Keyboard Pranks?

[The Real MC]

On the coattails of the joke thread... list the pranks you played on band members!

 

Pranks I've done at rehearsals:

 

REO Speedwagon "Keep On Loving You" opens with piano chords then the rest of the band comes in with a bang. I start the piano chords a half step sharp, band hits the bang "Ewwwww who is out of tune?!?"

 

One friend hates "Ice Castles". Another hates "Pomp and Circumstance" played at graduations. Both are visiting, so I sit at the piano and simultaneously play "Ice Castles" with the RH, "Pomp" with the LH, and the next thing I know I have two women strangling me.

 

Billy Squier "Everybody Wants You" I replaced the really difficult quarter-note octave solo with the theme from the 1960s show "Batman" (band loved it so much it became part of the song).

 

The Romantics "What I Like About You" opening chords played at really fast tempo. The whole band kicks in and we actually rip through the song. Singer sings it chipmunk falsetto style, we follow suit with backup harmonies. Tape was rolling, I have the recording as blackmail in case any of us run for president.

 

I've been known to sneak the five note motif from the movie Close Encounters Of the 3rd Kind in the middle of a solo.

 

Pranks I've done during shows:

 

The Eagles "Wasted Time" the band drops out in the middle with just piano chords and singer; Am->G#aug5th->G/C->F#/D then I played this New Orleans style descending run right before the F chord (think the ending piano run of "Call Me The Breeze"). The singer lost it and busted a gut laughing.

 

I found a preset called "Clocks" and wondered where the h3ll would I use this. So when I start the Styx song "Too Much Time On My Hands" I played "Clocks" (well the song *IS* disco 120BPM) for a few bars then right into the synth intro everybody knows. "Clocks" is tongue-in-cheek ref to "Too Much Time...". Singer was really puzzled on first hearing but loved it so much it became part of the song.

 

Sometimes the R&B/Funk band would jam on a song at rehearsal that we'd never play at a show. We jammed on Boston "Foreplay/Long Time". At a show I started the opening motif, BL motions to cut with hand crossing the throat. I often played Hammond improv solos, so I would sneak the motif in the middle of a solo transposed to the key of the song. All the band members are snickering except BL "what's everybody laughing at?" I did that for SIX MONTHS before I finally clued BL on the joke.

 

"Mustang Sally" after the line "I brought you a brand new Mustang" I play a car horn toot toot!

 

We played a showcase using the backline of the host band. My band plays in E flat; the digital piano does not have a transpose function (!). Maybe the host keyboard player was attempting a prank, but did not know I was a jazz player. So I transposed Lynyrd Skynyrd piano parts in real time ("I-IV-V" etc). The piano solo in "Call Me the Breeze" was easy; I would had been in trouble trying that with "I Know A Little". After the show I told the band what I pulled off, they couldn't believe I did that.

 

Singer with a drug habit did a no show at a gig. So we all huddled over the set list and decided who was singing which songs. The prank was we made it through the night and fired the singer.

 

And of course there's the clever habit of quoting songs in the middle of jazz solos.

[KuruPrionz]

I have no keyboard pranks but this is by far the best gig prank I've ever encountered.

 

One of the bassists I used to work with was also a sound man. He developed an ability to make a high pitched sound like impending microphone feedback come out of his mouth without any visual clues - his face didn't change.

He could throw that a considerable distance.

 

So we would have a gig and the sound man would be getting into sound check. Robin would stand about a foot back from his vocal mic and launch microphone feedback sound into the system.

The sound guy would freak out, start pulling faders and twisting knobs. I put my ears in my fingers to ward off the piercing feedback that could come at any moment.

 

Robin would stop and wait and do it again. Same thing - freak out!!! The third time we figured it out. I was unable to be too pissed off because it was a great prank but the sound guy wanted to kill him!!!

 

I've never seen anybody else do that one...

[Docbop]

One band I was with played a dance club and dance floor was always packed. So we'd wait till it was a really popular song and everyone dancing and we turn it into a shuffle. Funny watching the people trying to dance to a shuffle they weren't sure what happened then we'd go back to what every beat it was. Another band had this singer who was okay but big ego and his own entourage of friends would be at the gig. Singer would screw up now and then and we'd cover him, but this night he called a song and we kicked it off. The singer comes in singing the wrong song, we just looked at each other and collective decided screw him and kept playing the song he called. It was the end of the set so his friends come up and they knew he screw up, but they said it was the bands fault. We enjoy canning the singer after the gig.

