• 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.

Spinal Tap Moments

#41
I was buying an amp, and the whole time I wanted to ask, "Do you have one that goes to 11." Then I told my friend that I finally got a bass amp (I had been using a guitar one... that I kind of wrecked. Whoops.) and the first thing she asks is if it goes to 11!

But more references than unintentional moments...
 
#42
bggeezer said:
One of the first bands I was in was called 'Brain Hammer', named after the vinyl pap album. We had 17 different members in the 2.5 yrs I was in it. Got 4 songs done. I left when the lead guitarist's girlfriend started to put in her 2 cents (true story)... Here are my 3 favourite quotes:

'It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever. '

'It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.'

'They were still booing him when we came on stage.'
Click to expand...

I actually lol'd. Usually I just type it.... :p
 
  • Like
Reactions: lizardking837
#43
You think it's bad when you are upstaged by a puppet show- I played a gig where we followed the Chippendale dancers at a Bingo Hall in Reading, PA. Needless to say, despite our formidable array of killer cover songs and our great charismas (in our minds at least) - I don't recommend following an all male revue to anyone! They even shared a dressing room with us- it was hard to get to the refrigerator when 4 guys are oiling themselves up. Three songs into our set, we watched about 150 formally worked-up housewifes and women of less than prom-queen-looks, who moments ago had acted like a pack of rabid wolves- grab their purses and leave. Not even the power of "Jessie's Girl" could keep them in the place.
The most Spinal Tap part of the night was when the sign said "CHIPPENDALES TONIGHT!" - and our name in much smaller print underneath. :eyebrow:
 
#52
We played a biker wedding in the mid 80's, and our biker drummer "mistakenly" wheeled his Harley into the Orthodox Jewish wedding going on across the street, completely oblivious to his gaffe. He then proceeds to invite all the li'l honeys in attendance to come to a "real wedding" instead. A few took him up on this, taking an already surreal scene to the sublime.:cool:
 
  • Like
Reactions: lizardking837
#54
This weekend one of my bands is playing at a medieval festival. We played at a different one at the same castle two months ago so more or less knew what to expect. We agree with the promotor that the first set we'll be playing in a big fallen willow tree. So the time comes, we're up in the tree, and then the PA announces that they don't know where the band is and are urgently looking for them. Several times, basically throwing us under the bus. We send one guy down the tree to find the announcer (who's on a wireless mic and wandering around) and tell him we are where we had agreed to be. The dozen or so people who had already gathered in front of the tree leave. That was pure Spinal Tap...

But that's not all. We get this straightened out, our messenger comes back, some more people show up, we play a few songs, then I see someone under the tree is talking to the band about something. I don't know what's going on, can't hear, can't see with some branches in the way, but I understand we have to get down from the tree and go elsewhere. Turned out it was a radio station which wanted to interview us, but their equipment didn't have range where we were playing and they were supposed to go on the air in five minutes so we had to walk about a hundred yards to the other side of the camp and just set up in the middle of the grass. Fine. So they're talking to us, some people gather, and they ask us to start playing a song. We start playing, play about one verse, then the radio people just up and leave. We finished the song anyway as there was a small crowd watching, but being abandoned in mid-song by the radio people was also sorta Spinal Tap.

As a bonus the next day we ended up playing two sets at the bottom of a moat. It wasn't maintained in centuries and is really just a broad shallow depression at this point, but still...
 
#55
In my mid-80's high school days, I scrimped and saved to buy Nady's bottom-of-the-line cheap wireless. My first gig using it, sure enough it picked up cb signals. And this was before I even heard of Spinal Tap, so I thought I was unique for a couple of years.
 
#56
I have a couple:

We were playing a week in a crappy bar in Vancouver playing classic rock songs to a typically over-drunk audience. The stage was right beside the men's washroom, which smelled like it hadn't been cleaned in weeks. To ease the pain, the cheap beer helped the smell. One day the guitarist got really drunk after the gig, and came in the next day still sporting a hangover. He puked about 4 times in the first set from the smell alone.

Was in a band playing in a bar in Northern BC full of fishermen and loggers, and their women. A drunk guy was all over our sound trying to tell him how to mix. There was no security for the band, only the door and bar. After getting spilled on a few times, and smelly stale beer breath odor, the soundman faceplanted the drunks face into the bars old soundcraft 400. The guy got up with small circular cuts and divots all over his face, and even one on the tip of his nose. He actually was really kewl. Joked about it to the band, all proud of his 'new' battlescars and even bought us a round.
 
#57
We were jokingly giving my guitarist crap for his amp being too quiet at practice last week, so we joked about him turning it up to 11. When we came back from break, we started to play and his amp was the only thing audible. We stopped playing and immediately consulted him about it.

Turns out a Fender DeVille ACTUALLY goes up to 12, and he turned it up to 11 just to get us back. I'd never been more proud of a guitarist, ever.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back