when weird things happen at gigs

[bassbully]

A few years back my Americana band was playing an outdoor festival in the city. This was our third year playing this event. The city sets up a big trailer that opens into a stage and provides pro sound.
The problem was the park its held in is well known for homeless crowd with lots crack head, bums, drunks all kinds of trouble comes from there. Its a very beautiful park but littered up bad by them. Most of them sleep there and drink and do drugs all day long.

As in the previous years the police come in about an hour before the festival opens and forces out the vagrant's.
Most stay outside the park during the event watching the rich people shop and enjoy the festival many lay around passed out.
As we were setting up a dirty, toothless homeless guy come up to the stage and insists he is a great musician and can play any instrument in the band. He asks me if he can come up on stage and show me. I said no but hey thanks for asking. He leaves comes back and again asks to play, again I said no.
He then said 'hey If I go get my keyboard can I come up and play? I said thanks again but no... he said "great I'll be back!

The festival opens and the show starts the bums were pushed out and the people started flowing in. We are mid set when out of the corner of my eye I see somebody coming up the stairs at the side of the stage I'm on. It was the keyboard bum with a small box in his hands and he is charging up on the stage. I quickly turn bass in hand while playing and charge at him yelling at him to get off the stage now!
He freezes and retreats back down the stairs waving the box at me yelling something I could not hear. The police took him out of the park. I never knew what was in the box but sure wasn't a keyboard.

 

[Munjibunga]

I was playing at a place in Corvallis, Oregon (small world, eh?) and it had a weird layout for the stage. The back of the stage was a wall of glass and the drum riser stuck out several feet into the sidewalk. We had a good crowd that night and people were lined up waiting to get in. A few songs into the second set I looked over at the drummer and I noticed a couple of girls outside who were right beside the drummer and they were laughing and holding their hands over their mouths. I looked just beyond them and the door guy was waving his hands over his head trying to get my attention. When he finally saw me looking at him he started emphatically pointing down at the drummer. A looked closely at him and eventually noticed the issue. The drummer always wore shorts and went commando and his equipment was hanging out of his shorts. After I stopped laughing I got the drummer's attention and pointed down at his crotch. He turned bright red and adjusted himself. Thankfully, neither of missed a beat during all of this. The door guy and several people at the front of the line were laughing their backsides off.

See "Don't Wear Shorts" thread.

 

[Gaolee]

The audience liked us. It was really weird.

 

[pcake]

The audience liked us. It was really weird.

*chuckle*

 

[direktor]

we were playing at mr. t's bowl

everyone actually loved our show including us and the DJ (anyone remember what his name was?).

That would have been Arlo.

 

[Gunga Din]

Back in the mid-'80s' there was an ongoing biker feud in Edinburgh. These two sets of men made nightlife a misery in bars they took over, fought in, and wrecked.

So, the band I'm in at the time was playing a well-known live venue. It had a large back room with a fairly high stage. Out front was another bar that folk who didn't want to see a band could natter and drink. There are plenty bikers stotting around, acting tough. The gig room is busy and we're going down well. That was until something flew past my head. I wasn't sure what it was, but a few minutes later I definitely recognised the next one. Almost in slow motion, I see someone at the back of the room launch something at us. I keep an eye on it. It's a full 500ml can of Red Stripe, and how it missed the singer/guitarist I'll never know. It crashes into the drummer's cymbals but thankfully doesn't hit him.

By now, we're all on alert. A group at the back of the room are responsible. Another missile arrives, going wide of the mark. Thankfully, the launchers' ire does not bring them down the front where people are dancing. The gig passes with out further attacks, and no threats are made. We stand down and go have a drink with friends.

Later, we hear a lot of shouting and bawling, screaming, and glasses smashing. We think nothing of it, as these occurrences, whilst not regular, were then to be expected if a squad of bikers were in. By then, the venue and front bar are about half an hour from closing, and we try load our gear off the stage. Venue tells us 'No can do. It's a bloodbath in the front.' After a while, I venture forth. The floor of the front bar is a sea of broken glass, broken stools/chairs, and blood. We eventually get the go-ahead to load out. Out on the street there are three ambulances and two cop riot vans and some cop-cars'; the scene is black with cops. Seemingly, the bikers brought their feud to that venue that night. Hand-weapons had been used. People were glassed, and one biker put an axe in the back of another. I don't think anyone collected the gig money; we just wanted to get out and home. Alive.

 

[Old Blastard]

Back in the mid-'80s' there was an ongoing biker feud in Edinburgh. These two sets of men made nightlife a misery in bars they took over, fought in, and wrecked.