 

Another band had been around for ages and the keyboard player ran the band was was a real straight laced pain in the ass. Well four of us we old friends and could get a bit crazy and one was the beautiful girl singer who was the guitar players girlfriend. So every now and then during guitar solos she would dance around behind her boyfriend and grab is crotch from behind. Usually results in some unexpected notes in the solo. Well this one night she was wearing a halter top and when Mr Straight Laced piano player was taking a solo she dances over in front of him, pulls her top down and starts scream his name. He looks up and freaks out, she pulls her tops up and starts laughing her ass off. Mr Straight Lace could barely play and those of us that saw her do it were laughing our asses off when tune finished. Then the same band we had three piece horn section. The trumpet player was one of the original member so he actually stood next to the keyboard play near middle of stage and the other two horn player alway played as far to the end as they could. That way they run off to the bar and get drinks. But the two horn players were good friends and both liked to go fishing. So sometimes after the Friday night gig they would take off drive to a lake and drink and fish all day then drive to the next nights gig. From fishing all day they would stink like crazy and didn't care. So we would set them up as far away from the band could, you can imagine the conversations with Mr Straight Lace were on breaks. There is more that went on with this band everyone had a great time and a lot of laugh except for Mr Straight Lace.

 

One last one I was in a Blue band with a singer harmonica player, he'd come to rehearsal and screw up parts and we'd have to get on his case and tell him to practice. Of course he swore he was practicing all the time. This one practice he was screwing up again, so when we were packing up when the singer went outside for a minute we took all the harmonics from the box he kept them in and put in a couple empty beer cans. The next rehearsal we all setting up the singer show up and opens his harmonica box and finds the beer cans. Singer is mad and we're all saying we knew you never practiced, we gave him his harmonica and sent him packing.

[nadroj]

At Scottish weddings one of the two songs we always end the night with is 500 miles by The Proclaimers.

 

When I did weddings full time we always used to get to the point in the year when we'd just start to mess around on stage. The crowd didn't really notice, but it made the nights go a bit quicker. There's a part towards the end of 500 miles where it drops down just before the last chorus. At that part the singer would normally sing out the last word of the line "Hoooome" comedically longer than it should have been. Sometimes he'd sing until his breath ran out, take a deep breath into the microphone and start the note again. Then we'd then always leave a pause of pure silence while the crowd were all ready for the beat to drop again on the words "to you" - it always made them go wild, and 99/100 they loved it.

 

Often in that pause I tried to find the worst, funniest keyboard sound effect I could and play it nice and loud to embarass the guys in the band and make everyone else think "wtf was that?". Again, at the end of the night it usually got a few laughs from the crowd. The general MIDI bank of my old FA06 was a gold mine. Sometimes I'd drop in a dog woofing, other times a plane passing. Sometimes I'd throw in the HOOAH sample from Locked out of Heaven. Some times it was lasers shooting, a horse galloping, or even an explosion (a bit risky that one). Every night during that pause the band would turn to look at me to see what I'd do. The crowd normally loved it, and the only negative response we ever saw was mild confusion.

 

Anyways, one night I was playing right against the wall next to the fire exit, and there was a phone on the wall right next to me that people would use to open the door for people outside. We got to that point in the song, the singer sang out his "Hoooooooome" for as long as his breath would let him, then the band went silent. As usual ,everyone in the audience turned to look at us. I picked the "phone ringing" sound on the FA and played it nice and loud for everyone to hear, then picked up the phone on the wall and said into it nice and loud so that my mic picked it up; "Hello? Oh, it's for you" and handed it towards the drummer.

 

The whole band broke down laughing, and we struggled to come back in on the beat. The drummer did lead us back in, but kept losing time because he was doubled up laughing so hard. The singers struggled to get their words out through laughing. Some of the folks in the crowd were laughing too.

 

I was never able to top it after that. The guys actually couldn't perform the last 2 songs properly because they were laughing so much. When we get together they still sometimes talk about that time I handed the phone to the drummer.

 

Reading over this now, it seemed much funnier in person...Had to be there.

[232006]

A classic!

 

"The crowd didn't really notice..." -

 

As someone who attended a Scottish friends wedding "do", I'm really not surprised...Lol!

 

The phone prank - the way you described it - I didn't need to be there, I could see it. Brilliant.

 

My mate who is guitarist in a busy (normally!) and popular local band that does weddings as well, has some cracking stories about gigs they've done and the things that happen when us Brits become "relaxed".

