Crazy stuff that's happened en-route to a gig

[Waffles and Scotch]

We played a show Friday night and the first band went on really late. Turns out their drummer was hit by a drunk driver on his way to the show! His equipment was fine and he played really well, despite having totaled his car and being a little sore...

What kind of crazy stuff has happened to you or someone you know en-route to a gig?

[Gord_oh]

a friend of mine flipped their band's van filled with their equipment in it.
he may or may not have had a few drinks before hand...

[nance511]

at one point we carried 7 people in our band. And, usually, all 7 people were on stage whenever we played a gig.
That said, as we had just graduated high school, nobody had a car that was capable of carrying everyone's gear AND everyone in the band at the same time.
Two different situations happened because of that on the way to two different gigs:

1) Our drummer had taken Ambien the night before a show, then taken his ADD medication just before we left for the gig. The combination fried his brain and while we were on the highway in bumper to bumper traffic, he got out of the car and ran off. Like literally ran away off of the freeway and into a neighborhood. We had to call his brother to go get him and he eventually found him sitting at an intersection drinking a Slurpee.

2) We were sitting at a red light in downtown Dallas when I realized that the back hatch door on my Pathfinder wasn't closed all the way. At about that point, the light turned green and I instinctively pushed the gas. The force was enough that the back door opened and guitars, keyboard and drum stands all slid out onto the hood of the little Mazda behind me. Thank goodness for tailgaters I guess.

That's what happens when you have way too many people to keep track of and way too much gear to stuff into not enough vehicles.
The next band I gigged with, there were 4 of us and the lead guitar player drove a giant Toyota pickup. Problems solved.

[Russell L]

1)-High school (c. 1967)---our drummer's girlfriend was killed in a car crash the night before we had to play a gig. We were all stricken. The drummer played the gig, although in a daze. I remember when we picked him up, he had that glazed-eyes look. Just awful for all of us.

2)-1970---fender bender in the snow after playing the night before in Atlanta. Onto Lake Lure, NC for the next gig, in the snow. Gig was cancelled (after we made it there). Later, the van, with all of us in it with the equipment, threw a rod and caught on fire---in the snow---on I-26. 4am, no traffic, all five of us standing in the emergency lane watching the fire go out. An angel, in the form of an old man in an old pickup with a chain, came by and rescued us. Mercy.

3)-Mid-'90s---the sound man and I heard a noise on the road. Pulled over to find that one trailer wheel was hanging on by just one lug nut. The rest of the wheel looked like it had been cut with a torch. What to do? I remembered that there was a place nearby that sold campers. We just happened to be close, so we unhooked and, sure enough got a wheel and new lugs (had to beat the old ones out and install the new ones). made it to the gig. The crowd came out and helped haul the equipment in. We started just a few minutes late. Whew.

4)-c. 2008---didn't have the current registration with me when trying to get onto Ft. Jackson to play the officer's club. All the way back home and back to the fort (about thirty minutes). Thank goodness for cell phones.

[pbd]

I had a sax player set up a gig and then not show up, we got there, we played and wondered where he was all night. When he showed up at the next rehersal we asked him what happened. NOTHING happened! He just forgot. He said he was really bored that night and wished he had something to do!

Todd

[Waffles and Scotch]

Originally Posted by pbd

I had a sax player set up a gig and then not show up, we got there, we played and wondered where he was all night. When he showed up at the next rehersal we asked him what happened. NOTHING happened! He just forgot. He said he was really bored that night and wished he had something to do!

Todd

Haha!! That's awesome.

[Ripley]

My drummer and I were heading to a party weekend in WI and missed our turn onto a major highway. Turned out to be a good thing, as the equipment trailer popped off the hitch while we were cruising down a two lane state road at around 9pm. He managed to steer us onto the shoulder and the trailer tongue ended up six inches into the gravel.

Fortunately, no real damage, no cops showed up, and we were able to get back on the road in 15 minutes or so.

[HolmeBass]

Originally Posted by Ripley

My drummer and I were heading to a party weekend in WI and missed our turn onto a major highway. Turned out to be a good thing, as the equipment trailer popped off the hitch while we were cruising down a two lane state road at around 9pm. He managed to steer us onto the shoulder and the trailer tongue ended up six inches into the gravel.

Fortunately, no real damage, no cops showed up, and we were able to get back on the road in 15 minutes or so.

Similar thing happened to our trailer, but it was on I-81 headed to Roanoke VA. The chains kept the trailer connected and from digging into the road too hard, Willie was able to pull over onto the should and connect the trailer properly again.

That same trailer also lost a wheel once, not on the way to gig but coming home. The fender had gotten folded and bent into the wheel well, with the constant rubbing eventually the wheel blew. Thank goodness it is a 4-wheel trailer as it was easy to control the trailer onto the side of I-81 (this time down in Bristol, VA).

A long time ago, with a rented UHaul trailer, we had a wheel completely shear off - and dragged the axle stub for 100's of yards down I-85 at about 80 MPH. The rooster tail of sparks shot up about 50 feet into the air and the sound was horrendous. That was the worse one, the closest to having the trailer flip over. We had to stop and spend the night, then get a new trailer the next day. We had been completely ignoring the 45 mph speed limit for those little trailers and the bearing on that wheel had just heated up and eventually seized, and the torque of the wheel still trying to roll on the road just twisted the axle in two. We never even recovered the wheel that flew off the trailer- it just happened and then the horrible noise of that axle grinding into the road hit us. We were lucky we didn't lose all of our gear on that one.

