Ever been afraid for your life at a gig?

[IamGroot]

Played some clubs in the bad part of town with a few motorcycle club member providing protection. Felt 100% safe.

Would not play a mc party.

Play at jam sessions way north of Houston with a heavy clientele of the real deal. Dont talk to them or look at their women and everything will be fine.

 

[TheReceder]

Had a guy shoot in the band's general direction back in the early seventies, but the scariest would have been playing Sturgis 50th anniversary bike rally with The Marshall Tucker Band. We pulled up and there were two brutes trying to kill each other with ten foot sections of two inch pipe. And it just got crazy from there. Our sound guy begged for security to get from stage to mix position. He was well over 300 lbs, but he was wearing shorts and kept getting whistled at. Having the music and applause constantly drowned out by a scores of bikes revving in the audience, was a bit disconcerting as well.

I was there.... at least I think I was. I've still got the t-shirt... so I think I was there....

 

[DJ Bebop]

Haha, nothing scarier than 2 hairdressers.

Let me adjust the chair for that!

 

[Matthardy]

So was that about the moment when you found religion?! Sorry had to... No offense intended.

Ha, lowercase god was a reference to picking up the bass.

 

[Kipp Harrington]

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.

These are always entertaining threads to read.

I’ve experienced a bomb threat and (at the same venue) saw someone get stabbed in the neck with a broken beer bottle. The Devil’s Disciples frequented this fine establishment also.

I always felt perfectly safe knowing the DDs had my back. What a dump!

 

[Robscott]

In the 70's we managed to become a favorite band at a huge biker bar in South West Phoenix AZ. It was well known for the rowdy crowd that it attracted so friends, family and coworkers were afraid to go there. We always had a great time because the locals there liked us. The bar tender was as big and bad as it gets and one regular known as "Arizona" always sat at the bar with his back to the bar facing the crowd, he was also huge and never smiled.

Anyway...we had to have a guy at the door for half of our pay (sometimes we did and sometimes we didn't). One night our drummers' brother was covering the door and this guy was refusing to pay the dollar or two to get in. It started getting louded and more animated by the second. So we stop to help out the drummers brother but Mr. Arizona gets up walks to the door grabs the guy and his friend, pulls them in and started beating the poopie out of them, these guys were'nt exactly little either. Then the bar tender comes over and starts on then with a pool stick. These four went at it all over the bar, it was like a movie.

In the end the two fools who didn't want to pay got rolled out in a bloody heap. The police and ambulance came but the police would not come in the bar. Arizona calmly went back to his spot at the bar as did the bar tender, like nothing happened. Meanwhile the the guys out front were screeming and yelling that they were coming back to shoot up the place. The bar tender told us to get back to work and not worry about it. We were terrified the rest of the night but nothing else happened. All for $15 each, all the beer we could drink and what ever we could get at the door.

What was Patrick Swayzee doing all this time?

 

[Pops OB]

My first gig involved the well known rough town of Bell, CA., about 100 bikers, the LA country Sheriffs dept, an officers broken arm, riot and a fifteen minute time limit for us to get our gear and ourselves the he11 out’a there. Never had so much fun, been doing it ever since.
(Anybody here ever play the Canyon Inn. Up in Azusa Canyon. @BassCliff ?)

Wow, that place closed years ago!

 

[ghostinthemach]

Wow, I’m 66, playing since 16. I have a LOT of moments in my past.

The one that comes to mind first was the time our rock band played for a biker club that had a ‘clubhouse’ in the middle of nowhere in a converted church building in backwoods Michigan.

Bikers from as far away as Texas showed up. They rode choppers ‘off road’ and had target practice during the day, all drunk of course.

At night we played for these gentlemen (and the few ladies brave enough to attend) and had to be sequestered in a break-room during breaks to keep us safe from the ensuing wild-west environment outside. Several of them had hand guns worn openly.

When it came time to end our show the guests were less than thrilled with that prospect and we literally had to be snuck out of the place. Yeah fun stuff.

 

[Polka1]

I should have been. But I was way too young to know better. Perhaps we also had an "angel" looking over us.

