Has Anyone Ever Played Tricks on Band Mates during a Gig?

muljoe · #1 06-10-2011, 12:52 PM

I was wondering what are some of the best tricks or jokes you have played on fellow musicians/band mates during gigs?
I’ll start off with a few…

Some of the simplest ones have been de-tuning just one string a half of step on one of our guitarists. It was pretty funny because he didn’t notice the half step when using his pedal tuner before we started. It only took him one note to find out what we had done…

We also have a bad habit at practice of dropping into metal breakdowns at our rehearsals (tapping, guitars behind our heads, huge half time breaks, and drummers riding the bell). We are an indie rock band and all don’t really like metal that much, so our lead singer always just says we are really dumb and to quit doing it. So we decided we would do a metal break down at one of our shows after a song, without him knowing of course! It was pretty funny, because after the song one of our guitarists detuned to a drop D, while his signal was still going to his amp and that kicked off our metal break down. Our singer just stood there not really knowing what to do and just laughed with his head down (as one guitarist drops to his knees doing a stupid taping solo behind his head, while the rest of us take power stances) and apologized to the crowd when we finished. It was really funny because most were just high school indie/emo kids who just stared at us not knowing how to take in the METAL!!!!!!! So that was a good one too

Lastly, one day I thought how funny key changes were, and how funny they would be if the lead singer didn’t even know one was about to come. We decided to pull this one off, on a song that has a bridge that builds into a high chorus. Right before going into the Chorus we played a 5/4 5 into the new key (which was only a full step up…we didn’t want to be too mean) and hit a huge B into the chorus (Supposed to be an A). He obviously really missed it vocally and with his guitar. It was hilarious to hear him squeal for a note but it only took him half a bar to change keys and get on the same page. I sang really loud as back ground vocals to help the “transition” feel smooth. He thought it was really funny, and we all had a good laugh.

Just wondering if any of you fellow TBers have done similar things. And yes, I do take music very seriously as well as the rest of my band, but we just like to have some fun every now and then. As a side note, I would not try this or recommend trying this on your fellow band mates that aren’t musically savvy enough to pick it up within a few seconds…other wise you risk a train wreck.

Let me hear your stories!!!! It’s a slow day at work and I could use a laugh or two!

lo_freq_geek · #2 06-10-2011, 01:45 PM

Not a bandmate prank but during a musical I was doing tech work for. During a scene in which a lead was giving a speech from a podium, someone in the cast replaced pages of the script with softcore porn pics. He kept it together but the shocked look on his face was priceless.

pbagley · #3 06-10-2011, 01:52 PM

Not to your level of prankishness, but I sometimes play the Wizard of Oz theme while the vocalist is talking over the mic (If I Only Had a Brain).

I've launched into "Take 5" or "Money" and had the drummer follow me until they figured out they were off, reset, try again, get off, etc. That one works just once per new drummer.

- Paul

muljoe · #4 06-10-2011, 01:54 PM

The musical one is really funny, and good work Paul! Our guitarists have gone into Top Gun more times than I care to count on solo parts.

evil monkey · #5 06-10-2011, 04:27 PM

not happened to me but i saw this band that the bandmates put some sort of oil
on the drummer's sticks so they were slippery and he kept losing them during the
show his facial expressions when he went through 6 of them were hilarious

Stan Laurel · #6 06-10-2011, 10:38 PM

I occasionally do musical jokes on our pastor. Once at the beginning of an evening service (which are more laid back than the morning services) I was playing very slow and quiet lead-in music on piano. I think only our sound guy caught on to what I was playing. It was a very slowed down version of the Warner Bros. Cartoon theme song. (I didn't do the "Th-th-th-that's all folks!"
I have threatened to start the bass line for "Money" for an offertory, but I haven't actually done it.

bound'n'blocked · #7 06-11-2011, 12:15 AM

This one happend to me once years ago....

