when weird things happen at gigs

[pcake]

i was reading some threads, and one of them triggered a memory of something that happened in the late nineties or very early 2000s. we were a three piece band of no particular genre, but you could call it hard alt/punk. we were playing at mr. t's bowl in a nasty part of town, but the club is fun and funny. there was a big mix of audience, older barflies but nice people and younger indie music lovers. we were playing late-ish, and sometime after 11, a rockabilly band did their thing. lots of guys and gals dressed for it, which was fun, and there was a scuffle on the dance floor at one point, but i wasn't in a place to see what it was.

well, a little later we had just set up and had played like 10 seconds of music when the police showed up. they pulled everyone in the audience, all bar employees and the bands out the back door into the alley. it seems that there had been a stabbing during the rockbilly show - i believe the guys actually knew each other, but at that point the police weren't sure what happened. they had the guy who was stabbed with them, and made us step up in groups of 5 lit by a spotlight and do a lineup so he could spot his attacker. this went on till well after 2 am, so by the time everyone piled back into the club, no alcohol could be served.

they did let us go on, and i'm happy to report that even without the booze, everyone actually loved our show including us and the DJ (anyone remember what his name was?). a fun time was had by all, but we really could have done without the police lineup in the alley *LOL*

so please tell about your weird gig experiences

 

[BazzTard]

a friend's band was playing a small bar the Thursday night before Good Friday. Why the only day of the year that pubs are shut is called Good Friday is beyond me.
Anyhow at midnight the cops marched in and shut down the show as alcohol could no longer be served. Can we finish our drinks?
No.
I grab my pint and scull it. Cop looks at me,I could see him try and work out if it was worth the effort to arrest me....he let me go.
Imagine that going to court. You drank the pint? yes your honour I had paid for it,the law says you can't sell alcohol after midnight,nothing said you can't drink any alcohol bought before then hehe

 

[Sharp5]

A lady in the audience fell to the floor and pretty much died. One of the guys in our band was a PA. He jumped off the stage, brought her back, and kept her going until EMS arrived. We did finish the night...dying to hear us jokes abound.

 

[dbase]

Back in the late 60's we played a a dive that was shaped like a triangle. The band at one end and the front door at the other. This place never carded the women coming to the bar and just let them in. So we always had a packed house. One night the state police raided the place (every two weeks) and herded all the underage girls through the one door at the end into waiting police wagons. Our organ player was 17 at the time but managed to stay as he was in the band "Working". Consequently there was no women left in the bar after the raid. It was a boring night after that as was this story of mine. .

 

[Celtic59]

Back in the late 70's I was playing a dive in South Philly and a couple started to fight on the dance floor,right in front of the little stage we were on. They really threw some bombs at each other, then immediately made up. Without missing a beat, our singer yells out "Let's hear it for couple #1!" and that was followed by a perfect rim shot. It was like bad television.

 

[Treadstone71]

I played Mustang Sally all the way through without falling asleep.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

In the early 60s I was playing a club in St. John's, Nfld. We had a drunk who didn't like rock and kept heckling our lead. Our lead ignored the drunk until he got so frustrated at getting no response, he approached the stage saying,"I hate rock & roll and I hate fat guys and I'm gonna kick your a**!"
Without looking up or missing a note, the lead planted the butt end of his Firebird in the drunks forehead. I doubt he knew what hit him. He just crumpled and fell right in place.
When the police arrived, the club owner explained to them the poor fellow slipped while trying to climb on the stage and hit his head. When the apparently knowledgable EMT saw the little round impression just above his eyes, he just grinned.

 

[THUNDERGODX]

This is gonna be long, but it is the funniest thing trhat ever hapened in all my years of playing.

We were at a Fraternity party at a a rented lodge at at a State Park.

Try to visualize this description. Its important.:

The room was a big rectangle with the stage at one end.
The stage took about three fourths of the width of that end, with a hallway running back alongside to some smaller conference rooms farther back in the building.
There was a door in the hallway that opened inward onto the side of the stage for setting up.

We were arranged on the stage with the keyboard player on the side toward the door on his left and slightly behind where he was standing.
He had left the door open to keep some air moving across the stage, as it was rather warm in the building.

Okay- now that you have the setup, heres the event.

