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Major disasters at gigs

#122
nysbob said:
There was also the impalement.
We were heading out to the gig from some shabby motel and there was a storm door - I was following the drummer out, and he let it go right as I was walking out behind and the handle latch snapped back and the latch handle went right through the satin pants I was wearing and impaled me through the scrotum. Blood, extreme pain...had to go to an ER and get checked out...and OF COURSE had to play the damn gig...I rigged up some padding.
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Finally - a story that beats getting bitten on the butt by a goat! WINNER!
 
#123
In the early 80s I was playing a gig in Westport, WA at a nice resort/restaurant/lounge. The band featured me, my wife, a high school buddy and a college buddy who played fabulous drums.

Westport is a famous fishing town on the Washington coast. Huge working commercial fishing fleet and a huge tourist charter boat industry. We were booked for the standard two week deal, Tues - Sat, 9p - 1:30a. Decent band house about five miles down the road in the next town of Tokeland. Nice club, good food - all's good.

For some reason the lady owner of the club had paid us for our first week Friday afternoon. To be prepaid was unheard of! She was very nice and wanted to make sure we could cash our check so we would be sure to have money for the weekend. Wow!

But that week was the week Judge Boldt handed down the fishing law granting Native Americans the right to half of the fish and shutting down a lot of white fisherman. These hard working fishermen were pissed, needless to say and were in the mood to drink and fight.

In our contract there was a provision to have a bouncer present in the room, which was separate from the bar itself by a partition. Well. there was no bouncer present, although there was one at the front door of the bar itself. All that Friday night fights broke out and there was yelling. I was singing and an ashtray flew by my head. Then someone threw a wooden chair that skidded across the dance floor and lit at my feet. Keep playing. Someone yells out 'We know where your staying!" About midnight the room erupted and a knife flashed and there was a big scuffle. So the bouncer and the bartender finally come in, stop the brawl and the room is closed down for the night. Go home early - head for Tokeland.

The next morning, Saturday, I get up and let our dog out, a german shepherd who accompanies us everywhere. Everyone is waking up and getting coffee going. I here the dog 'ki-yi' and a screech of tires. Some jerk has shot the dog with a pellet gun and drove off. Everybody in small towns knows where the band house is and that can be a good thing or a risky thing.

That's enough. We're pullin' out. Hell, we've been paid. We go to the sheriff's office and explain what happened at the club the night before. They knew there had been trouble because they were called in. We say the dog's been shot, people know where we live and we would like a police escort while we go grab our gear and head out of town - the drummer claiming "we're just a nice christian band (hardly!)". The police agree and follow us to the club. The lounge is open for breakfast so we go back and start tearing our gear down and loading it out into our trucks. A couple of big guys come out and say "Where ya goin'? You're under contract - you can't leave!" The band leader says "You broke the contract when you didn't provide a bouncer in the room, someone shot our dog this morning, so we're outta here." Two cop cars were sitting right there, so there wasn't much they could do to us. We were escorted out of town and went on our way home - eyes glued to the rearviews!
 
#125
ryco said:
In the early 80s I was playing a gig in Westport, WA at a nice resort/restaurant/lounge. The band featured me, my wife, a high school buddy and a college buddy who played fabulous drums.

Westport is a famous fishing town on the Washington coast. Huge working commercial fishing fleet and a huge tourist charter boat industry. We were booked for the standard two week deal, Tues - Sat, 9p - 1:30a. Decent band house about five miles down the road in the next town of Tokeland. Nice club, good food - all's good.

For some reason the lady owner of the club had paid us for our first week Friday afternoon. To be prepaid was unheard of! She was very nice and wanted to make sure we could cash our check so we would be sure to have money for the weekend. Wow!

But that week was the week Judge Boldt handed down the fishing law granting Native Americans the right to half of the fish and shutting down a lot of white fisherman. These hard working fishermen were pissed, needless to say and were in the mood to drink and fight.

