Top "Drunks at Gigs" stories

[kesslari]

I'll start...

We were playing a Fraternity party (always good for mega-drunks) at UCLA.

During the break the keyboard player and I were walking through the oh-so-drunk fratboys, and there's a kid getting sick into the brick bar-be-que pit.
One of his friends is at his side, helping him out, talking to him soothingly. I hear "It's OK, bro, you're gonna be OK". I think, cool, he's got a friend to help him out.

Then I hear the complete sentance.
"It's OK, bro, you're gonna be OK. I'll get you a clean beer".

 

[lefthandedmutha]

Playing in a bar in Jackson, Michigan
1st set
Nobody really there except for two groups of people on either side of the dance floor.
It was pretty obvious they'd been there for quite some time.
There's a bit of attempted dancing going on when, as drunk guys will often do, an argument starts . Nothing serious really, just some nose to nose conversation.
From across the dance floor one guy decides to go support his buddy.
He literally is weaving all over the place, and as he gets near to the scene.
He winds up and lets fly with a sucker punch at the nearest guy. Now mind you this nearest guy has his back to him......and, not only does the punch completely miss the intended target. He falls face first to the ground.
And that's when the fight started.

 

[jady]

My story,

My blues band was playing a gig at a jewelry store in August. We were set up outside in a tent in the alley/loading dock. It was 110 degrees F and no one really wanted us there, it was really odd. We were playing really well and had a bottle of old trusty Crown Royal in the back of the truck so with the battle cry of "COWBOY" we would take long draws off the bottle. By the second set the bottle was gone and I thought it was a great idea to go around the corner and buy another bottle (it seemed brilliant at the time).

I bought a bottle of Black Velvet and we proceeded to polish off most of that bottle too!!!

Mind you this was only the guitarist and myself, the drummer drank a little and the singer hardly any. (she does say that I was the nicest and most supportive she has ever seen me however) The kicker is...........I do not remember any of this!!!!!!!

I have no memory after the bottle of Black Velvet came into play. They said I played normally and didn't even act that drunk at the gig. The journey home however was a different story, I passed out in the van, on the front lawn at home, I tryed to sit on the edge of a bed and FELL OFF!!!!

My roommate said that at one point I got lost OTW to the bathroom in my own home and tryed to piss in the kitchen........


I was hung over for 2 days straight.

Lesson learned that night, I keep my drinking in check!!!!!!!

 

[Ívar Þórólfsson]

Since there is a bass humor and gig stories forum here, I'll move this thread to that forum.

 

[Stanley Design]

This summer we went to a bar show, I wasn't really that into it but I wanted to get trashed and have a good time. So three 40oz bottles of 10% beer later we get into the bar, I proceed to order a pitcher, then 6 shots of whiskey, then 6 more shots of whiskey and by this time I'm getting a little ..... tipsy so I don't remember when my friend asked if I wanted to split a pitcher, I guess I drank most of that and then left with some random guys who said they were going to some house party. At said house party there was going to be a tribute band of one of my favourite bands of all time. Bad Brains.

So we walk across town, it's probably 1am or so. We eventually get there, I've got 3 bucks to get into this party/show. They accept it and I go in to see the band one song into their set so I'm stoked. At this point I can't stand up. I keep falling down. In a skunchy room called the Gates of Hell, listening to the Bad Brains tribute. I keep falling on my face, can't get myself back up, people try a few times to pick my up, but eventually I fall ON THE STAGE almost upside down. Knocking over mic stands, and there is no way I can get back up so I lay there for the full song. I lost my hat, ripped off my shirt singing along, tried to grab the mic from the singer and ended up waking up a few hours later three blocks away with no shirt on, in the gutter. I made my way back and asked how to get home, and wandered, barely able to see or stand back home.

Ah good times.

 

[IanStephenson]

We were playing a gig at a local bar. Before we even start one of the locals has obviously had a few, and asks what stuff we play. We tell him, and he is instantly our greatest fan, telling everyone how great we are even though he's never heard us... First set goes well, he's REALLY into it.

By the second set he's had TOO much, and falls over onto the monitors/pedalboards and the like. Our singer doesn't take too kindly to this and starts kicking the the guy while he's down. The guys friends see whats happening... and decide it's a great idea, so they start kicking him too!!!

I think he reappeared at the end of the gig still saying how great we were.

 

[Bassman316]

I was hung over for 2 days straight.

Now THAT'S intense.

