustic set while people stumble around in the semi-darkness. They got us running again and we played 30 minutes then tore down. As soon as we said "Thank you, good night" They moved the lecturne back to the front of the stage and started reading the names right where they left off.

I was very relieved to roll out of that gig!

I was sitting around the other day thinking about the first band I played in we were a southern rock cover band so we played a lot of biker bars and the like, anyhow one of the lead guitarist friends killed himself. Well the dead guys brother starts having all this weird stuff happening at his house doors closing and opening, noises at all times of the day and night, his brothers childhood room(the living brother lived in the home they both grew up in) would stay very cold no matter what. So the brother and his wife contact a phychic and she tells them its his dead brothers ghost and the he cant cross over, so to help him they need to A) Have a birthday party for him and B) hire a band to play it. Need less to say we were said band, I don't think really anyone else at the party knew this they thought it was some kind of memorial, we actually didn't find out until after the fact. So in effect I've played an exorcism. Any way thats the strangest gig i ever played, just wondering if anyone out that had any stories of the unusual.

P.S. I know this is very weird but I promise on all that is bass that it's true.
Wait...did it work?

Back in the 60's or 70's we played one night at a female-only gay bar in Venice Beach, CA. It was VERY strange, Most of the patrons were the masculine biker types, but they seemed to like our music.

At the end of the evening one of the better - looking gals came out and asked if I needed some help loading my rig into the van! (a little role reversal).

I can remember it like it was only 10 years ago!

Wait...did it work?

I don't know, we nor the guests were supposed to know what the party was for so we never brought it up.

I played with a group that played at the womens prison in Puerto Rico. Wierd thing was that the woman that served us refreshments was in jail for poisoning her own kids! Since I am still here I guess she was out of rat poison that day :)

I was sitting around the other day thinking about the first band I played in we were a southern rock cover band so we played a lot of biker bars and the like, anyhow one of the lead guitarist friends killed himself. Well the dead guys brother starts having all this weird stuff happening at his house doors closing and opening, noises at all times of the day and night, his brothers childhood room(the living brother lived in the home they both grew up in) would stay very cold no matter what. So the brother and his wife contact a phychic and she tells them its his dead brothers ghost and the he cant cross over, so to help him they need to A) Have a birthday party for him and B) hire a band to play it. Need less to say we were said band, I don't think really anyone else at the party knew this they thought it was some kind of memorial, we actually didn't find out until after the fact. So in effect I've played an exorcism. Any way thats the strangest gig i ever played, just wondering if anyone out that had any stories of the unusual.

P.S. I know this is very weird but I promise on all that is bass that it's true.

Hehehe between us we have em' coming and going. I played a family reunion and wedding combo kinda thing. About half way through they left to go to the cemetery... yeah how disappointing to be left for a bunch of dead people.:spit: And we had to clean up the place too.

My friend asked me to play bass for his cover band at some underground gig. He told me about that something like 3 days in advance - thanks! - and we had 2 rehearsals before the gig. Well, it aint bad... The gig place turned out to be in the basement of an office building (making the gig literally underground), and had a size of a matchbox. Something like 70 people attended. After the gig, almost everyone went to drink at the closest pub. I went home and fell asleep at the couch.

the weirdest gig i ever played was actually two, the same gig about 5 months apart. this was back when i played drums primarily, as well. My mom teaches a ballroom dancing course to 5th-8th graders and has a graduation dance at the end of each course (twice a year). I had always tried to get a jazz band to play, but she could never afford it. So the last year I lived at home, first year of college, I offer to have my new band play the dance. Granted, we weren't playing all night. Two 45 min sets mixed in with the regular DJ fare and oldies tunes. We put together about 6 or 7 instrumental tunes that would fit with a particular dance (cha-cha, waltz, tango. swing, etc) and then used covers from our list of tunes. The best was having a ballroom full of middle schoolers cha-cha ing to Californication! How sweet! And then we had a few 'listening' songs so that we could play more interesting fare and rock out for the audience. Granted, this audience consisted of said middle schoolers and their appropriately middle-aged parents. But I will always remember the few younguns that came up front, headbanging with all their young might, while we rocked out Immigrant Song for a somewhat shocked audience. Good times! And I made $75 bones. Not bad!