In our contract there was a provision to have a bouncer present in the room, which was separate from the bar itself by a partition. Well. there was no bouncer present, although there was one at the front door of the bar itself. All that Friday night fights broke out and there was yelling. I was singing and an ashtray flew by my head. Then someone threw a wooden chair that skidded across the dance floor and lit at my feet. Keep playing. Someone yells out 'We know where your staying!" About midnight the room erupted and a knife flashed and there was a big scuffle. So the bouncer and the bartender finally come in, stop the brawl and the room is closed down for the night. Go home early - head for Tokeland.

The next morning, Saturday, I get up and let our dog out, a german shepherd who accompanies us everywhere. Everyone is waking up and getting coffee going. I here the dog 'ki-yi' and a screech of tires. Some jerk has shot the dog with a pellet gun and drove off. Everybody in small towns knows where the band house is and that can be a good thing or a risky thing.

That's enough. We're pullin' out. Hell, we've been paid. We go to the sheriff's office and explain what happened at the club the night before. They knew there had been trouble because they were called in. We say the dog's been shot, people know where we live and we would like a police escort while we go grab our gear and head out of town - the drummer claiming "we're just a nice christian band (hardly!)". The police agree and follow us to the club. The lounge is open for breakfast so we go back and start tearing our gear down and loading it out into our trucks. A couple of big guys come out and say "Where ya goin'? You're under contract - you can't leave!" The band leader says "You broke the contract when you didn't provide a bouncer in the room, someone shot our dog this morning, so we're outta here." Two cop cars were sitting right there, so there wasn't much they could do to us. We were escorted out of town and went on our way home - eyes glued to the rearviews!
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Your dog is alright, right?
 
#126
Brittain said:
Woah woah woah!

I mean, it was good but... nah, wait... damn... :atoz:
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If I ever go back to that venue, no freaking way am I going to turn my FRONT to the goat to top that story!

That's assuming the goat is still there, but somehow I think it still is...I think the goat has always been there...will always be there...in the middle of Iowa....

Jimmy, your tale of Mr. Howe rings so very true, I've seen how he talks to and about his current band members. Talk about ungodly arrogant. The one good thing I can say about him is that he can still belt it out, but if you ever see him live, count the number of songs he actually performs. He spends a lot of time telling stories and talking smack, which means he only sings about 10-12 songs on average. Me thinks the voice is getting a little old...

-Mark
 
#133
Beast said:
Your dog is alright, right?
Click to expand...
Yeah, the dog was alright. He was just freaked. He lived a pretty long life and passed away of natural causes in '87.

OK - this wasn't an actual "at the gig" disaster, but a road story nonetheless:

At one point my wife and I were in a band that was based out of Tri Cities, WA. Don't ask - we still had our home in Seattle.

This band mostly gigged around eastern Washington and Oregon. One gig was in La Grande, OR - a little blip on I-84 just on the other side of the Blue Mountains.

We arrive and the owner says "I booked you into a little motel with cabins up on the north side of town". So after setting our gear up at the club, we drive over to the motel to put our living essentials away and relax before playing. We pull into the driveway of the most run down, beat up row of little shacks I've ever seen. This place must have been built when the first automobiles came out. Shingles are missing from the shake roof, faded paint is peeled and blistered of off the sides. The door to our shack is open and a Mexican cleaning lady is inside working. She comes out, reaches up and unscrews a red light from the porch light and replaces it with a regular bulb. She smiles and scurries away.

We go in and the room is run down and beat up. The bed is made, but it's very lumpy and I don't even want to check the sheets. The chairs are worn with holes in 'em, the kitchen looks like something out of the Grapes of Wrath. I look in the bathroom and the fixtures are old and stained. The grout in the tile is green and missing around the top of the tub. The thick caulk has pulled away from the wall and there's bugs all over.

This won't do. We get in the car and drive clear to the other end of town and rent a room with our own money from a nice mom&pop. Only drawback is it sits about 30 yards from the railroad tracks running through town. But at least it's clean and the people are very nice.

So we play the first night and have fun. It's a fun place to play and the bar owner is friends with the Tri City faction of the band; obviously they've played here or at one of his other clubs before. He can't believe my wife and I found the motel sub-par, but offers to split the bill. Cool.