One of the guys at the party, who must have been really drunk, apparently was kind of sliding along the adjoining hallway along the wall.
When he came to the open door, he fell through it, barely maintaining his balance, and did a reverse pirouette, drink in one hand, and other arm in the air, trying to keep balanced. as he fell into the band area, he was behind the keyboard player, and as he spun around, his free hand hit the keyboard player very solidly on the right side of his head, the side toward the rest of the band.

IN one complete movement, after hitting the keyboard player,the drunk guy completed his spin, and went right back out the door, and on down the hall.

The keyboard player, having been hit on his right side, turned to that side, but saw no one.
Turning his head then to the left, he was too late to see the drunk guy, who had gone right back out and on down the hall.

So there he was, having had the Sh!t knocked out him, and no one in sight who could have done it.

 

[dbase]

Back in the late 70's I was playing a dive in South Philly and a couple started to fight on the dance floor,right in front of the little stage we were on. They really threw some bombs at each other, then immediately made up. Without missing a beat, our singer yells out "Let's hear it for couple #1!" and that was followed by a perfect rim shot. It was like bad television.

That "Dive in South Philly" you mentioned wouldn't happen to be the "Dolphin Lounge" on Broad st. would it? ... I played there once. Now that was a dive.

 

[Gearhead17]

We played a festival called "Pizza Fest" in Chicago. It was a pathetic event. Three pizza vendors showed up and none of them were known to any of our friends, band, or family. No Giordanos, Lu Malnati's, Home Run In, Sarpinos and etc... We went on at 12 noon since our booking agent said the lunch time crowd will be huge. (Yeaahh, ok ). We were in a strange part of Chicago (far north side) and there were bunches of good/non-trouble-making people around mixed in crazy homeless folk. Upon arrival, we have 6 adults yelling and screaming at each other for bumping into one another by accident. I watched some audience members start to leave when that happened...... 10 minutes into the show and we have a guy with three teeth eating half-eaten chicken legs out of the garbage. The trash can was 10' from the stage. The second lovely lady had a thin jacket on with NOTHING underneath it. As we kept playing, she pulled a hard boiled egg out of her backpack (how long was that in there? ) and proceed to de-shell it right in front of the stage. Then she pulled out a paperback book, looked at it and then handed it to our singer. It stayed on the edge of the stage for the duration of the show. Once that was complete she made hand gestures around her stomach and lower abdomen as if she wanted to have our singer's baby. . Then she unzipped that thin coat and I saw two torpedoes and that lovely belly. . I just laughed. You can't let it get you down. The crowd was about 7 people and three of them were ok with us - no point in getting angry over things I cannot control. A few minutes later a cop showed up and the crazy folk were gone. Once the show was done, I boogied my butt out of there. Never again!

 

[tastybasslines]

We played a festival called "Pizza Fest" in Chicago. It was a pathetic event. Three pizza vendors showed up and none of them were known to any of our friends, band, or family. No Giordanos, Lu Malnati's, Home Run In, Sarpinos and etc... We went on at 12 noon since our booking agent said the lunch time crowd will be huge. (Yeaahh, ok ). We were in a strange part of Chicago (far north side) and there were bunches of good/non-trouble-making people around mixed in crazy homeless folk. Upon arrival, we have 6 adults yelling and screaming at each other for bumping into one another by accident. I watched some audience members start to leave when that happened...... 10 minutes into the show and we have a guy with three teeth eating half-eaten chicken legs out of the garbage. The trash can was 10' from the stage. The second lovely lady had a thin jacket on with NOTHING underneath it. As we kept playing, she pulled a hard boiled egg out of her backpack (how long was that in there? ) and proceed to de-shell it right in front of the stage. Then she pulled out a paperback book, looked at it and then handed it to our singer. It stayed on the edge of the stage for the duration of the show. Once that was complete she made hand gestures around her stomach and lower abdomen as if she wanted to have our singer's baby. . Then she unzipped that thin coat and I saw two torpedoes and that lovely belly. . I just laughed. You can't let it get you down. The crowd was about 7 people and three of them were ok with us - no point in getting angry over things I cannot control. A few minutes later a cop showed up and the crazy folk were gone. Once the show was done, I boogied my butt out of there. Never again!