 

[Matt Till]

There is a local dive pretty notorious for being a bit wild. I'd play there with my cover band, but I wouldn't allow my girlfriend to come, I feared for her safety.

In the same night, there was a drunk guy who kept falling on our monitors and talking to us while we were playing. He kept telling us, "When I do this," and he would make a fist, "and point at you, you gotta gimmie a lil' extra." We'd be playing something like Brown Eyed Girl, and he'd do that, and well... we'd just play what we were playing. He seemed pleased.

Then, while all this was happening, in the empty dance floor, a little person (this is the preferred term, right?) runs through the door to the middle of the dance floor. He acts like we're playing punk music (it was Skynyrd, I believe) and starts flipping out, slam dancing and playing a tambourine. This caught me off guard and took quite a bit not to break out in laughter. Throughout the night, he would play his tambourine with the band. When we'd play ballads, he'd hold the tambourine up to his ear and play it as gently as he could. Afterwards, he asked me, "I wasn't too loud was I? I wanted to add to the music, but I didn't want to be too loud." I told him, "No man, you were right on! We appreciate it, it sounded great." I couldn't hear him he was being so quiet.

Now, why this place has it's reputation. I looked over to see a guy smash a bottle over a woman's head! The problem was, this chick was tough as nails. It didn't hurt her, it just pissed her off! She stood up and stared the guy down and he ran! It was just hilarious that a guy made such a cowardly attack on a woman, and was made to look like a total bitch.

 

[Matt Till]

I don't have very many me being amusing drunk stories. I only was too wasted to play once, and I regretted it. My second day on tour with the metal band I was in, we hung out with the frontman from the host band and he got a bottle of rum and we split it. I drank more than half. We headed to the venue early and unloaded gear, I was a little tipsy, but not bad. But we got there WAY early, it was a nice little bar and a bluegrass bad was playing.

I was just so amused that we, a severely downtuned doom metal band had a bluegrass band essentially opening for us. You know, setting the mood. So, I chilled and watched them and had a few more rum and cokes. I don't remember how many, but I have a feeling this is why I went broke halfway through my tour. I talked with the bassist quite a bit, he offered to let me play with the band, but I knew my intonation would be terrible (upright bass), so I told him I'd rather just watch. He was awesome and let me play a bit between songs, it wasn't a gig per say, they were just jamming and they'd talk between songs.

As we were setting up gear to play, I was thinking, "Oh ****, I'm drunk." And since I drink fast when I do drink, the booze catches up with me as time passes. Between songs I was falling into walls, I was playing OK, I was sober enough to acknowledge my playing being OK, but it wasn't great, and I knew it was because I was so wasted.

After loading up gear, I sat down in the back and watched the other band. The band was called Ocean, and if you are familiar, they play very very slow/bassy atmospheric doom metal stuff. They shook the room so hard it was a very strangely relaxing type of show. So I was sitting on the ground and starting to fall asleep. I was forced to get up by someone who worked there.

After the show, I went outside and chilled by the band's van in the middle of beautiful Portland, Maine. It's a pretty uptight town, the cops cruised by and the band explained they were in the process of taking me home. As the cops were taking off, I supposedly declared, "OH, I guess I'm in Nazi ****ing Germany, I can't even sleep in the streets." Which the band still gives me **** about.

After that experience, I've learned to keep my drinking in check. ESPECIALLY when it comes to gigs.

 

[Mark Wilson]

Not my story,

but a teacher here who was a little arrogant while he was studying at Berklee in the 80s, and one day, he saw Jaco in Florida at a bar.
So the teacher went up to jaco and said

"Hey, Jaco. I'm a big fan. just wanted to tell you that I can play anything you can play. You can just do it for longer"

Jaco responded with

"that's the most intelligent question anyone has ever asked me."

Then proceeded to buy the teacher a beer.

 

[Deluge Of Sound]

I don't have very many me being amusing drunk stories. I only was too wasted to play once, and I regretted it. My second day on tour with the metal band I was in, we hung out with the frontman from the host band and he got a bottle of rum and we split it. I drank more than half. We headed to the venue early and unloaded gear, I was a little tipsy, but not bad. But we got there WAY early, it was a nice little bar and a bluegrass bad was playing.

I was just so amused that we, a severely downtuned doom metal band had a bluegrass band essentially opening for us. You know, setting the mood. So, I chilled and watched them and had a few more rum and cokes. I don't remember how many, but I have a feeling this is why I went broke halfway through my tour. I talked with the bassist quite a bit, he offered to let me play with the band, but I knew my intonation would be terrible (upright bass), so I told him I'd rather just watch. He was awesome and let me play a bit between songs, it wasn't a gig per say, they were just jamming and they'd talk between songs.