I'm afraid of four kinds of snakes. Big ones, little ones, live ones and dead ones. Our guitar player wasn't and it was not strange for him to get out of his truck and kill one and throw it in the back for the skin if he saw one in the road. We were headed to a gig once and he had the gear van and killed a BIG rattlesnake near his house on the way and tossed the thing in a plastic bag for later (he was having a belt or strap or something made with the skins). Later, while we were setting up I needed something out of the van. He told me about the snake but I figured he was just messing with me so I went out to the van. While I was rooting around in there I came across a bag with something strange in it. I looked in it and saw the snake and about shat myself. I came running in to the club all freaked out cussing him. He just said "I told you it was in there." Later on during the night we were doing the song "Copperhead Road" and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned and looked at the singer next to me and he's holding the dead snake in his hand RIGHT NEXT TO MY HEAD! Good thing I was wireless cuz I ran about 20 feet off the stage area into the crowd. Everyone in the place started dying laughing at me.

BnB

steveksux · #8 06-11-2011, 11:49 AM

One drummer I played with was notorious for getting lost during fills and coming out on the wrong beat. So we started adding a beat to a measure when he went into a fill, had a sign we worked out to cue the other guys. It was pretty funny, he'd realize he was off and swear and try to get back on the beat. Never suspected what was going on until we did it half a dozen times in one song.

This was the same drummer that started "Three Times a Lady" in 4/4 time. We were all good sightreaders, so we'd just get a chart for a special song for the bride and groom, just do it at the gig. We're like What the hell is going on, we can read better than this! Suddenly, we realize, the song's in 3/4 and the drums are in 4/4. Hey!!! its in 3/4, dummy!! Don't stop!!! Go to 3/4!!! I can't, keep going, nobody will notice!!!

So we just took a note that was 2 beats in each measure, and made it 3 beats to round it up to 4/4.

There was one singer who liked to drink a little too much sometimes. I had a little phillips screwdriver to make quick adjustments to my bass, so I took it and poked a small hole in the can of beer on the side by the opening you drink from. Instant dribble glass!!! He wasn't singing on a couple of songs, so he went out to sound check, sitting on the pool table, took a drink... WHOA!! he jumps, can't believe he spilled beer on his shirt... looks around to see if anyone noticed.... ah, cool, nobody saw anything. (except us, trying not to laugh). Took another drink.. WHOA!!!! what the HELL is going on here???? He's thinking maybe he's had a few too many, have to be more careful.. then took another drink. .. AGAIN???? This time he looked at the can and noticed the hole....

One guy I was performing with, he ran sound, had the mics all set pretty much the same on the board. I had a low output ribbon mic, and sang quiet to boot, so I needed more gain on the mic. Nope. Sing louder. This went on for a while, finally I got in early one night, twisted the gain knob on my channel to where I thought it should be, then took the knob off and replaced the knob so it was pointing to where it was set originally. Problem solved... lol

Randy

Codymb · #9 06-11-2011, 12:01 PM

This prank wasn't really during a gig, but it was at a gig so I guess it counts.

After a particularly late show one Friday night, my sleep deprived lead guitarist decided to go take a nap in the van after we had finished playing. Once the rest of band realized where he was, we all silently crept over, snuck in side, took our positions in the seats and on the count of three we started yelling and screaming and shaking the van around. He woke up in a panic and started trying to steer the parked van to safety. We all had a good laugh, but I think we might have traumatized him. He doesn't really like to drive as much anymore. But I guess that's to be expected considering he legitimately thought he was going to die and kill all his friends in a fiery car crash there for a few seconds.

BryanM · #10 06-11-2011, 03:28 PM

The keyboardist from my old band did his best to throw the popeye theme into every jazz standard we ever played. He got pretty good at doing it discretely.

CopperheadLXXIX · #11 06-11-2011, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Codymb

This prank wasn't really during a gig, but it was at a gig so I guess it counts.

After a particularly late show one Friday night, my sleep deprived lead guitarist decided to go take a nap in the van after we had finished playing. Once the rest of band realized where he was, we all silently crept over, snuck in side, took our positions in the seats and on the count of three we started yelling and screaming and shaking the van around. He woke up in a panic and started trying to steer the parked van to safety. We all had a good laugh, but I think we might have traumatized him. He doesn't really like to drive as much anymore. But I guess that's to be expected considering he legitimately thought he was going to die and kill all his friends in a fiery car crash there for a few seconds.

I love this.

spaz21387 · #12 06-11-2011, 04:12 PM

I still mess with my guitarist he thinks I have like 10 different p Basses every practice I bring a different one and swap Pickguards so he gets confused.