These are hilarious!

I've never played any weird gigs, but one was when my singer booked us at the town square (1000+ people gig :D) without knowing it herself, and she spoke with the arranger twice :D Luckily I and my guitarist went to the agency of said arranger looking for a place at the same gig, and after speaking to her for a while we find out that they don't have any spots left, and that they've booked a band that played at Pori Jazz a month ago (one of Europes biggest and oldest jazz festivals). I then asked what band since we played there last month, and she then tells us that they where called "Undignified Pose", and I just replied "Oh, that us then, didn't know we were so famous that people book us before talking to us!" :D Best reply yet! :D

Probably the weirdest "gig" I've played relatively recently was for for my dad, stepmom and sister. My dad and step mom had never heard me perform before this occasion.

I had just started to get somewhat capable at playing when I moved out of their house almost 20 years ago. Then I did the prodigal son thing until a few years ago.

Something about sitting in front of them by myself singing and playing my acoustic guitar was 10 times harder than wailing on my bass for 4 hours in some bar with my band.

I guess probably the weirdest thing is that my parents are the most unmusical people I have ever known. No one in my family plays a musical instrument except me, but on top of that- they dont even listen to music on the radio, cds, or anything. I played mostly oldies tunes, but even some of the most famous ones were met with blank looks. They are pretty religious too, so I had to keep from doing anything out of line. They seemed to enjoy it though for the novelty at least.

At a trucker´s resting stop....surrounded with (of course) big rigs, with our gear put over sand, dogs walking in between.....approximately 25 people attending....AWESOME (for a 14 year old with 3 or 4 days playing bass).

OK I've got a weird gig. Bike week in Myrtle Beach. Playing in a southern rock band. We play in the parking lot of a strip bar with strippers on raised platforms on either side of the "stage". Bikini's or not you just shouldn't see that kind of gyration in the full sun. Across the lot they had topless electric bull riding. Needless to say it was a difficult gig to maintain your concentration on.

i played with this calypso band for these filthy rich people having a party and they had all this food on the food on the table when we took a break. food i had never seen be4, and there it was: a 4 foot long huge-ass pig dead on table people cutting into it like **** was normal lol, i dont know if thats normal where some people come from but that pretty funky to me. couldnt concentrate on the music, also my gear ****ed up, bass AND amp, just weird all around..

A band I used to be the sound/light tech for did a show for the Arkansas School For The Deaf once. They hired the PA because their's wasn't big enough. 4 or 5-18" JBL subs per side with 4 Apogee cabs per side for tops. Back at the board, which was about 75 feet away, the SPL was somewhere above 125 dB. They wanted it loud so the deaf people could "feel" the beat to dance.

It was unnerving to be wearing earplugs back at the console with ears bleeding and watching the patrons just standing around the mains chatting in ASL like nothing was happening.



dcr

^^ hahaha, sounds amazing!

A strip club where the girls would show their "appreciation" in the other room.

Was booked this August to headline an event that kicked off a new outdoor concert venue in south-central Oklahoma - between OKcity and Dallas.

We are a KISS tribute band, and we contracted an excellent Iron Maiden trib out of Dallas to open.

The promoter handled the booking, contracts, promotions etc. We did a radio interview to promote it and were told to expect 2000 people at the show.

We got the whole rock star treatment, hotel, limo, 50,000 watt sound system. This stage is enormous in a field that you could put on a Woodstock sized event. Full array of professional Lights, 10 foot barricade... it looked like Motley Crue was getting ready to play.

Well... torential rain that weekend combined with what in retrospect was terrible promotion in very limited quantities and poor signage for directions to the event itself lead to well below the expected turnout.

In fact, the limo pulls up to the stage just as our opening act was winding down and there..... are.... FIFTY PEOPLE.... in the audience.

