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Audience member that wants to sit in.

#21
OK, Maybe I embellished a little. Actually, the bearded guitar player to my left recognized him shortly after his group came into the club. He was seated up front and I had seen him and thought nothing of it until Jeff nudged me in the middle of a song and said, "Hey man, is that Tom Jones sitting over there?" I thought he was joking until I took a closer look. I hadn't seen him with a goatee before, so that threw me off a little. I think the club owner bribed him with a couple bottles of expensive champagne to sing with us, but he was there of his own accord. He was pretty cool and is a big fan of blues and R&B, and that was what he wanted to sing when he got up.
 
#22
gigslut said:
OK, Maybe I embellished a little. Actually, the bearded guitar player to my left recognized him shortly after his group came into the club. He was seated up front and I had seen him and thought nothing of it until Jeff nudged me in the middle of a song and said, "Hey man, is that Tom Jones sitting over there?" I thought he was joking until I took a closer look. I hadn't seen him with a goatee before, so that threw me off a little. I think the club owner bribed him with a couple bottles of expensive champagne to sing with us, but he was there of his own accord. He was pretty cool and is a big fan of blues and R&B, and that was what he wanted to sing when he got up.
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We have a winnah! :cool:
 
#23
seanm said:
We allow it on a case-by-case basis. There are lots of good reasons to allow it, and good reasons not to. So it becomes a judgement call.
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I agree with this. Alot of the time the person is harmless and just wants to have fun and thats what ends up happening. I never understood why some people/bands are SO against it. Of course, there are many times were it's not a good idea, but I haven't really come across that (thankfully).

The one thing I'll say is I personally can't see myself ever asking a band if I could play a song with them. Just doesn't seem like something a player should do. To me it's bad etiquette. Even when I would go and see my friends play who on countless occasions have called me on stage to play songs with them, I still would never ask THEM if I could sit in.
 
#24
essentre said:
The one thing I'll say is I personally can't see myself ever asking a band if I could play a song with them. Just doesn't seem like something a player should do. To me it's bad etiquette. Even when I would go and see my friends play who on countless occasions have called me on stage to play songs with them, I still would never ask THEM if I could sit in.
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^^ This ... If it's not a jam session, and they don't ask you to sit in, they don't want you up there. Even when they ask me, sometimes I'll politely decline because they might just be being hospitable when they would rather proceed with their show, or sometimes I just like to go out incognito. Once I was asked to play " a couple songs" with a friend's band. So after a couple songs I looked around for the bass player and he was nowhere to be found. Turns out he went across the street to see the band there. I ended up playing a whole hour. Other times it is a rescue operation when the band's new bass player is struggling and I know the material better than he does. In those situations I'll play a set and let them buy me a drink.
 
#25
I was on tour with a band in '07, playing mostly small venues but making salary. We were at a quaint little place in New Hampshire called Horsefeathers when this guy introduced himself to us and proceeded to tell us he was Rudy Vallee's nephew or cousin, that he was also a successful and talented singer, and that we should let him sit in. The BL said something like "maybe later, we'll let you know". Instead of waiting to be called (which wasn't going to happen) he jumped up on stage in the middle of a song and, in effort to harmonize with our singer, let out a blood curdling scream that in no way resembled singing. Our singer stiff armed him off the stage immediately. The scene played out in about three seconds and looked like a running back warding off a tackle.
 
#26
When I was younger our band was playing a gig and this woman came up with her young son (13 or 14 at the time) who was blind and asked if he could sit in on keys for a song or two. We said ok and brought him up and he was pretty good.

Flash forward 15-20 years and he is a local prodigy on piano, guitar, drums, clarinet, and just about anything else, from reggae to ragtime to rock...
 