Howlin' Hanson · #13 06-11-2011, 04:15 PM

Tricks on bandmates? This:

Farting during a show

Datsgor · #14 06-12-2011, 11:39 PM

Had a gig in San Francisco right on the water front. My guitarist left his door open as he moved his amp accross the warf to the stage. His guitar case was sitting right there on the seat. So, I snagged it and put it in my truck. A little while later I see him kinda cruising around, looking in and behind dumpsters, alleys, etc. Then he comes up and says "guys, I think someone stole my guitar. It was right there on my seat" I told him I had it. So, not so much a prank as a lesson taught I think.

Depth_Charge · #15 06-13-2011, 12:02 AM

Onstage antics were rare, but I did have a drummer decide it would be funny to turn my bass down during the intro to "Killing in the Name Of" once. Yeah, the bit where ONLY the bass plays. Real funny. . .

That killed the mix for the rest of the show, because we ran sound from stage, and in his wisdom the drummer rolled my gain off, not my volume, and both me and the guy working the sound board starting adjusting our respective boards (my pedalboard, his sound board) to resolve the problem. . .

That was my last gig with the group, and the camels back was already broken by them (I meant to say then but thats a better turnout haha), so that straw didn't add any weight.

JakeAndAirwaves · #16 06-13-2011, 12:08 AM

My last gig with the band I had to leave, which I played guitar in, before one of our songs that was about a breakup (cliche) the vocalist said "I wrote this song about when [bassist] broke up with me. He is with [me] now. ITS NORMAL!!!"

Will Kelly · #17 06-13-2011, 10:07 AM

My buddy that is an awesome drummer used to spend at least ten or twenty minutes before each gig tuning his drums.

For some time, I used to carry a drum key on my keychain. I saved a lot of guys with that thing.

Anyway, when he went to the bathroom right before we started, I detuned the heads on his snare and bass drum.

The look on his face when we started the first song was priceless and had us all rolling. Boy, was he pissed.

He did get me back, too. I came back from a break that night and we started playing and he had detuned my bass!

ZubenElGenubi · #18 06-13-2011, 11:34 AM

Not a gig, but rehearsal prank. Here's the backstory: We added "Walk Away" by the James Gang to our playlist and had rehearsed it a couple of times. But my bandmate - who suggested the song - emails the band about two hours before rehearsal saying he can't sing it.

I called him right back and said that since we'd all learned our parts, I would try to sing it, but I wasn't going to sing like Joe Walsh. He said that was fine. I called the other guys and told them it was still on the practice list and that I was singing instead.

When I told my wife all this, she came up with this brilliant, evil idea that was just too good to pass up. And she recorded it for posterity.

Walk Away Gag Reel

You won't see me much in the vid, since we wanted to record his reaction. And you might not be able to hear me very well at first, but by the break, you'll hear what all the guys were hearing in their IEMs. The guitarist in the middle is the one who suggested the song in the first place.

I still sing like that during soundchecks just to get a reaction from them.

Konigstiger22 · #19 06-14-2011, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lo_freq_geek

Not a bandmate prank but during a musical I was doing tech work for. During a scene in which a lead was giving a speech from a podium, someone in the cast replaced pages of the script with softcore porn pics. He kept it together but the shocked look on his face was priceless.

That is awesome!

steveksux · #20 06-14-2011, 07:36 PM

We were on the road, driving in a pickup with a camper top, followed by guys in an old utility van, (The Mt. St Helen's Van was it's official name) with probably a million miles on it, leaking exhaust fumes into the truck.

The MSH vah was behind us, and the guitar player, owner of the pickup/camper, had run under a bank drive through and shaved off the bubble window on the top of the camper top.

We brought a bunch of oranges to eat, forgot and left them in the little fridge in the camper top. After a few weeks, they were really rotten. So as we're going down the freeway, we started pitching the rotten oranges up through the missing bubble window, trying to time it so they'd come down and hit the MSH van. We got pretty good at it, we were pelting them for a couple of miles. Windshield was covered with oranges by the time we finally stopped...

They couldn't figure out where they were coming from. Figured some kids were dropping the oranges off overpasses, but couldn't figure out how they kept up with us, from overpass to overpass...

Randy