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The Oddest gig EVER! (short)

#41
We had quite a few musicians playing at my Dad's funeral. (It was more the wake after the burial) He was a tenor banjo player, playing mostly Irish music. Some of his musician friends played a few tunes, including one called "The Parting Glass" that just blew everyone away. I did a solo acoustic version of "Kite" by U2.
 
#42
Played an orphanage last year. I've played for young kids before, and always love seeing them having a good time out there with their moms and dads---except this time. Bummer. They still had a good time anyway, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Also, we had to drive the truck onto a genuine WWII landing craft oce to ride out to Deborbeaux (sp?) Is. off the SC coast. When we got across the intercoastal waterway to the island, the front dropped down just like we were gonna take the beach under fire. Gee, I felt like I needed to be running and ducking. Then, me and a couple of others got a nice ride in the bucket of a front end loader to the house where we played. The rest rode on ahead in the truck. LOL, that was weird.
 
#43
robbotbass, that is a rough one man.

The strangest gigs I played was one when I was a kid that was so close to the Blues Brothers "chicken wire" gig it is scary and the second was at the Vietnam War memorial tour (yes, they toured a replica of The Wall), in a graveyard.
 
#50
Oddest (read: scariest) thing that ever happened at a gig (my first band) I was playing was a house party for a bunch of young, rowdy punk rockers. Mid-set the host comes out bearing a shot gun and brandishing it quite boldly. We just kept playing and I personally tried to pretend like I wasn't about to wet myself. He went and put it away after about a minute or so. That was close!
 
#51
My oddest gig would have to be a show we played i the middle of the swamp in Louisiana. There was a 1 lane road on top of a levy that went for about 12 miles to a small island with a roofed structure with no walls, a stage area and a bunch of picnik tables. There was a Jax Beer truck, an ice truck and our band bus. We were told to set up and be ready to party at sundown. By the time it was dark there were a couple hundred Cajun swamp dwellers, cooking, drinking and ready to party. It was a blast, every time we took a break people would come up and hand us food and some folks would play an acoustic set while we took a break. We wound up playing an extra set because everyone was so cool. This went on until about 2 am when everyone just crashed right there. When we woke the next morning we had been paid $2000 and everyone was gone.
 
#53
Okay, my two nominees are dwarfed by most of the entries here, but maybe they're worth a chuckle.

1. My 70s/80s band played to a crowd that attended a rodeo, in full attire (Manchester NH). Holy mismatch, Batman!

2. My classic-rock oriented cover band played a gig with a Primus tribute band. The number of band members almost equaled the number of attendees.
 

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