:help:

Well, we of course did our show - complete with a full scale fireworks show and full assortment of pyro and bombs. It was like swatting a fly with a sledge-hammer. What ammounted to a back-yard barb-que party received a full-scale KISS concert in the middle of nowhere.

The people that were there had a fantastic time, but man it was surreal... Best show that nobody ever came to.

We got paid, but the venue owner lost their a$$ on the deal. Word is they came down on the promoter with both feet and canceled the rest of the shows he had lined up for the summer and fall. Sad story but definately one for the book.

:hmm:

played the best pickup gig over the summer.

my family was up. i have an aunt, uncle and cousin that live in flordia and another in texas, so with everybody up is was essentially a week where no one did much of anything but party.

anyways, another one of my uncles owns a bar up here, and with everyone in there someone decided that, since i play bass and my uncle and cousin from florida both play guitar, we should get some gear and play a small set.

well, i had only played bass with either of them acoustically around the fire the night before, and neither of them had EVER played together, combined with the fact that i was the only one who had access to gear, and it was interesting...

here was our set up, in the dining room of the flipside in strykersville this past summer:

we used a cheap karaoke machine for a PA... had 2 mic inputs, one for my uncle singing and one for his guitar... i had an old stand mic, but it didnt work, so we duct-taped 2 mics to that for him and his guitar... which was his, the one piece of gear he had with him. for my cousin, i took down my el-cheapo electric and 15 watt practice amp... and i had my standard setup, with my BC Rich and 30 watt...

well... despite my uncle constantly hitting the strings on the mic bc that was the only way it would pick up the sound (and he had had a few), it really didnt go too bad

Best pickup gig I've ever sort of played at was on the roof of an in-construction wal-mart a few years back. Me and my brother were playing in a sort of band together and we were out with about 4 or 5 friends having a good time after rehearsal, so we still had all the equipment in the car (ford escort station wagon, guitar combo, bass combo, drumset and 3 people, plus a dodge neon with the guitars and bass in the trunk and 6 people). We drove past the wal-mart they were building and noticed scaffolding around the back and a friend suggested we get his dad's generator and see what we can do. We pretty much passed the bucket standing on top of cars to get the equipment up there, and by the time we had gotten back, friends had called friends and there were about 40 or 50 of us parking around back and climbing to the roof. It ended up being a hell of a time, everyone who knew how to play anything just switched around for about 5 or 6 hours until the generator ran out of gas, then we packed up and headed back to a friend's house to drink it off until morning.

Oh man I have a BUNCH of wierd gig stories. I think I've posted most of them before. Let me go look.

Here's one.


I don't think I have that many really wierd stories. My first gig was memorable, and maybe a little wierd. We played in a former church and the draperies caught on fire. (Important note: Tube amplifiers have little very hot things called 'tubes' in them. Tubes should not be allowed to come in contact with reeeeeeeally old cloth wall hangings. Just trust me on this one before someone decides to make your dance area bigger by scooting the amps all the way back against the walls. ) My girlfriend/keyboard player was the daughter of a preacher whose congregation had bought an old church with plans of tearing it down and building their new church in that location. Then their two richest congregation members both died and all of a sudden the church was too poor to consider construction. We practiced in the sanctuary of the unused church building. All was cool until people came to listen to us and started a fire.
And then there is this one
We did a private party at the amazing house of a rich couple. The house was the most impressive one I had ever seen. We set up in the living room facing a wall of two story-tall windows, with a huge landscaped lawn and a pool in front of us. What no one had told us was that the hosts were some kind of nudists/swingers. At some signal I never noticed, people began peeling clothes off during our set. That was kind of shocking, but it graduated to REALLY shocking when some of them started doing the nasty right in front of god and everybody. The good news is that the ones who were doing it right there in that room were not where we could see them without trying. The bad news is that we could see nearly everybody else just fine. Now, ordinarily, one would assume that since we were all hormonally crazed young men, we should have been all thrilled and joining the fun. That's what would have happened in a porno movie. But in real life there is a major difference from the movie version: these people were UGLY. There are people out there who should only be naked after making sure there are no cameras to see them. There are people who should only be naked after making sure there are no eyes to see them. And then there are people who shouldn't be allowed to be naked, even in the shower. This party was mostly attended by THOSE people. But we soldiered on and finished our set. The host gave us an awesome tip on top of our already-more-than-we-usually-made pay, making that by far the most lucrative party I ever played. We ended up nearly tripling our usual rate. I think he payed us extra just for not freaking out and running away.
And possibly the strangest:
Soon after I got out of the Navy, I saw an ad on the bulletin board at the music store I frequented. A guy needed most of a band to help him out for one show. It seems that he had recorded an album by himself, playing all the parts. Then he gave a copy to a friend who worked at a local public/independent radio station (KNON! None of the hits! All of the time!)
The friend liked it started giving it some play, and the next thing you know the listeners had picked Tunde and his 'band' to open for a big show the next month. Except there was no band. Just Tunde, with his wife and her sister singing backup. And the gig was to open for someone who was apparently huge in his homeland. So the three of us learned his songs pretty quickly and did the gig.

