Wackiest "stage" you ever played on.....

[farace]

1. Tiny "club" with a stage made from a few layers of stacked pallets and plywood on top. It acted like a huge sounding board and made my little 25-watt 1968 Ampeg B-15N way boomy.

2. House party on a damp concrete floor. We had to stand on rubber car mats to avoid electrocution.

3. Small gazebo out in the middle of a field a hundred yards from a strip mall. A single outlet for the whole band. (Oddly, this was probably our best paying gig.)

 

[GManfromOz]

Just a travellin' band

 

[two fingers]

Just travellin' bandView attachment 2914356

I bet it was loud as crap in there. But that stage actually looks pretty cool.

 

[ThinCrappyTone]

Had to be this crazy structure. Set up in front of a Howard Johnson’s motel in Schenectady NY. 1993.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

View attachment 2913938

Minus the hay. Wobbly, awful sound, no rain protection. We were lucky to get electricity.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. The one I was on was also used to haul chickens. Wasn’t exactly the most pleasant smelling gig. Made me wish for smoke filled rooms, stale perfume, and spilled beer.....

 

[Mvilmany]

Hooligan's in Milwaukee. Wanted to start having bands, but had no room.
Solution: After the kitchen closed for the day, lay some plywood over the grills. Instant stage!

My head was actually up in the exhaust vent (I'm 6'-4") and I had to duck down to see anything more than 10' in front of the "stage"

I used to play at a place called Hooligans as well, 20 years ago. This one was in upstate New York, right on the border between Vermont and New York. It was the kind of place that the drunk Vermont people would head to after the Vermont bars closed at midnight. (NY bars were open much later) It was sketchy, with fights every weekend night between the New York locals and the Vermont locals. It was a fairly large place, so we did have an actual stage, however it was quite small and could only comfortably fit a four piece band.

 

[Jborg]

We played in this place called the Rodeo Bar in NYC. The stage was tiny and one wall was dominated by a real buffalo head that had smoke coming out of its nose. We didn’t get paid much, but they fed us and our dates w/drinks for free. We were always happy to go back because the Tex/mex food was excellent.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

The recently-revived "Not On Tour" thread got me to thinking.

What is the wackiest stage you ever played on?

Now, I don't mean the venue. And no stage at all doesn't count (heck we've all probably been there).

I mean the stage itself..... the actual structure of the stage.

Mine was a hot tub. The venue was The Teddy Bear Club in (I believe) Franklin Virginia (circa late 80s?). It was in the common area of a hotel. We were inside but in a courtyard of sorts. All of the rooms (three floors worth) had sliding glass doors that either entered the courtyard (bottom floor) or had a balcony overlooking the courtyard. People staying at the hotel hung out on their balconies and watched. The pool was open to our left. The bar was open to our right. And we set up on plywood that was screwed together in several layers and laid across the hot tub. There was a handrail around us as well.

I think we played (in the round) once but that was dorky. So from then on we faced one direction.

And, yes, the hot tub was full of water. Once we got there early and they hadn't covered it yet. So they went and got the cover (that weighed about 200 pounds) and set it on top so we could set up. A couple had to get out for us to get started.

The tub part is for sure. The rest is "hazy". So if you played there, fill in the blanks for me.

I know there's a TBer floating around here who did a gig on a pontoon boat.

Whataya got?

Maybe this qualifies, but I played a gig on the Gateway Party boat in Pittsburgh, Pa. for 250 teenieboppers. We were a 6 piece band at the time, and our keyboard player played a Hammond organ.

The neat thing about Hammond organsof that day were tones were generated by an electric motor called a tone generator. The un-neat thing that night is that the current on the boat was variable based on the rpms of the boats motor, which in turn changed the intonation of the organ. Needless to say, it was the longest gig of my musical career, and the only time I thought about jumping of a boat to end it all.

 

[FunkHead]

We played on a boat. The weird thing is that the boat was inside a bar. The stage was made out of great "tone-wood".
Edit: found a Pic. Band was Saving Mary. Bass was Steve Harris Signature.

 

[onosson]

We played some club in Vancouver (actually New Westminster, I believe) back in the 90s, which definitely was part of the metal scene. The main part of the stage was pretty typical, but the drum "riser" was actually on another level, about ten feet above the rest of the band and accessible via stairs. Weirdest set up of a legitimate stage that I've ever seen.

 

[SticboyThicbass]

A jam band I was with played an outdoor gig on a trailer- I've seen a couple similar situations- at a bonfire. Only our drummer fit on it, so all of us were in front about 10 feet from a tree that had been chopped down and tucked into a 20 foot high pile, which fire dancers were (unsuccesfully) trying to light (because it was raining). There were gas tanks filled with varying amounts of gasoline about 6 feet from us, the trees were immediately behind us, and we had about 60 feet of extension cord between us and the house of the guy we were playing at. It was also after midnight when we got there because everyone but me was inebriated. We got shut down by the cops around 3 in the morning after playing the same chord for an hour because we didn't have any actual "songs".

 

[BrickBatMansion]

On a floating boat dock. Everytime a boat went by the wake would make us go up and down. I thought I was gonna be sea-sick.

 

[Single Coil]

My band played a show under this gazebo as part of the Fairy Flower Festival in 2005(?). Our opening act was a local Master Gardener describing various flower species.
That roof is concave underneath. The sound under there was loud and horrible.

 

[cmcbass]

There was another mention of this back on the first page, but I too have played on the lanes of a bowling alley. Excessive echoes from the hard surfaces, plus the sounds of balls and pins make for an unpleasant experience. We made decent money though, so I guess I'd play there again.

 

[IamGroot]

1) Aviation Museum, in front of some WWII fighter planes

2) Early 1970s - Nasty club, Owner let the guard dogs roam the place when the club was closed. The dogs liked to poop on the shag carpet on stage.

 

[BurnOut]

My bedroom, I had a new year/birthday for me party. My house is pretty small, didn't wanna take up room for the guest, so bedroom was it. Actually the bedroom is one of the biggest rooms, had to move a bunch of stuff. People wanting to watch had to crowd the doorway. All had a good time, especially after we quit playing and I could dig into the tequila I received as a present.
This is a pic with our big fan from the neighborhood, he heard us playing and stopped by for the show. He was my avatar back in the early days.

 

[REV]

I played in a boxing ring once. There's a pic of this somewhere but it's a polaroid.

 

[Dogbertday]

Skate park.
Outdoor beach stage with pontoons because permanant structures on thatbeach violates building codes.
Grocery store opening
A club in Columbus, OH thats the spittin image of the "player hater's club" skit complete with saggy stage and shaggy carpet.
Probably many more im missing.

 

[pablomago]

A casino gig. The stage was behind and above the bar about ten feet up. All around you'd hear the sound of slot machines and bells and whistles going off when people got jackpots. I felt like I was playing inside a giant pachinko machine.

 

[4SG]

My band plays a bar in downtown LA sometimes with a tiny stage built at the end of the bar. It's about the size of a postage stamp. It's up 3 steps and sunk into a corner alcove, so it's surrounded by walls on 3 sides. We are a 5 piece with a pedal steel player. Only the steel player can keep his amp on the stage. The singer/acoustic player, the lead guitarist and I all have our amps in front of us, down the steps on the floor. Only the singer and I have mics; the stands are on the bar. We have to be super careful not to turn or move too much so we don't konk each other with our headstocks. The venue provides free beer for the band, but it's...Schlitz. In cans.