Hilarious.

 

[.BumeStik.]

You guys make my music life seem BORING!

Only thing I got.... My Wife and I had separated for a time back in 2008. I had to move out of state away from my kids for work, so I was Really Depressed. I ended up joining a Punk/Metal band with a couple Drunkards I had known since high school to make some extra cash and try and take my mind off of being Depressed.. They were pretty well Alcoholics, and I was working on becoming one. We got fairly known in the area and were actually making decent money playing 3-5 nights a week. But, the singer and guitar player brought in a drummer they knew that was just Awful. Not only did he get drunk before every show, but he was stoned out of his mind, too. Somehow we kept getting asked to play. It got me free Hooch and extra cash, so I followed the train.

One night we played a club in Corvallis, Oregon. The line up had a couple REALLY good bands. I was pretty excited to see the headliner, which had lost their bass player, so they played without him. We went on right before them. Our Drummer had managed to get SO SMASHED before going on we had to restart our opening song 3 times. It was not a good night, but luckily I had ingested enough whiskey that I didn't want to Kill him.

We finished up and got our gear off stage. I headed straight to the restroom trying not to pee myself. I am standing at the urinal, deep in thought, when someone says, "Hey, we need to talk to you." I am thinking oh crap, I am about to get beat in the bathroom. It was the drummer and singer of the headlining band. I had been peeing for like 3 minutes at this point and cannot get it to stop. They asked me to turn around and talk to them and I had to tell them, "Hey, say what you gotta say, I can't stop peeing man." So, my back is to them, they start talking about how crappy my band is and that I should be playing in a better band. He starts talking about paying me this and that, working on an album, this and that. I am trying to process what the Frig is happening when I FINALLY stop peeing. I walk over to wash my hands and when I look up, the singer and guitar player of the band I was with are standing behind the other guys trying to hire me listening to the WHOLE conversation.

I washed my hands, let out a Nervous Giggle, went back to the bar, and had another drink. The car ride back to town with my band was DEAD Silent that night.

 

[pcake]

whoa! some great - and weird - stories here

 

[I Need a six...]

I played an event here in michigan known as "back to the bricks" at a bar right on the strip of burton where the old school cars drove by. We three knights scheduled. The third was with a band featuring Ricky lee of Black oak Arkansas. That night we got there and first thing I see is Ricky lee peddling smack to a local junkie. Weird enough, so after our show the owner of the establishment decides were not going to be paid that day, so here comes my dad, 4 foot 9 inches of pure italian muscle hollering at the guy "you gotta be kidding me! Are you trying to tell me...."And then at the very same time the owners wife tells my band leaders and drummers dad(who was raised in Iran) " I hope you didn't make a bomb out of that camera" and then they preseeded to go berserk, so at the same time the entire band, and both of our fathers in in a huge uproar, finally Ricky lee (who by the way is NOT the rocker he used to be) breaks up the huge fight and he personally gives us his share of the money. Onece the smoke clears the owner says to us "you guys should come back next year!"

 

[crucislancer]

Back in 1995, the singer in the band I was in (original prog metal band) would get us pretty much any gig he could manage. Bars, clubs, parties, whatever. He outdid himself that summer, and got us into a carnival at a local Catholic church. The church had a group of people reviewing submissions from talent and they thought we would be a good fit for the younger members of the congregation. My first thought was that they couldn't possibly have listened to our demo tape. There was at least one song on there that would make a Catholic priest more than a little queasy. Honestly, they were very out of touch with their congregation. But, we got the gig, and figured it might be a good idea to play our mellower songs (such as they were) and a cover: Summertime Blues.

We show up, and realize that we are completely out of our element. My drummer had the comment of the day: "My fiasco bells are ringing". The carnival was set up in the large parking lot of the church, with some small rides and several game booths, and a really small stage could barely fit our drummer's kit. The congregation was completely Latino. Now, I know some Latinos that love rock music, but most that I know prefer Latino pop music or the traditional music of Mexico.

We had to wait for one act to finish before we could set up our gear, the act being two 12 year old girls doing a tap dance routine. It turns out that I knew the dad of one of the girls, he was there watching when we got there. He was very amused that we had to following the tap dancing act. Yeah, fun times!