So, the band I'm in at the time was playing a well-known live venue. It had a large back room with a fairly high stage. Out front was another bar that folk who didn't want to see a band could natter and drink. There are plenty bikers stotting around, acting tough. The gig room is busy and we're going down well. That was until something flew past my head. I wasn't sure what it was, but a few minutes later I definitely recognised the next one. Almost in slow motion, I see someone at the back of the room launch something at us. I keep an eye on it. It's a full 500ml can of Red Stripe, and how it missed the singer/guitarist I'll never know. It crashes into the drummer's cymbals but thankfully doesn't hit him.

By now, we're all on alert. A group at the back of the room are responsible. Another missile arrives, going wide of the mark. Thankfully, the launchers' ire does not bring them down the front where people are dancing. The gig passes with out further attacks, and no threats are made. We stand down and go have a drink with friends.

Later, we hear a lot of shouting and bawling, screaming, and glasses smashing. We think nothing of it, as these occurrences, whilst not regular, were then to be expected if a squad of bikers were in. By then, the venue and front bar are about half an hour from closing, and we try load our gear off the stage. Venue tells us 'No can do. It's a bloodbath in the front.' After a while, I venture forth. The floor of the front bar is a sea of broken glass, broken stools/chairs, and blood. We eventually get the go-ahead to load out. Out on the street there are three ambulances and two cop riot vans and some cop-cars' the scene is black with cops. Seemingly, the bikers brought their feud to that venue that night. Hand-weapons had been used. People were glassed, and one biker put an axe in the back of another. I don't think anyone collected the gig money; we just wanted to get out and home. Alive.

I played in biker bars near military basses in the 80s, but it was about 8 years after the clubs had pretty much reached a truce.

Some awesomely weird behavior and stories involving alcohol and scanty clothing that I really can't relate on a family page.

 

[smeet]

I’ve played at Mr T’s, that’s a fun venue!

In the early 80s I played 4 sets of top 40 in a Chicago bar. The crowd was dancing and having a great time, especially this one super drunk guy. He was gyrating and hip thrusting about a foot in front of our lead singer Peggy, weirding her out. He had some scratches and such on his face. After each set he would disappear, and come back to dance the next set. Each time he reappeared, he was sporting a new black eye, missing tooth, bloody nose, etc. I assume he was getting that ass kicked each time, but he didn’t care, he was having a ball - a true dancing fool. It was equal parts hilarious and horrifying.

 

[Gunga Din]

Here's another, though it could be described also as what went on after the gigs!

Back in the early '90s I was out on tour with a band as a backline tech. The singer was a charismatic guy, and as such usually had a crowd of pretty women of a wide age gap in front of him. As the tour progressed, we would watch this group of women meld, move, and change. But two were stalwarts every night, right in front of the singer. They shimmied like a pair of sea snakes during the slow numbers, and bopped along on the upbeat ones, but they stayed rooted to the spot. We nicknamed them 'The Snake-hip Sisters'. One was a blonde, the other a brunette. Whilst the blonde smiled happily and sang along at times, the brunette kept an inane grin on her face and focused solely on the frontman.

Word began to reach us that she had a fixation on the singer. When we hit Europe, and she couldn't make certain shows, it was discovered that she was posting letters ahead for the singer to read. All band fans send notes, teddies, flowers....whatever, to dressing rooms, so nobody thought much of the 'Good luck; sorry we can't be there.' notes from the brunette sister. Then, the content of the notes began to move up a gear.

One afternoon, after sound-check, I spotted the singer leaving the dressing-room; he looked a bit troubled. At a festival in Denmark, it was reported that Snakehips somehow got access to the liggers area at stage right; the singer spotted her and nearly shat himself.. A day or so later, the Tour Manager got the crew together and told us we were to inform him or the promoter if we ever saw the brunette at a gig, and to politely refuse to engage with her. In her notes, she now declared her love for the singer, and that she considered them to be an item (even though he was a family man who did not fk around on the road); that he was going to divorce his wife and go live with her. A note was somehow handed to the singer before he went onstage one night (uninformed promo-rep) in which brunette said she couldn't be there that night, but would be there in spirit. After that, all notes were censored by the management.

The message got through to Snakehips, and we never saw her again. However, in a creepy twist of fate, a few months later we found out that she instigated a whirlwind romance with the singer's brother, who lived in the village the family came from in a remote part of Scotland, and got married to him! And the thing that shocked me was at that time the singer had decided to return to the family village and bought a huge house in it!

