• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Horrible Lineups

#82
Strangest I've seen from the audience was a 3 piece rockabilly band open for Van Halen back in the '80's...I think it was the Diver Down tour...They were actually pretty good, but were booed badly between all the songs...

Strangest I've been a part of was a year and a bit ago when I was sitting in with a country singer...We played a festival and the lineup was metal band - metal band - metal band - us - metal band - metal band etc...Strange but we actually went over half decent, we had to pull out a fews bluesy tunes and some classic rock covers but they loved the Johnny Cash...
 
#83
A few years back, I was in a RHCP-ish rock band. We were playing a fundraiser/variety show at the university. There were a lot of cool musical and non-musical acts and a fairly large (for us, 150+) crowd. People were really enjoying the performances and all was going quite well. The problems began when our drummer realized that he accidentally left his kick pedal at home and was unable to borrow a replacement. As a result, we were forced to go on last.

This would have been fine except for the fact that immediately preceding our set was a "John Edward" style psychic, doing cold readings on the audience. I don't usually go for this sort of thing, but it could have been entertaining. It could have been someone, well practiced and trained in cold reading people. It could have been someone confident in his abilities to commune with the deceased. It could have been someone capable of communicating with the living. It could have been someone capable of thinking on his feet and improvising. It could have been entertaining, or at the very least, mind-numbing.

What we saw instead was an inept, nervous man embarrass himself repeatedly while grasping at every imaginary set of letters and numbers he could come up with, hoping that someone in the audience would recognize some initials or a birthday. What we saw was a psychic fall flat on his face, try after try. And even in some cynical way, I could have found comedic pleasure in watching someone fail, but this was a wholly deeper level of disaster. My first emotion was disappointment, followed then by frustration at his obliviousness of his situation. But my feelings turned quickly to anger and sad acceptance when one by one, every last audience member left.

If I were a smarter man, I would have played along. I would have tried to save the day by lying to the audience about my dead aunt as much as he lied about his "powers." I could have even gotten my band to play along. But I drew the line with this guy when he tried to convince an audience member that her sick relative was actually dead.

In the end, even the promoters running things couldn't get this guy to quit, and it literally took everyone leaving to convince him to stop. Since my band and I had nothing better to do at this point, we played our hearts out to two girls trying to raise money for their beloved pre-vet department.

And after that night we never followed a psychic on stage. Ever.
 
#86
superjesus said:
A few years back, I was in a RHCP-ish rock band. We were playing a fundraiser/variety show at the university. There were a lot of cool musical and non-musical acts and a fairly large (for us, 150+) crowd. People were really enjoying the performances and all was going quite well. The problems began when our drummer realized that he accidentally left his kick pedal at home and was unable to borrow a replacement. As a result, we were forced to go on last.

This would have been fine except for the fact that immediately preceding our set was a "John Edward" style psychic, doing cold readings on the audience. I don't usually go for this sort of thing, but it could have been entertaining. It could have been someone, well practiced and trained in cold reading people. It could have been someone confident in his abilities to commune with the deceased. It could have been someone capable of communicating with the living. It could have been someone capable of thinking on his feet and improvising. It could have been entertaining, or at the very least, mind-numbing.

What we saw instead was an inept, nervous man embarrass himself repeatedly while grasping at every imaginary set of letters and numbers he could come up with, hoping that someone in the audience would recognize some initials or a birthday. What we saw was a psychic fall flat on his face, try after try. And even in some cynical way, I could have found comedic pleasure in watching someone fail, but this was a wholly deeper level of disaster. My first emotion was disappointment, followed then by frustration at his obliviousness of his situation. But my feelings turned quickly to anger and sad acceptance when one by one, every last audience member left.

If I were a smarter man, I would have played along. I would have tried to save the day by lying to the audience about my dead aunt as much as he lied about his "powers." I could have even gotten my band to play along. But I drew the line with this guy when he tried to convince an audience member that her sick relative was actually dead.

In the end, even the promoters running things couldn't get this guy to quit, and it literally took everyone leaving to convince him to stop. Since my band and I had nothing better to do at this point, we played our hearts out to two girls trying to raise money for their beloved pre-vet department.

And after that night we never followed a psychic on stage. Ever.
Click to expand...
That, sir, is a sad story.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back