#28
Old Fart said:
My sister and her husband were dancing at the Wort Motel in Jackson WY when this ultra-intoxicated old fart came in and wanted to sing with the band. They ignored him until the end of the evening, when they let him come up and sing. When he sang, everyone was stunned. It was Merle Haggard.
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I have actually seen this happen...
He lives about 10 miles away from me, (He lives in Palo Cedro CA, and I live in Shingletown) and I am friends with his old drummer. He has slowed down, now, but there was a time when it was not uncommon to see him in the bars around town. His hang out was at a place called the Oak Grove. When that burned down, he started going into the OK Corral. I was the bouncer in that bar for a while.... We also had Johnny Horton JR step up on stage there, one night. He was just traveling through, and stopped for a drink. We had a hard time trying to remember the old song Whispering Pines, when that was requested



as to the original point of the thread.. I love the cord..
I would never ask to sit in with a performing band. The honor has been offered to me, many times. One guy even offered me his new Brian Moore 5 string, and told me to play the next set out.
Unfortunately I was working as a bouncer, that night, and I could not. I was really jonsing to play that bass though
 
#29
This has only been a good experience one time for me. Every other time it was train wreck in progress, and we as a band would barely make it through to salvage the tunes.

The time it worked, we were playing this dive outside of Charlotte. After the first set, our female singer comes to us and says she has a guy she wants to play Long Train Running. We were really hesitant, as this was just after a gig where we said to never do this again. We relented. And I must say, that was the best version of Long Train I had ever been a part of. 4 part harmony (we usually had 3) and this guy could belt it out. He could play guitar too. My guitarist and I actually offered him a place in the band that night. As we were thinking of dropping out keyboard player. He declined, because he does 200 gigs a year in a Doobies corporate/festival tribute band. No wonder he could bring it.

Out of probably 100 times guys have sat in, only one was worthy of a compliment.

Interestingly enough, I was just at a work convention where they had a good bluegrass band playing around. All of my coworkers were saying "go sit-in man, you're good enough". And all I could think about was how much I hated that. An open jam is one thing, but a scheduled gig is another.
 
#31
We normally don't allow it unless we know the person, and in that case it is usually us asking them to sit in.

This attractive blond who was obvioulsy drunk was hounding us to let her sing Janis Joplin for a full set one night. At the end of the set we had her come up and do it, just her and our guitarist while the rest of us grabbed a drink and took our break.

Here is a snippit I recorded after grabbing a beer. Sit in. - YouTube (poor quality from phone)
 
#34
essentre said:
I never understood why some people/bands are SO against it.
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Risk vs reward. Unless it's Tom Jones or somebody famous, then even if the person ends up being good and the few songs they do are tight, what do you get out of it? Maybe a small sense of musical satisfaction of playing a different song with a different person, but other than that there is no real reward. And the risk is an embarrassing trainwreck. Sorry, not worth it for me. Now, if it is a situation where it is the club owner's son, or where person's friends are willing to tip the band $50 to get them up on stage, then at that point the risk/reward equation has changed.
 
#35
Dont know if this is exactly the right place to put this, but... I once had the opposite experience. On a business trip to the states, we went to see New Orleans (just before Katrina hit) and went with my hosts into a bar. The guitarist in the band which was playing, suddenly stopped, and held out his guitar for somebody else from the audience to take over. A few minutes or so later and the bassist did the same, at which point my host indicated to the bassist that he knew I played, and gave me a quick nudge...... We then had a cool but strange Jam session for a couple of songs :bassist:. Never heard of anything like this happening before or since though.



EDIT - Just saw the post on "open Jam" sessions, and I think this was what I went to, am I correct :confused:, as I'd never heard of them before Lol!
 
#37
essentre said:
...
I never understood why some people/bands are SO against it.
...
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I can't speak for anybody else, but here's why I'm SO against it:

If you put together a show, subbing some random player in & out breaks any continuity that you've worked to build, wastes time, & causes the audience to wander away.

If the sit-in player isn't as good as the regular, and/or doesn't know the material, and/or if the band doesn't know his material, then it sucks.

If the sit-in player is better than the regular, then it sucks when the regular comes back.

Best possible case: The sit-in is just enough better than the regular, that nobody minds the switch & it's a wash, but that takes a lot of planets to line up right to make that happen.