Now the surreal part: The entire 2500 or so member audience except for one couple, was Nigerian. All of them. And in traditional tribal finery so that you could see what tribe a whole section of audience was because they all wore the same colors and didn't mix. It was like looking at a bunch of high school marching bands sitting in bleachers. And they didn't clap till after we were completely done. Apparently that is somehow rude. In stead, to show that they liked us while we were playing and between songs, they sent little old ladies, likely the oldest people in the crowd, up on the stage with money. At first, one tiny frail woman in red tribal dress came up with a double handful of bills and rubbed her hands together as if she were washing them so that money showered over Tunde while he was singing. Then another frail old woman, this one in green, stuck a bill to the forehead of each person in the band. Then the competition was on and people in alternating colors would come up while we were playing and shower, anoint or pelt us with money. Apparently no tribal group wanted to be out done by any other tribal group. Most of it was $1 bills but still it was cool. I beet I got $100 in ones just from the Yoriba in the crowd. But I think they are Tundes' tribe so they were partial to begin with.

But remember this was in stead of applauding, until we had finished our last song. Then they went nuts. Once we were completely done, you wouldn't believe the reaction. They were practically throwing babies in the air. Then the headliner, Sonny Okosun came on. His music is called Ozzidi (sp?) and you should get some. It is kind of James Brown meets Bob Marley with a little Highlife thrown in, very cool party music. The crowd clearly loved him and they did the money-instead-of-applause thing to him too, so I felt better about the lack of audible response till the end.

Here's another one.

What I think you're talking about is something we did a few times. We started out playing behind a screen while someone played a silent movie of some kind on the screen and we improvised a soundtrack for it as it went along. We had a lot of fun doing that, but would end up not playing any of our established songs that the audience knew.

So we decided to alter the system somewhat. We draped white sheets over all our gear, wore all white clothes, and put a BIG white screen up behind us, and then showed films ON us. We couldn't see the audience at all because of the light in our eyes. And we couldn't tell what the image being shown on us was, so we couldn't react to the image anymore. We just played and had a complete blast doing it.

And another:

I had one gig that was immensely cool, although not all that surreal. I suppose in person I could make it sound surreal when I tell the story. But it really wasn't all that strange.

We were playing a club and a fairly major storm came through (big surprise. This IS Texas, after all.) All the power in the bar died. Suddenly we were in a dark cave full of somewhat cranky slightly inebriated people.

So the keyboardist and I ran out to the truck and got the guitars we used to write. One of the waitresses went around to the tables and lit a bunch of those little glass jar things with the candle inside. Since there was no electricity, we sat on the front edge of the stage and played acoustically on two six-strings and a twelve, while our drummer played hand percussion on whatever objects he could find at hand.

All the patrons who stayed until the lights came back on basically drank for free till then.

