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Practical Jokes before a gig

#22
Picture it: Houston, 1989. Hair band. Blazing summer with lots of sweating.

Bands and road crew used same shower before gig (and, no, not simultaneously). I'm the last one to do so and see what looks like Don King in a hurricane clogging the drain. I grabbed a bunch of toilet paper, stealed my resolve, and pulled the mass from the drain and placed it into the paper (hoping that was just hair conditioner dripping off it). Sneaked the rolled up mass to the gig and secretly duct taped it to the drummer's boom mic just minutes before we went on. First chorus of the night and the drummer's roadie swings the mic in front of his face for the backup vocals and the drummer flosses and gargles with ten guys' pubes.

The rest of the song he gave me death glares of hate as he was sputtering and spitting to get the hairs out of his mouth. I laughed and laughed and laughed...
 
#23
In an old band of mine, we would often mess around at practice where the person would count off "1, 2, 3, 4", but instead of the song, sing "My baby don't mess around because she loves me so and this I know fo shoooooo!"

Didn't expect it at a live gig so they count off and sing while the guitarist and I start playing and the other two laugh their ***es off... good times
 
#24
mward69 said:
Ok, so I started one thread about routines before a gig...let's have some laughs.....
What practical jokes have you played on band-mates, or had played on you? I have done the following

* Vaseline on the back of guitards neck
* Put sardines in the cone of singers mic {he was pissed}
* Put clear glitter on drummers heads
* Loaded up singers IPOD with wham and other cheesy 80's pop songs when we provide house music, Sad thing on that one was the fact alot of the bar crowd liked it :rollno:

Had done on me
*My bass case was completely wrapped in a whole roll of duct tape with bass inside
* Had cayenne pepper put in beer {very nasty}
* Drummer re-routed my power to a powerstrip by his kit, he had some laugh's in between songs as he turned off my gear and watched me scramble to fix...singer didn't find it too funny as the PA kept popping when he did it. That was actually a good one..I bought the drummer a beer for that one :D

Ok....what say you?
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Had ANY of the above been done to me especially the ones to my instrument......there would have been blood. Literally. I probably would have gotten my conceal permit revoked.
Being in two larger production origional bands I cant see anyone having the time or mentality to do any of that before or during a show. If your touring...and do stupid stuff to eachother in a van or RV or Bus, then thats one thing. I'm all in on that. I've done it. Some nasty stuff too. But on stage where we strive to look as professional and impressive as possible there is no room for that type of **** imho.
 
#25
ledyard said:
If your touring...and do stupid stuff to eachother in a van or RV or Bus, then thats one thing. I'm all in on that. I've done it. Some nasty stuff too. But on stage where we strive to look as professional and impressive as possible there is no room for that type of **** imho.
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THAT^

I'm all for a practical joke amongst friends, but why would you want to do anything that could put the quality of the show in jeopardy? That's just a massive disrespect to the audience.
 
#27
I'm surprised it took as many posts as it did before someone said wth (is that the clean ***?). Everything in the OP would really piss me off and probably have me quit the band. I don't get the practical joke humor.

Kinda freaks me out a bit too, the stuff kids find funny. Videos of baby oil oustide the shower. Freakin hilarious, expecially if someone cracks their head open on the bathtub, or snaps their neck and gets paralyzed for life. When I was I kid, we did stupid things, but usually only put ourselves in danger. The jackass generation seems to really get off on causing trouble for others.

Haha, hilarious. Booby trap your band. It will do you lots of good on every level. Throw some m80s in the kick drum. That would freakin rawk!!!
 
#28
Joe Nerve said:
I'm surprised it took as many posts as it did before someone said wth (is that the clean ***?). Everything in the OP would really piss me off and probably have me quit the band. I don't get the practical joke humor.

Kinda freaks me out a bit too, the stuff kids find funny. Videos of baby oil oustide the shower. Freakin hilarious, expecially if someone cracks their head open on the bathtub, or snaps their neck and gets paralyzed for life. When I was I kid, we did stupid things, but usually only put ourselves in danger. The jackass generation seems to really get off on causing trouble for others.

Haha, hilarious. Booby trap your band. It will do you lots of good on every level. Throw some m80s in the kick drum. That would freakin rawk!!!
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I don't think this has to do with someone's age, it's their mentality. If they want to do that, that's their business. If I were in the band I'd quit without any second thoughts. I've met 40-50 year old guys with the SAME mentality and I don't approve of it. It's immature and base, and it's NOT limited to the "jackass generation", making such a generalization only suggests that you're among them.
 
#30
Cut off all the ends of the other guitar players jack cables, as well as cutting up his speakers with a razor blade, kill the drummers cat and place it in the bass drum, dip the singers microphone in cyanide. I promise you it will be one hell of a gig. It might be your last, but at least you had fun, right?
 
#31
We never had to pull intentional practical jokes in the bands I have been in over the years. Enough things happen without planning them, and there's always 3 or 4 guys there to laugh at the poor guy it happens to. Usually later, when perspective kicks in.
 
#32
pie_man_25 said:
It's immature and base, and it's NOT limited to the "jackass generation", making such a generalization only suggests that you're among them.
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Yes, the mentality is not limited to the age, but I disagree. 30 years ago people reacted differently to the things that people find funny today. And there are far more people from age 10 to 30 yrs. old that find people getting hurt funny, than people over the 30 mark. I work in a HS and I've seen countless examples. I'll just mention one (the first) that just really struck home and had me realizing that there was something different going on these days.

