Poll: There is NO STAGE

[cartoon face]

Happens quite a lot but so long as there’s enough space for our 5 piece band then a gigs a gig, eh, and the moneys nice too! though least the bar last Saturday had fenced the area off with chairs before we arrived and cleared it of tables for us! Thing that I find “a challenge” is when you go hunting for the power sockets and find just one and gave to run everything off it! I do try to find these things out beforehand though... all part of the fun!!

 

[Stompbox]

Yes - you play where they say, but one of the worst was a school hall where they had a moveabl stage made of cubes - it all looked OK but the cubes were actually made up of fibreglass that was rather too underspecified for the job, and the whole thing wobbled and flexed - what a comedy it was - the mic stands moving at a different rate to the bit you were standing on...…. funny with hindsight, though.

 

[eeLALlen]

Certainly I will play sans a proper stage to elevate me to my god-like role as an entertainer... but then I demand that I, too, be seated at a table and that appropriate beverages shall be served at my beckoning.

 

[gsking1]

I’d love to go back in time and play those college house parties again, pushed into a back corner of a living room.

 

[Curley Shadow]

Better than showing up and being told “oh, we decided not to have a band”

 

[picker1974]

How about when they won't even let you move the tables? This one was right IN FRONT of the bathrooms.

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Holy pedal board Batman!

 

[Kevin Colt]

reading all the replies on this page I must say the one about the lawyer paying for the broken instruments is impressive. after over 50 years of playing on stages (and non stages), I'm not particular as long as the frogskins are spendable. about 15 or so bands ago we used to play a lot of parties, and being carpenters we had a lot of spare lumber laying around so we would build stages at many of our backyard gigs and leave them there when we packed up at the end of the night (built 15 of them up around Detroit and I built one down here in southwest Florida). that way we had a stage to play on the next year when we came back and the folks that got the stage had a deck to fool around on the rest of the time. had a lot of fun in that band. for tiny stages we would put the drums and keys up on it and guitar and bass on the floor (I've had my share of drunks falling on things, one of those things was my freshly broken leg but that's another story). needless to say it's been a long and rocky road.

 

[JD Arnold]

We just played a gig where they had seating ON the stage. We had to wait for the customers to finish eating, we didnt wait for the bus boy like they wanted. We moved the table mess and all out of the way.

 

[jazzbo58]

Play many gigs with no stage. Even had a few where they had to move the pool table.
Cheers,
Jim

 

[GZboat]

Anybody here ever play the Deer Park Tavern in Newark, Delaware? They had an interesting variation on this. Their "band area" was also a dining area that they had their staff clear by about 9:00 PM. Then the band had a "Beat The Clock" load-in; the faster you set up and longer you played, the more money you made. However, the club also had a pretty decent house sound system and mixing console, so it was just a matter of stage gear and dialing it all in. As I said, interesting. It was a fun joint to play and it paid well (sometimes very well), but it wasn't a concept we wished to see catch on with other club owners.
Greg

 

[crabfunk]

A couple of years ago our 4-piece funk/soul band played a 'Blues Walk' outside of Seattle, where they had 15-20 bands in a wide variety of venues — Elks lodge, a couple of bars, an old dusty theater. They had us play at an old diner, that was apparently world-famous for its pies. In order for us to even squeeze into a corner on the floor, the staff had to actually break out the power tools and remove a booth for the night. We got by with one main on a stand for the PA, with one mic for our lead singer only. Recipe for disaster, right? Nope, we ripped for two hours and the crowd — which changed every 20 minutes or so — loved us.

 

[slappin sammy]

Most of the places we play lately are like this in Vermont getting an audience that will listen is all we ask I would still rather do the restaurant thing then the bar deals ,as a drummer too I like getting home by 11;30 not 4:30 like the old days .

 

[NZBassman]

My old band used to play at a place once a month - it was also a dining venue and they did have a table and chairs on the small stage and right next to the stage..... half the time there would be people dining on these tables and management were not keen to move the diners, so we had to wait until they had finished before we could set up - it was very frustrating sometimes!

then thankfully they got a new bar manager in who was onto it and she would put a folding barrier thing on wheels around the stage so we could get in and set up...

