A Gig Story. Sort Of.
 

For most of the 1980s, I worked in a number of bands. Not as a musician, but the graphics/promo material person and unintentional lights guy. Though I played guitar, I know the difference between ‘Should be on a stage’ and ‘Shouldn’t be’.

At this point in the saga, our bass player and one of my best friends, Mike, has started living an hour away in Kansas City. Studying to be an engineer....After five or six years of band brotherhood, he doesn’t want to leave us hanging so he makes these long drives. We know he can’t keep doing this and his days with us are coming to an end....He stays at my place for local gigs.
This weekend is busy....We have a Friday/Saturday night bar gig and a Sunday afternoon fair gig at the local Armory.

The Event:
Leaving my place Saturday for the night’s show, we put our stuff into my car, which is parked on the street. We get to the bar and start taking stuff out only to find his bass is not there. He had set it down while loading and forgot it....I hauled a** back and nothing.(I lived in the outskirts of the city. Across the street was just open fields, no heavy traffic)
Got to the bar. We contacted a friend who owned an instrument shop, got him to open up and borrowed one from the used gear section....Worked the weekend’s remaining gigs and returned the loaner.

So:
Before leaving town, Mike put an add in the newspaper’s Lost And Found with my contact info and left me twenty bucks reward money, for the finder.
A day or two latter, a guy calls and says he has it. Asks me for details on the item. I say a ,Rickenbacker 4001 bass. Tobacco sunburst finish/ white pickguard in a black hardshell case. He tells me he’s not into music, and asks what is a bass?...I say a four string guitar. He asks about the other contents of the case. I said I don’t know, it’s a friend’s and explain the whole situation to him and about the weekend gigs. He says OK.

The next day, I drive to his place which is a few blocks away....Can’t tell you the relief of seeing the thing again.(I watched Mike play a blonde copy for years and was with him when another band’s player told him he wanted to sell it)...After some chatting about how he drove up and found it sitting by the curb, I go to give him the twenty dollars, but he refuses. Says he just wanted to get it back to it’s rightful owner....I explain this is a very expensive instrument, please take it. He wouldn’t. I say Thank you, pleasure to have met you and leave.

Conclusion:
Next weekend, Mike’s back at the practice house. I deliver his baby back to him. Give him his twenty bucks back and told him about the good Samaritan who found it.

That's just great that there are people like that.

I'm glad he got his bass back and I'm glad there are people like the Samaritan.

Great story!

I've often wondered what the odds are that someone like that would've come along.

our lead player left his 50th anniversary Custom shop strat sitting on the sidewalk after a jam one night , the studio owner found it and kept it safe till next week when we came to jam , the guitar player thought it was gone forever. His eyes lit up like candles when he saw it again , The owner of the studio has our undying loyalty to his place now!

That studio owner is golden...He'd know how to cash it,in a dozen different ways.If he wanted to.

Definately , but he treats us like family there, He rents space out in three hour blocks , but lets us jam as long as we like, BBQ's for us in the summer months and always invites the band to special feasts he puts on at Christmas and New years. He is one of the best, Top notch recording facility too , a old abattoir that he converted into a recording studio, roof still has the rails they hung carcasses from after slaughter, cool atmosphere and all musicians hanging out there, great way to immerse yourself and to make contacts in the local scene. I am thankful they welcomed us and allowed us to plug in

This story kind of makes my day.

Nice. I had something similar happen once. It was the first show of a tour. There had been some miscommunications in the booking, so long story short, we had the headliner let us use their backline, with just our drummers cymbals on the kit, and we got out of dodge as soon as our set was over and started driving out of town. Two hours down the road, drummer sits bolt upright and shouts "****, my cymbals", and remembers he left his cymbal bag outside the venue. We busted a$$ back, showed up at 4 am, the only people left at the venue were the headliners, waiting around to see if we showed up to claim the cymbals.

I have found that there are far more honest and caring people in the world than there are the other kind. The bad ones get louder publicity, though.

Dan K.

Wait...so did this happen in the 80s or more recently? :confused:

It happened in the mid '80s...'84/'85 maybe.

Always good to see bands look out for each other, instead of 'screwing with the competition'.

There are some great people out there.

Here's my story of good people still existing:
Years and years ago Robin Crosby (guitarist from 80's band Ratt) was working at a local mom and pop guitar shop. I walked into the shop and he was looking at this Jackson custom shop Firebird all misty eyed.

It turns out that he had lost a lot of his gear over the years, after the bands heyday, either due to selling stuff off or from being stolen. In anycase, a friend of his saw the guitar at a guitar shop in LA and bought it. He then gave it to Robin for his birthday.

Awesome stuff man.

That was a beautiful thing to do...I know Robin had a very difficult road after Ratt....May he rest in peace.

+1