New Years Eve Gig stories

[Fishheadjoe]

We got invited to play NYE at a pub we play a couple of times a year. We only play there because it is local to our BL and he has a good group of friends that will fill out the bar when we play there.
The bar owner took notice and invited us to play NYE. This is where things got stupid. He refused to pay us a dime more than what he pays, for any other Friday or Saturday night and that's "chump change" to begin with. They were offering a full NYE meal with all the fixens for their customers, so my BL and his wife decided to attend after an invite from the bar owner. They charged him full price for dinner, didn't offer the band anything by way of drinks and paid us the same cheap rate.
We kept that bar hopping until close at 2:00am. The bar made a ton of money.
We got a call recently from them to play this year's NYE. Yup, you guessed it, same miserable rate, no comps, no nothing. We told him our price and he balked. In speaking with one of the servers, she was pissed because the only bands they can get to play there now, will empty the bar in minutes.
Looks like I'll be home and cooking up a big meal for the family this NYE!
Fishheadjoe

 

[busmandan]

Back in the early '80's my band played a private NYE party at a small private airport in a newly-erected airplane hanger. When I say newly-erected, I mean the structure was complete but missing some important things - like heat. We were in a sheet metal building with no heat when the temperature was below freezing. We played wearing parkas. The other thing that wasn't finished was the concrete floor, which was poured and cured but not sealed. As a result, every piece of gear we owned got concrete dust in it, which we carried around for over a year. We'd be setting up somewhere and someone would open a case and a little poof of concrete dust would come out.