As we were setting up gear to play, I was thinking, "Oh ****, I'm drunk." And since I drink fast when I do drink, the booze catches up with me as time passes. Between songs I was falling into walls, I was playing OK, I was sober enough to acknowledge my playing being OK, but it wasn't great, and I knew it was because I was so wasted.

After loading up gear, I sat down in the back and watched the other band. The band was called Ocean, and if you are familiar, they play very very slow/bassy atmospheric doom metal stuff. They shook the room so hard it was a very strangely relaxing type of show. So I was sitting on the ground and starting to fall asleep. I was forced to get up by someone who worked there.

After the show, I went outside and chilled by the band's van in the middle of beautiful Portland, Maine. It's a pretty uptight town, the cops cruised by and the band explained they were in the process of taking me home. As the cops were taking off, I supposedly declared, "OH, I guess I'm in Nazi ****ing Germany, I can't even sleep in the streets." Which the band still gives me **** about.

After that experience, I've learned to keep my drinking in check. ESPECIALLY when it comes to gigs.

I know we've talked about this before, but I don't think you've ever told me which venue this was at... my guess is Geno's?

edit: also, Ocean's new record dropped about a month a go, give it a spin if you haven't already-it's phenomenal.

 

[JQ1986]

Not my story but kinda cool none the less. A friend of mine is in a local cover band and they were playing at a bar in a small town and this drunk guy fell onto his pedal board. My friend, naturally, was all pissed off and the guy apologized and introduced himself. He said he was Izzy Stradlin (Ex-GNR guitarist), gave him cash for new pedals and offered him a spot in his band. My friend didn't believe it was Izzy but after he got home and looked up recent pix of him it turned out to be him. Not sure if he is going to contact him about the job offer, but I thought that was kinda cool.

 

[T-Bird]

Hi.

^^^^ And You typed ALL that in 1 minute Matt?? Far out, man!

As the bands I've played, the current one included, mostly plays biker parties and such, there's quite a few drunk stories. Us livin in Finland are not known to spit in the glass so the booze usually flows quite freely.

Unfortunately it's usually the band-members who make the most unforgettable stories . The free drinks bein' part of the pay DOES NOT HELP MUCH either.

One time I suddenly noticed that somehow the sound cleared considerably and as I was in the "front row" I didn't notice what was happening. I turned around, and the other guitarist was gone. No-one saw him leave the stage area, so we just finished the tune. The lead singer made some announcements that we would like the guitarist to return, as soon as possible so we could continue. It took some searching, but eventually we found him. He had went outside to take a leak, and somehow got lost. I wondered how this was possible, he had drank only a couple of beers and while I had noticed the familiar "Townshend windmills" already, I thought that he was just acting. The other guitarist then told me that they had "secretly, so Sam won't notice" drank a 400ml whisky bottle between the sets in addition to the beers, so no wonder he was a bit distracted .

Got many more including the last nights MC-club gig, but I think I hit the sack now.

Regards
Sam

 

[KeithPas]

I was playing at this bar in Bremerton,Washington called the "South Pacific" and the bandstand is in a loft on the second floor and it is about 20ft. above the dance floor. This drunk guy bolts up the steps runs through us and jumps off the stage onto the dance floor and proceeds to break both of his ankles. After that, at gigs, we would all do a scan of the crowd to see if we could spot any potential "jumpers".

 

[Groverismybass]

Alright this is my brohahs story and he was just at the concert, sorry, but its a good one.

It started in health class, learning 101 ways to say no to sex, some of these were "im allergic" and "lets play a board game"

The same day we learned all these my brother goes to a pun rock concert at the HOB
Some girl, 5 or 6 years older than my 15 year old twin brother, was absolutely smashed and trying to take peoples wallets. She comes up to my broother and says "if i swallow my gum do you want to have sex?" to which my brother replies
"i have a sunburn"
She punchhed him in the nose and he bled all over the place, security took her out and the band clapped. My brother was awarded student of the month after that.

 

[daffy]

Was playing a gig a while back at a very popular summer destination in Australia and noticed a really, really drunk guy trying to hit on just about every girl in the room. Eventually he managed to convince one of them to come onto the dance floor with him and they started dancing.