One of the strangest, anyway...
I used to play with a 10 piece African band in L.A. We did a gig in a downtown "underground" club that was literally underground, in a basement downtown. Al's Bar, I think it was called.
The ceiling was low, like about a foot over our heads, with the fire sprinkler's sticking out below that.
Part of the show included an African dancer who did a fire-eating act, and he would take a big swig of lighter fluid (really!) and then blow out a big blast of fire.
So he comes out to do his act, and suddenly I put together "low ceilings" "fire sprinklers" and "big blast of fire" and got real nervous. I actually unplugged and replugged my cord without looping it (I used to loop my cord around the handle of my amp head so it couldn't be accidentally unplugged) so I could yank it out of the amp and jump off the stage if the sprinklers came on.

The sprinklers never came on. They were probably too old to work. Not sure if that was a good thing in the big scheme of things, but it sure was a good thing that night...

Nothing too strange has happened to me yet, really; I haven't ever performed for money yet, though I might soon.

One time my Jazz camp was performing some Big Band tunes for seventh and eighth graders, and apparently a lot of the guys had beards. In other words, they were probably held back 10 years.

But I was too nervous to look away from my music, considering the fact that it was my first time performing.

This was a holiday party for a Space Observatory last year...they paid us extra to finish early....

This is the bizarre video evidence...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UQBgNTw1Umc

Look at that crowd going !

a high school lol

The weirdest by far, was a gig (Spark In The Park 4) at a park in Pacifica California. It had been a wet year, and nice summer, so there were these lady bugs/beatles everywhere! They were all over us, and there was nothing you could do about it. The singer had some problems keeping them out of his mouth while singing!!!

Other notables were:

The first gig I played wasn't that strange, but we opened for the Mentors, at a club called The Stone in San Francisco. One of their fans (CLEARLY), a huge man, was telling my singer - a petite, attractive young woman - "I'm gonna eat you!", and he probably would have. (well, he looked hungry)


The first gig with Left Out Lamont in early 98, we had a woman flash us with her biggums, and dance on a handrail in front of us. I thought, if this is our first gig and we're getting this reaction - damn, this band is going to be good!


We played a record store once in Portland. That was weird. The folks in the jazz section didn't look too happy about it. No one bought our CD, but Blue Oyster Cult had played there the night before.


We played a Rock Against Violence in Grass Valley on a farm - in a corral, yes there were cows and horses, and pigs.


A UC Davis freshman initiation. The seniors invited us and another band out to this barn in the middle of nowhere. Then, cars of kids started showing up. The had the freshman blindfolded, and then led them on a gauntlet on the farm grounds, telling them that they were breaking into a UC building. They get all the kids in the building, hand them a cup of "punch", and then finally told them to take the blindfold's off - where we then proceeded to rock out.


The gig at a sportsbar where our PA (we had to bring our own) blew out, and we had to play for another 2-1/2 hours - instrumentally. That was funny because most of our songs were very vocal oriented, with harmonies. But it was a lot of fun anyway, being a sportsbar no one was really paying attention to us, and we still got paid!


Then there was the time we drove to Monterey to play a gig only to find out that they had cancelled us and another band was playing. That sucked.


The Fresno State Vintage Days Festival Battle of the Bands which we somehow won in 2000. I just remember my drummer saying "what do you mean, we won?" and then I had to go up and accept the award - and back then I was not too versed at talking on the mic (I think I may have thanked the other bands), the singer would usually handle stuff like that, but he had gone to get the car.


A skate park festival in Stockton, also in 2000 - where I played guitar in front of people for the first time in a "noise" band. The promoter who was doing the festival had a band, but most were not able to show up, so he asked myself and my drummer (of my band Left Out Lamont) to perform. I opted to play guitar as he said "you can play whatever you want". The best part was that there was like 70 people watching us, and we were just making the sounds up on the spot. I never even knew the names of the other guys who were playing, aside from my drummer, and the promoter. If you want to hear some of it, go to my myspace page, the song is called Novacain 3, but I think the singer originally started off by introducing it as "killing me softly with this song by clint black". I thought it was pretty cool for having been done on the spot. And while it's not me playing it, you can hear my 1986 Fender Jazz Bass Special.


