Funny Stuff? Post the funniest thing that's ever happened to you on stage!

[Scatterblak]

After 30+ years or so gigging, I've seen some pretty funny stuff. It's a great time to get with some of the Nashville road dawgs and hear some of their stories (Usually much better than mine anyway), and they're always good for a laugh; I *know* the TB crowd has to have some great stories - if they're worth a laugh, please post them here! I'll even go first:

I was playing a mid-size venue (about 2200 or so) with a country artist years ago (early 90's or so); don't want to mention any names, but he was a good singer, a really good writer, and he didpretty well - did some big tours, made a good living, etc. A good guy, but a bit starstruck with his own talent; his claim to fame was that he'd known Keith Whitley, and Keith had actually taught him some guitar back in the 70's and 80's, and he liked to mention this to the crowd (which is actually kinda cool, if you're a country fan). This particular night, packed venue, we were getting ready to go into a cover of Keith's 'When You Say Nothing At All', and my guy is speaking to the crowd: "I'd like to do a song for y'all now that means the world to me, and I'd like to dedicate it to the man who taught me to play guitar. He was a tremendous artist, and an inspiration." After a 3 second or so wait, I leaned forward to my microphone, and said 'Thanks.' My guy's head snapped around instantly - I think he was really pissed off for about a second or so - and then the entire place busted out laughing. He did, too, and it took us another 15 secs or so to actually start the song. I still talk to him every now and then, and with some of the old band, and we still laugh about that night. Probably wouldn't have been as good at a bar gig, but with a big production, lights down, and 2,000+ people who all got to be in on the joke - man, it was beautiful.

Now tell me some of your stories!

-S

[Scatterblak]

Originally Posted by Scatterblak

...I think he was really pissed off for about a second or so - and then the entire place busted out laughing.

...I might add that he later introduced me as his 'ex-bass player'.

[warnergt]

Originally Posted by Scatterblak

...I was playing a mid-size venue (about 2200 or so)...

Great story but I was already laughing when you defined a mid-size
venue as 2200 or so. Man, that would be huge for my band.
Someday - maybe.

[Scatterblak]

Originally Posted by warnergt

Great story but I was already laughing when you defined a mid-size venue as 2200 or so. Man, that would be huge for my band.
Someday - maybe.

2200 was mid-size for that guy - it was freakin' huge to me! Those were the old days, when I was young and thin and pretty - now I have my own band, and we do 350's to 750's or so - large nightclubs, etc. Sure was fun to play in front of that many people back then...

[JohnMCA72]

In about 1977-78 I was in a band that played the entire Rush 2112 suite. To keep it from being overwhelmingly long, we split it so that the 1st couple of segments finished a set, then we went on break & came back into it at the "waterfall scene" (or whatever it's called - it's been awhile...) to open the next set. Part of the show, while the solo guitar was playing, was to blow fog out onto the stage over the drum riser. This was heavy dry ice fog & looked pretty cool for the day. The fog machine was homemade from a sealed galvanized steel trash can with a cattle trough heating element in the bottom. Flexible dryer hose led from the lid to the points where we wanted the fog to emerge. 1st stage of setup was always the fog machine; we'd put about 10 gallons of water in it & plug in the heater. A lot of times we'd get a good boil going by the time it was time to use it. The earlier the setup, the hotter the water & the better the effect. A cloth bag with a bunch of crushed dry ice would be dropped into the hot water, the lid quickly shut & strapped down. It did a good job of pumping out a high volume of fog, very quickly. The heavy fog would flow down off the drum riser, off the stage, & create a blanket about 2-3' deep over a pretty big area. It was only good for 1 shot per night, unless we could get a whole lot of dry ice & wait long enough between shots for the water to heat up again. Most effects like that are best used sparingly anyway, so that wasn't a real problem.

One time, I was waiting off stage on the opposite side from the fog machine. Drummer & singer were responsible for fog at that particular venue. otherwise I would have been involved too if it were set up on my side. Somehow, they didn't get the lid secured in time & a huge cloud of fog just exploded up & obscured everything on that side of the stage from my view. The guys over there just disappeared. The guitar player was a little freaked, but kept playing just fine. The crowd thought that was how it was supposed to go & loved it! There were a few seconds when I wondered if everybody was OK. Then they came out of the fog, waving their hands wildly to try to clear it away. The cloud was heavy enough to fall out quickly, the singer & drummer found the stage again, & all went on normally from there. From my position at least, it was hilarious!

[makkE]

First song of the set. Drummer grabs a brandnew pair of sticks and counts in. Stick breaks on 4 and hardly makes a sound, everyone's confused, then everyone bursts out laughing.

[jb63]

At one gig there were a bunch of people for a high school reunion class of '65. So we decided we'd play the whole first set with songs from that year. The drummer pulled up the hot 100 from that year on his Blackberry and handed it to the band leader. We were rolling along just great, until the band leader hit the wrong button and was treated with an X-rated video. We were laughing so hard that we had a train wreck.

[Ubersheist]

Mine was about 12 years ago, and not really on stage. I was in a church band that played at a Catholic 2-year college's graduation ceremony. It was a fairly long ordeal late in the afternoon. They had erected a large canvas tent for everyone to sit in and to block the sun, as it would've been blinding people's eyes if the tent wasn't there.

We had multiple breaks. We'd have to be relatively quiet, as the priest/professor was giving his sermons while we were breaking. On one of them, the guitarist/band leader found an empty box. He put it on his head, and started being very goofy with it - dancing around, pretending to be a robot, and spinning around in a circle. Hilarious!

The funniest part was when we got back off of break. We were told very quickly that the shadow of the guitarist from the sun, which was low on the horizon by then, got cast immediately behind the priest for all of the audience to see. So, while the priest is trying to give an uplifting speech about ambition and morals or something, there's a shadow on the canvas behind him of this guy acting like an idiot.

I think it must have been even funnier in the audience then our perspective.

[Moe Monsarrat]

I was on stage at a large club in Corpus Christi, Texas & the house was packed. I'm up there running around & I notice there's about a 4-5 lb. toad frog on the stage with me. I mean this thing was huge. So I picked it up & tried to hand it to my road mgr. standing on the side of the stage. He ran away in terror (pussy!) so I finished the song with it in my hand.

[slaps76]

Was playing a gig, ran across the stage behind the singer, tripped over the drums, fell, knocked the mic stand into my singer's mouth, which started bleeding....I never missed a beat.

Think it was the same night, our last song was Anarchy in the UK, and basically the crowd and the "stage" area became one, with people just rocking out all over the place. I turn around, and there's a dude lying on the floor, passed out right in front of the drum kit. Earlier that night, I saw the same dude pour his own drink over his head. Good times.