The actual gig wasn't bad, it was just strange. No one really stopped to check us out, though I'm sure they could hear us. Got plenty of nasty looks from people, though. They also made our singer do some PSAs, which really segued well into the set list........"They have face painting now over at the south end of the parking lot. Ok, this song is called MUTUAL! ASSURED! DESTRUCTION!!!!"

That was the weirdest one that I can remember.

 

[Munjibunga]

We played a festival called "Pizza Fest" in Chicago. It was a pathetic event. Three pizza vendors showed up and none of them were known to any of our friends, band, or family. No Giordanos, Lu Malnati's, Home Run In, Sarpinos and etc... We went on at 12 noon since our booking agent said the lunch time crowd will be huge. (Yeaahh, ok ). We were in a strange part of Chicago (far north side) and there were bunches of good/non-trouble-making people around mixed in crazy homeless folk. Upon arrival, we have 6 adults yelling and screaming at each other for bumping into one another by accident. I watched some audience members start to leave when that happened...... 10 minutes into the show and we have a guy with three teeth eating half-eaten chicken legs out of the garbage. The trash can was 10' from the stage. The second lovely lady had a thin jacket on with NOTHING underneath it. As we kept playing, she pulled a hard boiled egg out of her backpack (how long was that in there? ) and proceed to de-shell it right in front of the stage. Then she pulled out a paperback book, looked at it and then handed it to our singer. It stayed on the edge of the stage for the duration of the show. Once that was complete she made hand gestures around her stomach and lower abdomen as if she wanted to have our singer's baby. . Then she unzipped that thin coat and I saw two torpedoes and that lovely belly. . I just laughed. You can't let it get you down. The crowd was about 7 people and three of them were ok with us - no point in getting angry over things I cannot control. A few minutes later a cop showed up and the crazy folk were gone. Once the show was done, I boogied my butt out of there. Never again!

What was the problem?

 

[Gearhead17]

What was the problem?

The problem: the festival was creepy and a huge waste of time. I also left out the most important detail of all; it was my BIRTHDAY! . Luckily we had a gig at Cubby Bear Chicago that evening - that made up for everything.

 

[Munjibunga]

The problem: the festival was creepy and a huge waste of time. I also left out the most important detail of all; it was my BIRTHDAY! . Luckily we had a gig at Cubby Bear Chicago that evening - that made up for everything.

OK. It sounded like fun to me.

 

[Old Blastard]

It was 1978. A drummer buddy called me to say some dudes in the neighborhood had a band and a gig at a Latino/Irish wedding but that their rhythm section up and quit on them. We agreed to fill in and when we finally got to rehearse it turned out that the guitarists didn't know what chords they were playing.
"I don't know the key, man, I just play this..."

It was pretty awful, but my buddy was intent on doing it so I went along. At the wedding, we Realized that the families of the happy couple did not like each other at all. And the originals these guys played were heavy on fuzz and distortion. Then the two guitar players got into a fight over a girl named Cricket and came to blows, both quitting and walking off the stage that had been set up in the union hall.

People just stared at us. I was afraid that the one thing the families would agree on was that they hated us.

So I yelled at Art to play a blues shuffle beat and I walked a line in A. People started dancing. Then the guitars came back to join us with interesting out of key thrashing while Cricket sat at the front of the stage in awe.

We were awful.

Finally a drunk old 'billy came up while we thrashed and asked if we knew "Danny Boy" and I said no. He said 'how can you not know Danny Boy?' And sang a line. We are still thrashing but it makes no difference what I play because the guitarists aren't playing the same chords anyway.

I tell the guy I know the song but these guys dont. He listens for a moment and says, I probably wouldn't recognize it anyway.

Hardest $75 I ever made

 

[Photobassist]

I was in a hip-hop/jazzy/funk style band playing our weekly gig at Jazzminds in Honolulu. We were about 3 songs into our second set when this highly intoxicated, yet super attractive cougar started finger playing herself in front of our singer. It wasn't until she removed her panties and hung them over the singers mic stand that her husband/boyfriend finally came up and pulled her back to their table. They stayed until we finished, the singer got her number, and both the singer and guitarist ended up having a 3-way with her about a week later.

Stranger things have happen at gigs, but that girl thoroughly "enjoyed" our music.