And somehow, seemingly at every gig, there was always some drunk guy who would stand real close, or sit on the stage, rocking out - sometimes puking, sometimes being pulled away by friends or bar management.

Pardon my english but here goes my story

Couple of years ago i played in a crummy bar in Sudbury Ontarion and 10 mins before we start there was about 10 people in the bar.

The club owner says to me " theres an arena in front and the place gets packed for 20 mins betwen the periods...

Did it finally get packed?

You opened for the Mentors?!??

Bet that was a crazy show. Disgusting and crazy...

You opened for the Mentors?!??

Bet that was a crazy show. Disgusting and crazy...

yeah, with the FFFF club in tow!

yeah, with the FFFF club in tow!
Lovely...

My first gig!

We were at Chinatown for a basking event. So we were playing our thang and our audience were a bunch of retired Chinese grandpas and grandmas.

My band played hard rock/metal covers/originals in a library. After that, we played in front of a hardware store, because it was near the library and the owner of the hardware store saw us packing up and wanted us to play more. Needless to say, it was a good time.

I think i'll chime in on this one. My experiences haven't been quite as weird as some but some have been aggravated.

I played with my dad's praise and worship band for an outdoor block party type thing. In september. In Portland, Oregon. I don't know why any of the event planners didn't stop to think, "Hey, we live Oregon. It just might rain." It was all going well until we all suddenly realized that we could all be electrocuted.

A concert (still, held at a church) where we were promised top billing, an hour long set, provided equipment, and 50 bucks each. When we showed up, we were billed third, given a twenty minute set, no equipment was there so we had to plead with the other bands for stuff, and we were given a forty dollar red lobster gift certificate...to split between all of us. It galled us especially cause the entire event was set up by our former youth minister. We weren't so fond of the guy after that.

Also countless church gigs, usually with just an acoustic guitar bearing worship leader who would yell at me to "stay on beat" even though there was no drummer and he was the one who couldn't keep a tempo.

In 1992 or '93 A promoter cought a show that the band I was singing in at the time asked us to do a 50/50 show featuring him(DJ) for the 1st half and us the 2nd. If I remember correctly, we were doing alot of Who, Living Color, James Gang(yea!) etc... Fairly eclectic set.
It was a familiar venue but we didn't know the promoter. A couple nights before the show, the promoter showed up with a box-full of flyers that read "RAP & ROLL"..blah,blah,blah.
(Rap???)
Needless to say, in the early 90's, a band playing mostly rock would most likely be booed off stage... as we were.
Ya' know what though?... That night was a blast for the band.
Sorta' united us. AND it's one of my favorite gig stories.

This was a holiday party for a Space Observatory last year...they paid us extra to finish early....

This is the bizarre video evidence...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UQBgNTw1Umc

That kid is breakdancing to Tom Petty...sweeet..

Our band played at a boxing match in kalamazoo, Michigan....they had what looked like a homeless lady sing the national anthem....of course she screwed it all up and our keyboard player started screaming the words along with her...as if that wasn't enough she tried to bum a ride somewhere with the dude that was singing with us......freaking hillarious....hahaahaha

You opened for the Mentors?!??

Bet that was a crazy show. Disgusting and crazy...

Was just about to say this as i was reading..

this one isn't mine, but still funny.

One of my profs here at BYU told me about his first pro gig (he is a drummer). Anyway, I go to byu, and, well, yeah, byu, mormons, whatever. So he is a good guy and goes to church and what not. Turns out the gig was at a topless bar. He told us he was telling himself the whole night "just look at the music, just look at the music."

Opening for a kareoke night in a church basement. Our first gig, totally played for like 23 people!

I played a german dominatrix venue once. The Actual venue itself was in the basement of an Indian restuarant. The way they have it set up, all the walls and ceiling supports are made of stone and all the wall lights are dim. It gives it a "dungeon" like feel.

When we came in to set up, everyone was walking around in skimpy leather outfits with leashes and chains and shouting german drinking songs at each other. Interesting indeed.