[BbAltered]

I once secretly brought a fake plastic used-fresh-paint-covered-paintbrush-lying-on-the-ground gag (it's like the plastic dog-shit gag but it's a paint-covered paintbrush) to rehearsal and left it in the chair the sax player uses during rehearsals. She enters the room, sees the mess in her chair and starts yelling at her hapless husband (trumpet player) for being irresponsible. He goes to dispose of it and discovers it is a gag. Ha ha! It wasn't as funny as I thought it might be because it showed an abusive side of the sax player's personality.

[wjwilcox]

Sample a 60 cycle hum and play back at sound check. YMMV.

[nadroj]

Sample a 60 cycle hum and play back at sound check. YMMV.

 

Woah, slow down there satan.

[marino]

Sample a 60 cycle hum and play back at sound check. YMMV.

 

I did much worse once, and with a bit more creativity. We had a sound man who had showed to have a bit of a superiority complex, so I organized a *long* sequence (about ten minutes) of samples: Ominous low-range noises with lots of effects, mixed with quasi-feedback mic noises and other assorted sabotages. The trick was to have those noises barely perceptible and very sparse - scattered in time so when one occurred, he didn't have the time to reach for the meters, the sound was already gone.

What I did was to start the sequence during soundcheck, then walk to the audience seats and enjoy the show. He suspected something, but he wasn't sure... Unfortunately, my bandmates couldn't resist giggling and laughing, so it was soon clear that it came from us. Btw the look of his face was priceless!

[232006]

Sample a 60 cycle hum and play back at sound check. YMMV.

 

 

Would have to be 50 Hz here in the UK, as we know all sound engineers have perfect pitch...

[Tusker]

Sample a 60 cycle hum and play back at sound check. YMMV.

 

Woah, slow down there satan.

 

A perennial favorite with a new sound guy.

 

It"s also a synthesizer"s square wave playing the low b two octaves below middle c. Ask me how I know.

[The Real MC]

The phone gag is a great story. Reminds me of another one...

 

Band practice in the basement, I am messing around with the Minimoog and I come up with a patch that sounds like a phone ringing. Band thinks that is funny.

 

The bass player's wife is upstairs and we hear her footsteps as she walks across the floor to pick up the phone. We all go silent waiting for the punchline.

 

I keep playing the Minimoog.

 

"Ring Ring"

"Ring Ring"

Wife picks up receiver "Hello...?"

"Ring Ring"

"WILL YOU GUYS CUT IT OUT!!!"

 

Band breaks out in laughter. That was a fun-loving band...

 

Sound guy prank: Anyone who has owned records - the ones with music on both sides - knows the aperiodic crackling noise that is inherent with a worn record. I made a noise FX patch in my Andromeda called "Vinyl Static". While sound guy is checking drums I play the static patch. "CALOROSO...!"

[S_Gould]

I worked with a sound guy who had a deliciously evil trick for 'prima donna' lead singers. He patched a pitch shifter into the monitor send from the singers mic. He would raise the pitch by 1/2 step for brief periods (usually long held notes or melismatic gymnastics). I watched him do it on a soundcheck with one particularly obnoxious guy. It created such a train wreck that the rest of the band almost fired him (the singer) on the spot!

[Mighty Motif Max]

Playing the open strings of a guitar (E A D B G E) with a guitar patch and fine pitch tuning while the band is tuning up. Or the same kind of thing with an electric bass patch. Or hitting random drum sounds when the drummer is setting up. (We're all friends so it's all in good fun).

[EscapeRocks]

I have no keyboard pranks but this is by far the best gig prank I've ever encountered.

 

One of the bassists I used to work with was also a sound man. He developed an ability to make a high pitched sound like impending microphone feedback come out of his mouth without any visual clues - his face didn't change.

He could throw that a considerable distance.

 

So we would have a gig and the sound man would be getting into sound check. Robin would stand about a foot back from his vocal mic and launch microphone feedback sound into the system.

The sound guy would freak out, start pulling faders and twisting knobs. I put my ears in my fingers to ward off the piercing feedback that could come at any moment.

 

Robin would stop and wait and do it again. Same thing - freak out!!! The third time we figured it out. I was unable to be too pissed off because it was a great prank but the sound guy wanted to kill him!!!

 

I've never seen anybody else do that one...

 

Yeah....at that point if I'm running FOH, my level of caring about how you sound goes way down.