After the first night the wife and I pull out onto the main drag and start heading the mile and a half to our room. We get about 5 blocks being careful to obey the traffic laws. When playing small towns you learn early band members are easy targets for the local cops. They know when you get off of work, they can assume you've been drinking and there's no one else on the road at that time. By the timer you've shut down your gear, bullshitted with the bar help and grabbed your stuff, even the drunks have have had time to make it home.

So we get about five blocks and the blue lights pop on behind us. I immediately pull over and deal with the officer.

"Do you no why I pulled you over"
"No Officer"
"I need to see your ID. There's been a rapist running around these parts and he looks like you."

I explain I'm from out of town, playing at the tavern, I arrived today and this is my wife sitting next to me. She's also in the band.

He runs my license and plates and everything checks out. After some more conversation he sees I'm not impaired and decides I'm OK and lets us go. We drive on a little and pull into an all night 7-11 store to get something to eat and on the door is a poster. It's a "wanted" poster for the rapist and goddamnit if he didn't look just like me.
 
#137
My last band in high school:

We were driving back from out practice spot way out on the county line. When we were pulling out, we saw that the sky was looking a little ugly, but we continued on. It started to rain, then the wind came, then the wind continually picked up, then some twigs and sh*t are flying, then a g*ddamn tree (YES A WHOLE TREE) comes flying at the winshield of my drummers bronco, which I am riding shotty in. I remember saying "HOLYSH*TALLENITSAF*CKINGTREE!!" then the loud crash. I am reluctant to look over at my friend right now, because when I look to my left I'm expecting to see a tree in the place where his head used to be. It was maybe two inches away from his face.

So anyway, we decide that it's a good idea to get outside of the truck at this point and run to the aid of our two guitarists in the vehicle behind us. We get in their car, and begin to back up down this one-lane country road, and discover that there's a jeep behind us when we stop because we've ran into him. He's stuck because behind him there's a wall of trees that have laid across the road.

SO, we decide it's a good idea to get out of the car and get into this guys jeep. We're sitting in there for what seems like an eternity. I've accepted the fact that any moment a tree is going to fall down on the car and crush us. A tree falls, but doesn't come through the roof.

So, the sh*t that I've been holding back is about to come out, and suddenly its bright outside and everything stops. Everyone and their brother out here in BFE is out in the road with a chainsaw trying to cut their way down the road, and they eventually see us and we get out. My buddy has $7k in damage to his sh*tty bronco, so he ended up buying a new blazer. Definitely one of the weirdest and most intense moments in my life.
 
#139
A case of too much ... too soon

A number of years ago I was with a band that was not quit ready for prime time, when they got a call to do a gig I knew that we were not ready for. All the members were UP about it, and they were wondering why I was opposed to it. well the 1st set was only OK just some deer in the headlights looks and a few missed ques.

Maybe second song of the next set and we launch into a tune that we had struggled with and it is a major train wreck 3 times seems the singer had given out the set list with the correct key listed next to each song, or so she thought. My list shows the song in D while the rest show C so we train wreck it on THREE intros, just as the venue manager is in the room. Not only did we not go back we didn't even finish that nite!

:eyebrow: ... I now check each set list before a show.
 
#140
I hate to post another gig disaster, but here's a recent one I encountered.

I was subbing in on bass for a friend's worship team. About halfway through the first service, I felt this excrutiating pain shooting through my urethra. I had a kidney stone. :bawl::bawl::bawl:

I kept it together until the last song, then I slowly exited towards the nearest bathroom. After 30 minutes of screaming, yelling, and crying like a baby, the stone passed. Luckily, I blacked out as it was passing. I came to about 15 minutes later covered in blood and urine.

After I came to the point where I could move again, I headed for the baptismal shower and cleaned off. Luckily, I had a spare set of clothing in my Jeep, so I didn't have to play the second set in the blood-stained clothes. The second service went a whole lot better than the first.

Just in case anyone is wondering why I wasn't rushed to the hospital, I have been fighting with kidney stone issues all of my life, so I know what to do when one hits. They tried to get me to go to the hospital, but since the stone was almost out, there didn't seem any reason to drive to the hospital (besides, the vibration of a vehicle would have made things worse...believe me, I've been there before).
 

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