The gig itself was actually pretty fun. Just imagine a blues band playing to a goth rock group and you get the picture.

In 1973 (yes, I'm old :rolleyes:) we were asked to play at the post-funeral gathering of a chap who was the head of a "family" in NYC. Most of the folks at this event were older and of Italian heritage, so we were directed by the guy running the thing to play only subdued Italian-type tunes, to include some Sinatra and Bennett ballads, etc.

About 1 hour into the gig some other guys from a rival "family" came to pay their respects .... just like in the movies, there were the stares and glares between these two feuding groups, lots of whispering, tons of tension. One of the visiting "family" members came up to the band leader (sax player) and told us to play some more upbeat stuff .... he specifically wanted us to play some Louis Prima songs. The leader called "Oh Marie", we started to play it and the guy who booked us immediately made us stop the song. :ninja:

About 10 minutes later, the "Oh Marie" is back in front of us with his jacket opened a bit, showing the handle of a piece in a shoulder holster. He says, "I told you to play some Prima", so rather than argue with a bullet we kick into "Oh Marie" again. Annnddd, we're stopped again :help:

Now, both sides of these "families" are openly flashing their weapons and words are getting exchanged .... and we, the band, are cr*pping in our pants. Finally, some tiny little old lady about 5' tall walking with a cane comes up, smacks two of the gun-toters with the cane, curses at them in Italian and sits down in a folding chair in front of the band. It was deadly quiet for what felt like hours, but was probably only a minute or so, then the people all went back to their chatting and we went back to Sinatra ballads .....

Wild gig ..... :hiding:

In 1973 (yes, I'm old :rolleyes:) we were asked to play at the post-funeral gathering of a chap who was the head of a "family" in NYC. Most of the folks at this event were older and of Italian heritage, so we were directed by the guy running the thing to play only subdued Italian-type tunes, to include some Sinatra and Bennett ballads, etc.

About 1 hour into the gig some other guys from a rival "family" came to pay their respects .... just like in the movies, there were the stares and glares between these two feuding groups, lots of whispering, tons of tension. One of the visiting "family" members came up to the band leader (sax player) and told us to play some more upbeat stuff .... he specifically wanted us to play some Louis Prima songs. The leader called "Oh Marie", we started to play it and the guy who booked us immediately made us stop the song. :ninja:

About 10 minutes later, the "Oh Marie" is back in front of us with his jacket opened a bit, showing the handle of a piece in a shoulder holster. He says, "I told you to play some Prima", so rather than argue with a bullet we kick into "Oh Marie" again. Annnddd, we're stopped again :help:

Now, both sides of these "families" are openly flashing their weapons and words are getting exchanged .... and we, the band, are cr*pping in our pants. Finally, some tiny little old lady about 5' tall walking with a cane comes up, smacks two of the gun-toters with the cane, curses at them in Italian and sits down in a folding chair in front of the band. It was deadly quiet for what felt like hours, but was probably only a minute or so, then the people all went back to their chatting and we went back to Sinatra ballads .....

Wild gig ..... :hiding:

Cool stuff, No matter how tough Italian mobsters may be, the old Italian mother/grandmother always reins:D

My band played a gig at a local bowling alley (the lanes were shut down). Half way through our set, the sound guy from the bowling alley gets pissed off at us (not sure why) and pulls the plug from our monitors, cutting out the sound on our vocalist. I'm still plugged in and rocking out, until i realized that all the other music had stopped.

To top it off, our lead singer and the sound guy started jawing at each other and threatening each other (all of this while the audience is still watching). Our lead singer picks up one of their monitors and throws it down the lane.

We barely made it out with our lives.....good times!

ive played at a taco bell behind the counter (don't ask we still are not to sure why ourselves)

Bangor, Maine.

Nuff Said.

i played in a cold damp basement, but we couldnt bring our drummer cause we had to play "quietly" lol that was the only time i told my lead and rythm guitards to turn their amps up, and they were somewhat nice and let my put my bx-15 on 5... bad gig though on the whole