That said, I do play with a jam band sometimes where there's really no "format", no planned show, & more often than not, not even a set list. Sitting in is common in that environment, & nothing much is gained or lost when it happens.
 
#38
BBox Bass said:
This past Friday I went to a bar to hear a blues rock band. I had been in the bar maybe 10 minutes when some guy walked up to me and said "Hey, I have my bass here if you want to play it. It's an Ibanez!!" (like it was the most awesome thing in the world) . I thought ***, who is he, and why is his bass here? After asking a few other folks about him, I discovered that I had met him at another bar a few months ago and he had recently taken up bass. When I later wandered to the other side of the bar, I saw his Ibanez Gio sitting behind the bassist's amp. As a side note, I have a Gio that has been modded and it sounds good, but I don't go around bragging about it.

About halfway through the night, the bandleader asked the guy if he'd like to get up and play a few. He did, and though his playing was passable, it was very basic and certainly no match for the band's bassist. I had to suppress a laugh when he announced that he would always be only second-best to the other bassist. Then he played another, and then another. Then he left the bar.

A little while later, the BL announced that since all members of the band I'm subbing for were in attendance (no, we didn't plan this; I live in a small town and we try to support other musicians), we should get up and play. The bassist asked me "Did you bring your bass or would you like to use mine?" I thought that was an odd question because I have never brought an instrument to someone else's gig. I borrowed his Ibanez, which was a nice SR-series model. If it had been a 5-string I would have offered to buy it. Anyway, we played 2 songs and then sat down.

After the show, I asked the bandleader what was up with Mr. I Brought My Bass To Someone Else's Gig. He rolled his eyes and said that he had made the mistake of offering to let the guy come up once, and now he expects to play at every single show. He had no idea how to stop it now, since the guy is apparently clueless about band etiquette.

I think this event served as a good cautionary tale about letting people get up on stage. As someone earlier stated, there are open jams in most towns. I recently found out that this guy (who I have never seen at a jam) is planning on attending the next show I'm playing and I predict he will show up with his bass in hand. I'm not thrilled about the idea of letting him plug into my amp and twiddling the knobs, but I'm also not sure how to handle it since I'm only a sub for the band and he made their banner.
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By contrast, we had a really hammered maintenance alcoholic (you know that sickening sweet smell?) homeless guy wander to the back line of our band set up (in the round in the literal middle of downtown) during our church's summer-long monthly outdoor Praise and Worship event. He spoke with us for like 10 or 15 minutes while we were playing. He was unable to get a clue -- literally. Drummer, electric and me were trying to shake him off. He kept naming tunes he could go out and do lead vocals for, etc etc etc and complimenting our playing. Made me wonder who/what he was in his former life. Somebody got him some bottled water and they ended up talking with him individually, diverting him from our back line, praying with him and stuff like that. Afterwards I pointed out to the band and sound guy that safety never seemed to be an issue. When I said that, THEN they realized what COULD happen in that type of scenario. In the round in the midst of downtown it's hard to see and manage everything.
 
#39
Factor88 said:
Risk vs reward. Unless it's Tom Jones or somebody famous, then even if the person ends up being good and the few songs they do are tight, what do you get out of it? Maybe a small sense of musical satisfaction of playing a different song with a different person, but other than that there is no real reward. And the risk is an embarrassing trainwreck. Sorry, not worth it for me. Now, if it is a situation where it is the club owner's son, or where person's friends are willing to tip the band $50 to get them up on stage, then at that point the risk/reward equation has changed.
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I guess you never play parties ;) Having the host/hostess or person the party is for come up and sing a song or two can be a huge win. The crowd will love them no matter how bad they are! Trust me, we do this all the time. And it does get us gigs.
 
#40
I am in an all female band, so we just tell people unless they are female, they can't come up. LOL! We have only let up former band mates to this point.

But my husband is a drummer for another band. His band mates said that the guy wanted to sit in and was a drummer.....so my husband let him come up. He ruined the song because he couldn't play AND he broke a tom head!!! So my husband had to work around it for the rest of the night. Never again he said.
 

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