Ever been afraid for your life at a gig?

[Topkat13]

One time our keyboard player had bran flakes for breakfast...we all lived but our drummer, sitting directly behind, suffered singed eyebrows.

 

[leerod054]

I played some fantastic gigs way back when I played full time. But we spent one week playing at a particular bar that I was ever so glad to leave. It was back in '79 in Detroit at a biker bar somewhere around 6 Mile and Gratiot. We played biker bars before and always got along with them. But the gang in this bar was bad news. You could feel it in the air.

On the 4th of 5 nights in between songs one of the bikers said something pretty derogatory to us and our singer immediately had a comeback. (Uh-oh.) I'll never forget this biker as he strutted up to the stage with a cue stick on his shoulder. Pointed it right in our singers face and said "one more word out of you and you're a m***** f****** ghost." Thank God that our singer kept his mouth shut.

On our last night there they shot some guy outside the bar. We never player there again.

I wouldn't have played the last night if they'd threatened my lead singer like that chances are as old as we are us old farts would have said something back and it would have been on lol.

 

[Monolithbass]

Never feared for my life, but at a place in North Jersey called the Sherwood Forest we had some motorcycle gang guys throwing M 80's onto the stage as we played. We had played there a few times before that event to a roughish crowd but with no "real problems". Couldn't (understandably) get the band to go back after that.

 

[Dricoman]

I lived in Phoenix for several years and used to go metal show at The Mason Jar. I remember many a rough show there.

Yeah the Jar had a chain link fence and I had to laugh when I saw it. It was to separate the underage kids at the show. The Jar is still there with a new name. Played in Globe/Miami Az one time and our first song was by the Ramones. One guys said play us some Waylon Jennings..........we didnt fit in at all... the bartender paid us to leave. Very embarrassing!! We hacve some rought bands in the Phx Metro area also, Apache junction has a few biker bars with well know bike clubs.

 

[Ronzo]

Did an audition for a country bar in 'Ft. Liquordale'. After the audition the owner says we have the gig, what it pays, etc., then says "now, when the fight starts, play louder so some people won't notice". He wasn't kidding.

Was this place in Davie?

 

[Surfers Guts]

Had a gig cancelled at a bar in Des Moines because somebody got stabbed there the night before. They rescheduled us, and we foolishly took the new date. It didn't turn out to be dangerous, but some loopy local latched on to me and handed me a book of Melville short stories with a picture of a young boy tucked inside. "That's my son. He's dead," she croaked in my ear. She stripped down to lingerie and danced all night, then left a ring in a box at my feet at the end of the night.

Guys, I didn't go home with her, take it easy.

That was the weekend of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Was playing and a "lady" danced over and pinched my ass. I'm nothing to look at, btw. I was offended for a few minutes and then kinda hoped she'd do it again, but she wouldn't lol.

 

[Econoroller]

My first gig was in a strip club when I was 15. The bar was on a slab and one guy rode his chopper into the club (through the door, in case you thought he might have come in through the wall). Chico, the bar's owner, wore a ratty denim jacket with bicycle reflectors sewn into it. He wanted us to play for free after hours, I said you gotta pay us, man. He motioned for me to follow him into the back room, where he grabbed me by the throat. Luckily, the singer, a tough girl bigger than the two of us, broke it up lol.

In Lawrence Ma (a city with a higher murder rate than Boston, the cop bouncer told me proudly. Before I forget, this cop was beaten to death with a softball bat in broad daylight in the same neighborhood a short time later, and the guy who killed him was acquitted) in the early 90's a guy on the dance floor was sticking people with a hypodermic needle for fun. Next he ran out the door and highjacked a car out front, careened with the car's owner in the passenger side into So. Lawrence, where he smashed the car. This had happened during one of the weeks we weren't there though. During a break, I did witness this same cop severely beat a little Puerto Rican kid into unconsciousness for insulting him.

At the same bar, one drunk passed out cold on the floor, so they dragged him outside and propped him up on the wall, but brought him back in when the bar tender decided they shouldn't do that as the bar would get in trouble, you can't just leave people passed out on the sidewalk out front, so they brought him back in to sleep it off on the floor by the door. We decided we should dedicate a song to him, so we played "It's Not Supposed to Be This Way." One of the lines in the song is, "You're supposed to know that I love you."

Back in the day, a passed-out kid was run over and killed in the street out front of a nearby bar one night when the local group The Fools were playing.

Almost forgot the night the bartender kicked the teeth out of a guy on the sidewalk in front of the Black Sheep. Bloody teeth all over the sidewalk. Nasty poopie you see and can't do anything to help the victim.