[TinIndian]

Well, Friday afternoon I was in a head on with a car that was hit by another car and forced into me. Fortunately, my kids and I are ok for the most part, mainly just shaken up. My car was totalled though as we hit going about 40MPH. After we got out of the hospital I played that night, our best local gig and didn't want to let my bandmates down. Bad thing, my ribs are killing me, good thing didn't have to do any of the lifting.

I'm glad were off this weekend.

[skwee]

Please tell me you filed a report. You will need massage therapy, and you
'd better make sure your kids aren't going to seriously mess up their necks for years to come. Speaking from experience@

[martinmcfly]

Once we were playing a gig on New Year's Eve and we all drove seperately. Me and my wife and the drummer and his wife and the leader singer were there but the guitar player who was coming with his girlfriend wasn't. Well, they finally show up and they have blood all over them and they are arguing. Apparently they stopped to get something to eat and were eating on the way when they got into an accident. It wasn't blood, it was catsup.

[Rockmusician]

In my band in the early 80's the drummer was driving the equipment truck. The keyboard player and I were with him. There was about a foot of snow on the ground but the highway was clear. We were heading down Route 95 in Connecticut and he decides to move from the right lane to the left, not seeing a station wagon doing about 100 miles per hour in that lane and coming up quickly. The station wagon went into the median and actually passed us. He spun around and finally came to a stop. We had to drive about 4 miles to the next exit in order to turn around and go back to see if he was o.k. The entire time all the drummer could say was "I think I just killed that guy". When we got back to the scene, the police had shown up. The driver was fine and was walking up and down the highway looking for his side mirror. It seemed that was all he cared about. He found it and after talking with the police for a few minutes he left. Our drummer was cited for an unsafe lane change.

[El Beardo]

I have a similar story.. Waiting in the turning lane right in front of the venue when a car going about 30mph slams into the back of the truck. My equipment(in the back of the truck) went up in the air but somehow landed right back in the bed. The truck I was in hits the car in front of us and stops us... and BOTH cars flee the scene! My head destroyed the windsheild(no seatbelt at the time ) Fast forward.. Got to the gig, equipment all worked but my head was killing me.

[TinIndian]

Originally Posted by skwee

Please tell me you filed a report. You will need massage therapy, and you
'd better make sure your kids aren't going to seriously mess up their necks for years to come. Speaking from experience@

It's all being dealt with. Doctors, X-Rays, the whole thing. In fact I have my 1st massage thing this week. Biggest thing with me is my ribs on my right are hurting like a mother and I've had a dull headache for days. The kids are paramount to me out of all this and with my wife being in the medical field she knows all the right questions. Thank God.

[bassman1185]

A few years back, my first real band was doing a "tour" around the midwest. We had a gig scheduled one night outside of Kansas City, Kansas, and another in Jefferson, SD. We didn't have a place to stay in KS, so we drove all night to Jefferson. Got there around 4:30-5:00am. We still didn't have anywhere to stay, so we found a park and slept on some picnic tables.

Around 8:00, I was awakened by a lady asking if we were "the band." It turns out to be the show was cancelled, so we drove to Minneapolis and blew a bunch of money at one of the casinos up there because most of the band was 18-19, and MN allows 18 year olds to gamble.

[Jools4001]

Way back in the 80's I was driving our van to a gig with the lead guitarist and drummer in the van and all our gear in the back, the keyboard player and singer had travelled separately.

The van had a cable operated clutch, and in the middle of London, in heavy traffic, the clutch cable snapped and the clutch wouldn't disengage. I managed to snatch the van out of gear by using brute force on the gear lever, this stopped us running into the car in front, but once the van was out of gear it wouldn't go back in again. Fortunately, the van's engine cover protruded back into the cab, so we lifted that off and we managed to use a Mic stand wedged between the exhaust and the clutch actuation lever to actuate the clutch, so we drove through London with the lead quitarist heaving back on the Mic stand every time we needed to start the van moving or change gear.

[chuck3]

A lot of stuff seems to have happened in the '80s.

More recently, our lead singer was at our drummer's house before the gig, and the drummer's dog bit her right on the lip. She looked terrible and would not do the gig, which I kind of understand. But the guitarist and I had to sing lead all night, which was not easy. We joke about singers but, man, there's a lot of words and stuff that goes with being a lead singer!

[Saxn]

Had a one-time gig in Los Angeles that required our five-piece band to be flown there from Atlanta, GA. We were pulling out onto I-75 at around five in the morning when we got a call from the venue that the gig was cancelled. No explanation for why. I never found out what happened to the airline tix and I was pretty pissed that I could have slept in that morning.

[millsbass5]

Wow... I could tell some REALLY FUNNY & GREAT stories from w-a-y back in the day while on acid driving (Yes,kids. Driving....) to gigs.

[mpdd]

back in the nineties we had some beautiful woman in a trench coat flash us while we were parking before our show at a tiny club in akron