 

[bigbajo60]

At venues where we have to wait for tables to be cleared in order to create a "performance area"...
We politely smile, set up, and perform.
At venues where we have to ask where the nearest electrical outlets are...
We politely smile, set up, and perform.
At venues where we have to ask where our money is at the end of the night...
AFTER we've waited on tables being moved, searched out electrical outlets, and politely smiled, setup, and performed?
There's where yer problems arise.
~~~
Oh, and BTW:
Worst stage in my experience has to be the gooseneck trailer that we were given to use as a stage... outdoors... 50 feet from a riverbank... in 20° late December weather. Everyone attending the party was inside an adjoining, heated building looking and listening (and enjoying?) through some large picture windows.

 

[Old P Bass Guy]

My old band used to play at a place once a month - it was also a dining venue and they did have a table and chairs on the small stage and right next to the stage..... half the time there would be people dining on these tables and management were not keen to move the diners, so we had to wait until they had finished before we could set up - it was very frustrating sometimes!

then thankfully they got a new bar manager in who was onto it and she would put a folding barrier thing on wheels around the stage so we could get in and set up...

EZ solution when you get a manager who's thinking! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of trouble. Never assume they are thinking about your band. Call em in the afternoon and tell "Hi, I'm with your band this evening...you know Rush". Could you ask one of your people to rope off a 10 X 15' area for us to set up at 6PM? THANKS A BUNCH!"

 

[Old man]

Frankly, after 40 years gigging, I’m at the point in my life where the unexpected has become the norm- if that makes any sense. Life’s too short for me to worry about mundane annoyances that merely require a bit of creative thinking. I know how frustrating things can be when you’re merely trying to do a great job, as most of us here seem to try to do. But I’ve played on big stages, small stages, really small stages and everything in between. Last weekend we were here:

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Temperature = 40 degrees, wind speed +20 mph, heat - nonexistent , pay - almost double the going rate and they let us off an hour early.
Stage? What stage?

That is the reality of it, right there. Make it work, What ever the circumstance is.

 

[Marctbass]

What’s a “stage?”

 

[Butch Bobcat]

Hey, at least that beats the gig where we showed up and the manager of the place said "who are you and why are you here?"

I was in the road a couple of years ago and something like that happened.

We showed up to a good in Cincinnati, OH and the bartenders were clueless about who we were, but they let us set up anyway for a 3 hour show that we had booked. After we were set up and soundchecked, another band showed up and said they were playing that night. The owner (whom, of course, wasn't there) was called and things got a bit ugly. Long story short, he bumped us for the other band which was a local band. He gave us $25 "for our trouble."

That was one of the only bars that I ever blasted and told every musician for a few years about the situation and not to book there.

On top of that, there was no stage. We would have played in the middle of a shotgun room.

 

[roccobass]

I was in the road a couple of years ago and something like that happened.

We showed up to a good in Cincinnati, OH and the bartenders were clueless about who we were, but they let us set up anyway for a 3 hour show that we had booked. After we were set up and soundchecked, another band showed up and said they were playing that night. The owner (whom, of course, wasn't there) was called and things got a bit ugly. Long story short, he bumped us for the other band which was a local band. He gave us $25 "for our trouble."

That was one of the only bars that I ever blasted and told every musician for a few years about the situation and not to book there.

I had a first a few years ago. The assistant mgr/booker got pissed because we showed up “too early”. 90 minutes? Is that too early. In 40 years of playing, I’ve never had that happen.

 

[Old P Bass Guy]

I was in the road a couple of years ago and something like that happened.

We showed up to a good in Cincinnati, OH and the bartenders were clueless about who we were, but they let us set up anyway for a 3 hour show that we had booked. After we were set up and soundchecked, another band showed up and said they were playing that night. The owner (whom, of course, wasn't there) was called and things got a bit ugly. Long story short, he bumped us for the other band which was a local band. He gave us $25 "for our trouble."

That was one of the only bars that I ever blasted and told every musician for a few years about the situation and not to book there.

Don't blame you!!