I hit "like" but not coz I like that behavior, that's fo sho. I'm puzzled and I always will be...by the way people always have to run amok and get violent when they get the opportunity, or alcohol n' drugs is in the mix. I drank bargeloads. I did enough drugs to kill horses back in the day. But *** man I never wanted to hurt anyone or even be in the mix with people who DID. I remember how that mentality changed the whole dynamic of Venice beach. It went from sex n' partyin' to watch out ya don't get stabbed or robbed, and you had to roll thick if you went out at night there, going out alone was out of the question unless you were armed....and then you were really only providing the other ingredient for something really bad to happen. C'mon humans. Get it together. We aren't supposed to live like this and treat each other like this. Instead we glorify it and almost condone it. On the news we sensationalize it. We make violence the flavor of the week every week....aww here I go on a peace rant again. Fk it...

 

[Hambone70]

Almost electrocuted playing outdoors when it started raining. Does that count?

 

[ThudThudThud]

Closetst was a gig at a known biker pub in Southern England. Usually everyone was very well behaved, and amiable.
One night our singer made an off the cuff "Irish" joke before a song.
As the song finishes a biker walks up to the stage and whispers in singer's ear.
Singer goes white as a sheet, and his ever-present smile dissolved.
Afterwards the singer told us the biker was Irish, and did not appreciate the joke. Nor would he appreciate any similar utterances going foward. Yeah. We'll leave it there.

 

[GonePlaid]

Was this place in Davie?

441 and Stirling Rd.

 

[NZBassman]

Once many years ago we played at a party in a barn about an hour from my place… I remember this mainly because it was in the middle of nowhere (very rural South Auckland NZ) and it took me over 2 hours to get home because it was pitch black when we left and I didn’t know where I was or how to get back on the main road / motorway to get home

Anyway about half way through the gig someone spots a Possum somewhere in the roof / rafters (Opossum - Wikipedia)

A farmer looking dude comes in about 5 minutes later with a rifle and attempts to shoot the Possum. He clearly had too much to drink and was on no state to even stand up – let alone being in charge of a fire arm!

I think he fired about 5-6 random shots towards the roof…. Didn’t hit the possum (who scarpered away somewhere) I think he ran out of bullets or something and put the gun down to continue drinking.

 

[Econoroller]

Almost electrocuted playing outdoors when it started raining. Does that count?

Slightly misty day but nothing worrisome, outdoor event, we're having P.A. probs...we (think!) we've got them solved. -So we start the show, I go up to the mic to sing the 1st lyric of the 1st song and POWWW!!! --the entire audience goes "Ohhh!" and cringes in horror (you know it hurt when they do that) -they had also seen the same 1/2" long purple arc come off the SM58's screen onto my upper lip, and I guess that crack that came thru the P.A. really made it more dramatic. I suppose me stomping around cussing and unstrapping my guitar and kicking over the mic stand in a furious tantrum did too. I HATE GETTING SHOCKED! -and that sucker made my lip bleed it hit me so hard. No lie! -I have a ritual now where I lick my finger and while holding the strings, I tap the mic to make shure....get it? ....shure? -he he he ya I know that was pretty bad but hey my brain got a lil' fried that day

 

[Jimmy D Seville]

When I was 15, I played bass for an all black band, the "Metamorphics". It was inspired by the Funkadelics. Anyway, we were scheduled to perform at a black talent show in Vallejo, CA. This was in 1971 and there was a lot of racial tension back then and me being the only white guy in band. When it was our time to perform, a fight broke out in the front row between two black guys and all hell broke loose. The stage was rush by the audience. The bass drum got kicked in, a set of congas got damage and my Hofner bass got stepped on and broken at the f-hole. None of us got touched in this melee, just our equipment. Needless to say, we didn't perform. Two weeks later we performed on the local Vallejo radio station. I guess this was their way of apologizing. The band faded into history a year later.

 

[Ronzo]

441 and Stirling Rd.

Yup. Know that area well. South of the Hard Rock, both physically and mentally!

 

[Surfers Guts]

This scene looks fairly unthreatening, right?
View attachment 3366180
That's me with the guitar, playing for the folks at a teachers' gathering. The gathering was for a national strike, in El Salvador, in 1992, which I had been helping in organizing. That was the day that the government newspaper, Diario Del Hoy, ran an article on the front page about the strike, listing me by name as a "leftist foreign agitator" who ought to be killed for fomenting unrest. During the preceding 10 years, the police, army, and death squads had murdered hundreds of teachers, during a 15 year civil war. The union provided me with armed body guards until I left the country.

