The dangers of jumping around stage

[MichaelScott]

I’ve been working on my stage presence a lot. And after 2 weeks of rehearsing jumping around, looking away from my left hand, and interacting with the other members of the band I was ready to try some of it out at my gig last Friday night.

It went pretty well for the most part. I played a little sloppier but I the crowd was into the music more. And then it happened:

Our last song rocks pretty hard and the rhythm guitar and I jump back into playing after a shredding guitar solo.

I jump

I kick my heels back

I kick my amp combo

The volume slides from 2 (which was plenty loud for the venue) to 10

I land while I slam down on my E string.


It was like an atom bomb blast going off behind me. I didn’t realize the volume had just moved and I thought I might have driven my heel through the grate into the driver. I know I didn’t keep my game face on and I had to turn around to verify my fears.

It took what felt like forever (but was probably only 5 seconds) to figure out the volume was up because I kept looking at the face of the cab to make sure I hadn’t kicked a hole through it.

The moral of the story: make sure you have plenty of space in front and behind you when you jump around.

[pin_head_47]

I can only imagine the look on the crowd's face when you landed and hit that note. Probably freaked the crap out of them as much as it did to you. If done right, that could have actually turned out pretty cool.

Last time I got too freaky on stage, we were playing an outdoor gig on a flatbed trailer, which was obviously not the most stable stage ive ever played on. On the very last song, my head got shaken to the point that it just fell off the cab. Ouch.

Crazy thing was, i never even noticed it fall... it landed upside down, and the top space in my rack is open, so the rack took out the all the shock, and she just kept right on goin. Luckily my cable from the amp to the head was long enough. My rack got all bent to hell, but the amp's just fine.

Next time im planning on using a thick piece of foam pad and some bungie straps. Once was scary enough.

[Eric Cameron]

I am helping to run an underground venue for local garage bands. It's non protfit, so it's taking a lot of donations to keep it running. We had a big concert over the summer, and decided to advertise in the local parade. We had the house band (great metal group called Genetic Disgrace) play on a trailer drug around by a truck. I was running sound from the back of the truck when a cable got pulled out. The truck stopped momentarily, so I tried to go from truck to trailer to plug it back in. But my foot slipped, and I went face first into the railing around the trailer. Luckily, I hit hand first, then face, and I was holding a Capri Sun in my hand, and THAT'S what my face ran into. Splattered juice all over the place, but it kept me from haveing a broken jaw or missing teeth.

It looked really funny, though. Plus, our float took first place!!

You can check out the venue website at www.musichaven.org

Rock on
Eric

[DaveDeVille]

i can relate ...
a few years ago , my band { the Indecision's } was playing at a local watering hole . plenty of customers ,
bar manager is very happy , cash register is ringing ... good times !

right in the middle of Elvis Costello's " I'm Not Angry " ,
our singer leaps around , falls off of the two foot high drum riser , lands awkward and tumbles
off of the band stand ... onto the dance floor , with his Gibson ES335 guitar in hand .

as if that wasn't bad enough , somehow he gets his foot caught on my cable and rips it from my amp as he was falling .

at the same time , the keyboard player reaches to try to catch him , and manages to tip one of his keyboard stands ,
spilling backward against a floor monitor ...

dancers and drunks all thought it was pretty cool , and the drummer played through the whole mess ...

we somehow managed to get it together after all that and finished
the gig . oh yeah , fun time was had by all ...

edit : just remembered the name of the song we were playing ...