A while back I rented a video to show my classes on gun violence. It was an excellentl documentary on school situations where someone chose to have a gun with them. They showed you what happened (someone getting killed or maimed for life by a gun), it was realistic, and then rewound each of the scenes to before the incident to show what might have happened had there not been a gun involved. The thing people often wish they could do in real life.

In one of the stories a kid is showing the gun to his classmate, the teacher calls on him, he fumbles the gun and winds up shooting the girl in from of him in the head. In every class I showed this to, they laughed when it happened. I showed the video in subsequent semesters. Same reaction. I showed the video to lots of adults. It was never, ever, not once the reaction. None of them laughed. It wasn't funny.
 
#34
Stinsok said:
Took a J-200 out of the singer's case and replaced it with an acoustic guitar we found in the trash. The look on his face when he opened the case was priceless.
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now that can be seen as a harmless little practical joke that doesn't screw the show or ruin someone else's gear. however, i would be really pissed if someone touched my expensive acoustic guitar and put it somewhere other than the case that protects it from harm.

if you have to do a practical joke, don't screw with the show. but i will tell you that many people will not take kindly to you touching their instrument.

as for the rest of you guys who think sabotaging the show is funny, i'd advise having a backup plan, because i know of no bands who make any money that would put up with it for one second. you not only would get canned immediately, but you'd be lucky if you ever got a gig with any other band in that circle...music communities are small and fairly tightly knit, and the internet makes them smaller than ever.

very small-time, for sure.
 
#35
walker rosewood said:
IEM's are fun to mess with. I heard a story of a soundguy putting the audio from a porno into the Worship leaders IEM's during a service. He was looking around all disgusted, but the rest of the band couldn't hear what he heard and gave him the 'your crazy' look.

One time with a cover band I randomly picked a guy (the percussionist), turned everything else off in his IEM's and put 'eye of the tiger' in his in ears. He thought the band was playing it, and was confused because its not a song they do. He started playing along with it, in the meantime the band was playing something else.
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That is HILARIOUS!

I never played jokes on stage, except when it was for the show and added to it. One show, we messed with the singer pretty good. I'm trying to remember the details, but I can't because it was 20 years ago. He typically introduced the song as a heart-felt ballad about a girl or something like that. As soon as he said "..and here's how it goes," the rest of us broke into a few bars of the Sesame Street Theme Song, or something like that.

I also was in a rowdy punk rock band back in college, where we purposely messed with eachother, and it sorta became our shtick on stage. I remember the drummer would sing Stairway To Heaven ala Frank Sinatra, and we'd all find whatever we could and throw it at him for the hell of it. I was also in charge of finding random junk to put on the singer mid song (like feather boas, goofy hats, etc.), but that was mostly a planned thing. I gotta say, that band put on some hilarious stage shows.

These days, the pranking is sparse, not physically damaging to anything, and strictly off stage. I put a fake snake in the guitarists gig bag once, so that he didn't see it until we were packing up. He jumped. I also put in some sex toys in another guitarist's gig bag while he wasn't looking, and got his gf to play along. She gave him a "what the hell is this" and "who the hell are you using this with," and he turned bright red and stammered like crazy. It didn't last long before she couldn't help giggling and we all laughed.
 
#36
I will have to say my story earlier in the post was at a place my band was 1/2 of the house band 20 years ago. 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off. 21 days in a row. Needless ro say some days were just paid practices with a few regulars in the club that we all knew well. We didn't jepordize anything, we didn't mess with anybodys equiptment and both the bartender and club manager laughed like crazy. No harm no foul. But like I said, pity the fool who passes out on the band bus.
 
#38
There's a fine line between a practical joke being hilarious, or just stupid and messed up. Some people don't seem to be able to distinguish between the two. (This isn't aimed at any of the gig stories, by the way.)
 
#39
Ok, some of you guys need to find some happy time...seriously.
1st, we're a cover band that has been at this for yrs. The only joke that "interfered" with the gig was the power strip that controlled the power to my rig, it only happened 2-3 times before I caught on and it was in-between songs. We're all friends with the bar mngrs. and they enjoy the laugh too.
The Vaseline on the back of my guitar players guitar neck was BEFORE to gig even started....a little whiskey and a bar rag and it's all well.
The sardines in the mic cone was at a party/rehearsal...
Are we being immature at our age? {40's} you bet you azz we are. We have all payed our dues, not trying to get "signed" or famous, each of us have 20 yrs each in playing live, from crappy gig's like playing to bar staff only, to playing the side stage of OZZfest.
Learn to laugh, enjoy life, and stop being so damn anal! The guitar player and I have known each other for 25 yrs, we can and always have done this to each other, Drummer and I have jammed off an on for 10 yrs, nothing better than watching my drummer laugh his ass off when glitter goes flying, and without missing a beat, lock in with each other and rock our a&&SS off.
So this crap about "I would kick their A&^ or you have to be mature in your 40's, blah..blah.....

You damn whipper snapper's can get the hell off my lawn!!!!
 
#40
hey, i don't that you can really argue that pulling practical jokes will always affect the audience. it really depends on the music.

If you're at a jazz gig, then yea. but if you're at a punk/rock/indie gig, then it's just humor that the audience would probably think added to the show.

At a friend's backyard gig where i ran sound, i randomly adjusted the gain on the mixer for the guitarist's guitar and microphone on their set, during a cover of Flogging Molly's "Drunken Lullabies."
 

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