My vote for the most serious sh!t so far.

 

[QweziRider]

... unless we're playing an "after hours" situation. I hope you all have the same such luck, but don't need it.

The deal with Fremont Street stages is that it's an outdoor venue in a not-so-great part of town. You're good when on stage. Plenty lighting, plenty people, plenty ways off stage. It's going to get your vehicle about a half block away, in the dark, plenty of hidden corners, and asked many many times "Hey, buddy, need help loading your stuff?" Always requires a healthy dose of situational awareness. So far, I've had the luck you speak of.

 

[Econoroller]

Got my ass kicked for being a longhair toward the end of the Public Image Limited show at the Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles 1980. I have to admit, it made for a memorable gig, as I always loved bands with auto-destruct finishes to their set. But getting auto-destructed myself took it to that next aesthetic level.

Here's the late Darby Crash (Germs) wild-posting for that gig.

View attachment 3366752

I had a crrrrazy time at the 1985 "L.A. Street Scene" gig. -I dunno HOW the other ones went down so well without complete bedlam. That one was like "cops n' rockers" -Then Rage Against The Machine at the convention center during their democratic convention free concert in 2000 -whoa- another downright scary one was the "monsters Of Rock" festival at Anaheim Stadium, 1988. Our drummer and bassist and myself attended. BIGGEST foodfight I've ever seen! -but the violence was frightening and we had actually figured out our "escape plan" and agreed on meeting someplace if it got worse, and everything....when Metallica played "whiplash" kids broke down the fence barrier that was blocking them from the floor of the stadium. There were folding metal chairs there, evidently for VIP's? -those were hurled like frisbees everywhere. Metallica left the stage like 3 times, begged the audience to chill out. They FINALLY did. And it was like 100F + outside that day, which only added to the uptighteyness of the crazies in the crowd. My bandmates and I spent a good portion of that show being careful not to get hit by flying objects.

 

[Dave Neal]

Hum interesting topic.. yes I had a leftover fear of gigging after doing an open-air gig in the Netherlands in 1988. After the gig, I was brutally attacked and beaten by two total strangers. Their steel toe boots fractured my skull and shattered my right shoulder they also broke both my legs ... Why? They were, drunk ex Dutch Marines looking for some action. I spent many weeks in the hospital and many more in physiotherapy and have been in and out of hospital ever since with a total of 8 operations to repair my left leg They were caught and charged, but it took a major toll on me mentally until I finally broke down in 2010 With CPtsd and major comorbid depression. I am better now after many years of therapy and gig again, go to parties and visit public places without fear and without the need to self medicate with Alcohol or drugs. I now help others that have been damaged either physically or mentally by the hands of others. Yes, I was afraid for my life that day, most certainly.

 

[two fingers]

Yep.

15 years old (maybe 16). I was playing in a band called Borderline. We did classic and southern rock. Radio rock. We got booked at a country bar by mistake (turns out there was a band named Borderline a couple hundred miles away that did both kinds of music..... country AND western). That had thought we wuz them. We wuzn't them.

Near the end of the night the big cowboy bouncer walks up to the stage at the beginning of a song and plays his Dirty Harry style revolver on the stage and says "You boys is cutn' this awf raht nayuh."

The rest of the band were all in their thirties. They start talking trash to the guy about whipping out a gun. Guiyar player says "You want guns? I got TONS of guns!"

I decided to case up my bass and skin out the back. As a 165 pound teenager I wuz skeert!!!!

 

[kesslari]

Hum interesting topic.. yes I had a leftover fear of gigging after doing an open-air gig in the Netherlands in 1988. After the gig, I was brutally attacked and beaten by two total strangers. Their steel toe boots fractured my skull and shattered my right shoulder they also broke both my legs ... Why? They were, drunk ex Dutch Marines looking for some action. I spent many weeks in the hospital and many more in physiotherapy and have been in and out of hospital ever since with a total of 8 operations to repair my left leg They were caught and charged, but it took a major toll on me mentally until I finally broke down in 2010 With CPtsd and major comorbid depression. I am better now after many years of therapy and gig again, go to parties and visit public places without fear and without the need to self medicate with Alcohol or drugs. I now help others that have been damaged either physically or mentally by the hands of others. Yes, I was afraid for my life that day, most certainly.

Wow. I feel really sad and angry to read that you experienced that. Glad that you are through the worst of it.