I pick up the bass pretty young - 11 years old - after my older brother picked up guitar and I wanted to do something different. I became pretty decent at it in a year or two and we were playing in bands. Trouble is that everyone was at least his age, 17 or so, I was still 13 - maybe 14 for some shows. We lived out in the sticks and there weren't a lot of options, but one way or another we met another band doing covers and setting up shows for places that didn't know how to put them together. This band was typical classic rock- solid, but anything you would hear on a classic rock station in the early 90s.

They would hire us to open for them. In dive bars that didn't care enough to turn us kids away.

We were an original punk rock band with a young singer with a huge ego, mohawk, and too much energy for fighting.

I could go on, but the worst of it was that the other band would always book into this one shady biker bar - Pagan. A VERY real deal type of place. In a way it became our home when we were just starting to play in front of any real crowd.

But Pagan's don't appreciate punk rock. They don't really like mohawks. Or attitude.

I think the only thing that held it together is that - A: we were the loudest band, it might have been too much of a SPL assault for them at first to notice or at least they could appreciate. B: we went on slightly earlier in the night so not the drunkest moment. C: all too young to beat to a pulp, although there was often threats and serious ruckus. D: one member of our band was the son of a low key/non-gang biker that supplied the whole area with a certain green supply that is now legal in some states.

In hind sight - and certainly something we didn't understand fully at the time - the only reason they all put up with us for as long as they did was because of him.

Good times, but I don't think I would come even close to putting myself into the same scenario now.

 

[filmtex]

Wow, that place closed years ago!

It was many years ago that I played there, but we had some close calls there too.

 

[vegas532]

I live in Jville. Must have been on the Westside.

It was a dive bar on the far end of Normandy Blvd. near what was Cecil Field NAS at the time. Yeah, WAY Westside.

 

[Dr_Benway]

I was there.... at least I think I was. I've still got the t-shirt... so I think I was there....

I played keyboards back then. That was some trip. We went in by a back road in a Chevy Caprice with bad shocks.

 

[dalkowski]

One of my own gigs? Never.

 

[retslock]

While touring many years ago one of our guitarists - we’ll call him “Joe Blow” for now - got involved with a young girl from a town we played in. At the time the tour was passing through redneck country and somehow her dad found out. There were serious threats issued by the father who said he would be bringing a gun to the next gig.

The tour manager had the bright idea to get t-shirts made up for the band that said “I am not Joe Blow” except for the guitar player whose shirt just had a bulls eye on it.

The problem with all of this is that I had the same first name as “Joe” so yes, I was a little nervous that night and watched the audience very closely.

 

[MynameisMe]

It was a dive bar on the far end of Normandy Blvd. near what was Cecil Field NAS at the time. Yeah, WAY Westside.

Can’t get much further west without leaving the city limits. Lol.

 

[Naturekev]

It was a dive bar on the far end of Normandy Blvd. near what was Cecil Field NAS at the time. Yeah, WAY Westside.

I live not far from there. There is a bar at the corner of Normandy and Chaffee that looks like a place I'd rather not play.

 

[MynameisMe]

I live not far from there. There is a bar at the corner of Normandy and Chaffee that looks like a place I'd rather not play.

No doubt. Plenty of shady bars in this town.
Apparently according to this thread Metro Detroit has eclipsed the rest of the TB nation for bar thuggery. Although it’s a small sample size. I escaped there in the 80’s. Not surprised.
Edit: @Naturekev looks like an interesting band your in. Originals?

 

[vegas532]

I live not far from there. There is a bar at the corner of Normandy and Chaffee that looks like a place I'd rather not play.

I just did a google image search and that was DEFINITELY the place.

 

[pablomago]

I didn't play it but I was at this festival called "Altamont."

 

[Naturekev]

No doubt. Plenty of shady bars in this town.
Apparently according to this thread Metro Detroit has eclipsed the rest of the TB nation for bar thuggery. Although it’s a small sample size. I escaped there in the 80’s. Not surprised.
Edit: @Naturekev looks like an interesting band your in. Originals?

We have about twelve or so originals, eight have been recorded. The songs are on Spotify, iTunes, and Google Play. We play a lot of covers to fill the sets when we gig, but the goal is to eventually have enough material that we can play all original music. We all work very well together. I couldn't ask for a better band.