I didn't tour with that band again for many years, so I have no clue what happened further in that mini-drama. I must call up some of the old crew and chin them for info.

 

[shoot-r]

Played a very large, outdoor, van-in party (custom Van's/delivery trucks all tricked out) back in the 80's.

They had a large, 6' high, very, very old, nasty and in very bad condition wooden stage for the bands to play on.

They'd tried to reinforce the floor by putting down cheap particle/presswood board across it.

They had two bands, one on Friday night, us on Saturday night.

It rained hard enough Friday night that they cancelled the Friday band.

It continued to rain up till late the next morning.

We set-up on a water logged stage.

During the second set, our keyboard player who was singing the lead part to a Stones number, jumped up on his Hammond, danced around alittle, jumped off the organ while still wailing the tune and disappeared through the stage, only thing still visible was the mic cord going down through the hole.

He never missed a beat!

At the end of the song only his arm came up out of the hole and gave a thumbs up!

 

[-Asdfgh-]

The first time a saw a Wal bass was about 30 years ago in a pub band. The bassist was leaping about the stage and tripped and fell off. He deliberately used his face to break his fall to save his bass. He was bleeding profusely but didn't drop a note!

 

[-Asdfgh-]

In a band I was in, one of the players was notorious for vanishing about ten minutes before the performance. He usually turned up with thirty seconds to spare, with food.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

During a gig, I started having issues with my cord, so I thought. The sound kept cutting out. Also the stage fog machine was getting a bit excessive. It turned out my tube amp was literally on fire. Apparently, I could easily have been electrocuted as the insulation in the power transformer was burning.

When running a festival something similar happened to someone else so I tried to sneak onto stage to swap their amp over to the spare already on stage. I thought I was doing a good job, forgetting the fact that I was wearing a suit made of alternate wide black and reflective silver stripes I'd worn as, as organiser, it made me very easy to describe and find. It wasn't subtle so I was not like a near invisible black-clad roadie but rather the sorest of thumbs.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

In one band, we had strict dress code. I'd turned up with incorrect trousers but another member had a spare pair. I wore those then returned them. Unfortunately, I'd put my car keys in the borrowed pair and had to wait for them to drive back to the venue. They didn't check their mobile until they got home.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

It rains in England, but before a bank holiday festival, it rained a lot. We went to scope out the festival as it was being set up, the day before we were due to play. Seeing a tractor having to be pulled out of the mud wasn't encouraging.

We played, but most of the band gear went into the bucket of a JCB digger to get it tonight stage. I refused and pulled my stuff along in a trolley behind it. The ruts in the kid were literally two feet deep, and once committed I had no option but to continue.

After playing, I bumped into a friend and had a five minute conversation. The friend left but in that time the mud had dried around my hiking boots sufficiently that I could no longer move. Luckily, a second friend appeared and helped haul me out and only one boot came off in the process. I was careful to keep moving after this.

The previous year had just been cold. The following year they moved the festival to a hill. It was marginally less muddy.

 

[shoot-r]

Also the stage fog machine was getting a bit excessive.

That happened at a job earlier this year for the group I'm with.

Furnished FOH, lights, stage, ect.

They had 6 of the absolutely LARGEST, industrial sized fog machines I'd ever seen! 4 on stage with 1 behind the ground subs on each side of the stage, they were all rigged to work simultaneously.

We had just started playing, lights operator turned them on, there was a loud bang reminiscent of several shotguns going off.....then he couldn't get them to shut off!

They had to let them go till they ran out of fluid.

Picture is shortly after they had been turned on and all the audience that was close to the stage had fled the scene.
60 seconds after this picture was taken the stage was no longer visible from space, roughfully another 60 seconds, the soundman and mixer was gone to!

It was a scene that should have been used in the Spinal Tap movie...

 

[-Asdfgh-]

That happened at a job earlier this year for the group I'm with.

Furnished FOH, lights, stage, ect.

They had 6 of the absolutely LARGEST, industrial sized fog machines I'd ever seen! 4 on stage with 1 behind the ground subs on each side of the stage, they were all rigged to work simultaneously.

We had just started playing, lights operator turned them on, there was a loud bang reminiscent of several shotguns going off.....then he couldn't get them to shut off!

They had to let them go till they ran out of fluid.

Picture is shortly after they had been turned on and all the audience that was close to the stage had fled the scene.
60 seconds after this picture was taken the stage was no longer visible from space, roughfully another 60 seconds, the soundman and mixer was gone to!

It was a scene that should have been used in the Spinal Tap movie...

View attachment 7040615

In my case I thought it was fog but it was magic amp smoke escaping.