He could hardly stand up much less dance, but he was trying valiantly get closer to the girl and bust out some dirty dancing moves, but she could see what he was up to and she started backing away. In the end she was moving backwards round and round the dance floor and he was staggering after her, still trying desperately to be cool. I was finding it hard to concentrate on the groove at this point.

Finally, he decided to make his move and he lunged (or fell) towards her just as she was taking a step and he ended up headbutting her right in the face before falling on the ground. Security called for us to stop playing, and they dragged the guy and his mates out, then we started up again.

Good thing they signalled for us to stop because I was nearly on the ground laughing and couldn't have played anyway!!

 

[bass_freq]

the last band I played in was playing a show at one of our favorite venues. It was a great show, everyone was getting drunk and having a good time. One guy durring our set, was absolutly trashed, ended up coming up on stage during one of our songs, and pretty much stood on stage the whole song, head banging to the song, standing right next to the singer, some times turning to the crowd holding his beer up, apparently he wanted some of the spot light lol, eventually one of my singers friends came up on stage and grabbed him off, but he was up there for a long time, really wish the singer just pushed him off stage or something, he got pretty close to me and had his back turned, I was really tempted to kick him in the nuts to get him off stage, but I didn't want to cause a ruckus

another situation was at a show, it involves booze, not sure if its really a "drunken" story, but it was our guitar players bday, and for some ****en reason (still pissed off my singer did this) my singer decides, while we are on stage, to iniciate a beer fight with our guitar player as the target, so imagine this, about 6-7 audience members and the singer, spraying beer towards the stage, towards our THOUSANDS of dollars of equipment. and for some reason I was the only one that gave a **** that I was just sprayed with beer, had to change to my spare bass cause my main bass had beer sprayed on it making it stick to play, lucky my NEW bass stack didn't get sprayed, and my bass only got hit with a sprinkle, it still ERKed me that the singer had NO consideration for the bands equipment, must be nice to be a singer and only have to pay for.... the shirt on your back as your equipment?

 

[Matt Till]

I know we've talked about this before, but I don't think you've ever told me which venue this was at... my guess is Geno's?

edit: also, Ocean's new record dropped about a month a go, give it a spin if you haven't already-it's phenomenal.

Geno's sounds like a real familiar name. All I remember is having to descend a staircase from the sidewalk to get to the bar. It was in a really touristy type part of town. But from what I gather, the whole town seems touristy.

I'll have to check out the new Ocean, thanks for the heads up.

 

[Matt Till]

Hi.

^^^^ And You typed ALL that in 1 minute Matt?? Far out, man!

I actually wrote both stories in one post, but since they were separate thoughts, I posted the one, and copied and pasted the other. I type pretty fast, but not that fast.

 

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Once upon the time when The Apemen acoustic project was still alive and kicking, the trio version had a gig in pre-cristmas party in a local MC-club. As was customary back then, booze and food was free. What also was customary was that he booze was 95% Royal.

Preeeetty stiff stuff, especially when mixed incorrectly or just drinking it plain. OK, I know that 95 won't stay 95 for more than a minute, but let's say it was 80 to 85%. Still potent stuff that will knock Your socks off and lights out.

We were to play after the first band an while they were playing we enjoyed the menu, exept for the percussionist who was on meds so he couldn't drink. Well the bassplayer and me (12 string in that project ) drank in his behalf too. The first band quit early as we suddenly noticed the guitarist of that said band sitting with us in our table, they had a fist-fight on stage and the remainder of the band just played a couple of tunes.

We played rather well despite the fact that the bassplayer and me were reaching a rather intoxicated state. People liked us though, but after we played our set the percussionist said that perhaps the jam whe had planned shouldn't take place, and it didn't.

The rest of the evening was uneventful exept for the home-coming for the bass player. By this time he was piss drunk, and when he opened the front door of my van he just suddenly dissapeared in the night, it was a pitch black snowy road 'bout 4 Am and after looking at eachother in disbelief for a second, me and the percussionist went out to see if he had fallen down. Nobody there. After calling his name for while we heard a muffled whine from somewhere near. He had in fact fallen down. Right down to the ditch 1,5 meters below, covered with snow, so we had one hell of a time getting him out of there. He was fine enough so we escorted him to the door, bass case in his hand, rang the bell and DIDN't stay to "greet" his wife .

The next (actually the same) day he called me and asked what the hell had happened, the last thing he remembered was playing on stage feeling fine, the next waking up in the guest room, whole body aching and bruised, head pounding, wife not talking to him.

Well, Royal does that sometimes .

Regards
Sam