[The Real MC]

I worked with a sound guy who had a deliciously evil trick for 'prima donna' lead singers. He patched a pitch shifter into the monitor send from the singers mic. He would raise the pitch by 1/2 step for brief periods (usually long held notes or melismatic gymnastics). I watched him do it on a soundcheck with one particularly obnoxious guy. It created such a train wreck that the rest of the band almost fired him (the singer) on the spot!

 

Yup, every touring FOH soundguy I talked to kept a "Suck" preset handy in their harmonizer. The pitch is raised ONLY in the singer's monitor, while the crowd out front hears him singing flat and the band get boo'd.

 

My Eventide H969 Harmonizer has a CV input; patch red noise in there, and the singer will REALLY suck.

[The Real MC]

There's a line I won't cross for pranks. IE detuning a guitar or changing the settings on an amp. That's sabotage and is just cruel. And some pranks are only funny the FIRST time...

[Docbop]

I have no keyboard pranks but this is by far the best gig prank I've ever encountered.

 

One of the bassists I used to work with was also a sound man. He developed an ability to make a high pitched sound like impending microphone feedback come out of his mouth without any visual clues - his face didn't change.

He could throw that a considerable distance.

 

So we would have a gig and the sound man would be getting into sound check. Robin would stand about a foot back from his vocal mic and launch microphone feedback sound into the system.

The sound guy would freak out, start pulling faders and twisting knobs. I put my ears in my fingers to ward off the piercing feedback that could come at any moment.

 

Robin would stop and wait and do it again. Same thing - freak out!!! The third time we figured it out. I was unable to be too pissed off because it was a great prank but the sound guy wanted to kill him!!!

 

I've never seen anybody else do that one...

 

Yeah....at that point if I'm running FOH, my level of caring about how you sound goes way down.

 

 

Yes, not good to screw with the FOH team. Two shows I know the house sound was bad because of jerk manager/mixer or jerk singers. The jerk manager was ZZ Top's and at sound check before even he heard the PA in the room he started barking EQ setting and other BS. We politely told him we've worked that venue many times why doesn't he listen first before making changes. No he got tick and in not so nice words said just do what I said. That night the sound was bad and he just sat there not willing to say he was wrong and let us dial in the sound. The other was Three Dog Night and all through the tour the concert reviews were saying how great the sound was, but night after night the singers said the sound sucked the PA sucks. The real problem is they want all attention on their monitor mix. So finally crew decided okay we'll give them what they want and we put up and okay mix for the house then spent rest of the night focused on the monitors. As you expect the singers were in heaven best PA they ever had, but the house sound was meh and singers didn't care.

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

I once secretly brought a fake plastic used-fresh-paint-covered-paintbrush-lying-on-the-ground gag (it's like the plastic dog-shit gag but it's a paint-covered paintbrush) ....

 

LOL I had all those props when I was a kid, but never knew about the paint brush one!

 

My favorites were the tipped-over spilled beer can, and the half-melted ice cream bar. I'll have to see if they're still at my parents' place.

[ElmerJFudd]

A little game i like to play...

 

Place my gin and tonic across F#,G#,A#7 and play the up tempo dance set without spilling it, taking sips during the horn hits.

[wineandkeyz]

A few that come to mind:

 

At one of our Journey tribute band"s rehearsals, I played the intro to 'Open Arms' in D minor. The band loved it so much, we kept it in the show.

 

After one soundcheck, after the soundguy had rung out the room and walked away from the board, I held a note on my clonewheel and started pulling and pushing the top drawbars, one at a time. That earned me 'the finger' after he realized what was going on.

 

The next one is not really a 'prank' but I thought it was funny. I don"t smoke dope, but I don"t care if anyone else does. Back in the 80"s, I was in a band with a guitarist who smoked. A lot. He"d invite me to smoke with him before gigs or during breaks, and I"d always tell him I didn"t like how it makes me feel. Anywayzzz.... one night, for some reason that escapes me now, I agreed and went out to the parking lot with him during a break. I don"t know how many tokes I had, but they were more than enough. I found out that, unlike most folks who get chill and laid back when they smoke, I have a different reaction. About 3 songs into the next set, I kicked off 'Jump'... at not quite, but approaching double-time. It was stupid fast, but we continued, with everybody in the band laughing at me. The guitar player was laughing, too â until we got closer to the guitar solo. When he realized there was NO WAY he could pull off the solo at that tempo (hell, even Eddie couldn"t have!), his eyes got big and he looked at me and yelled 'F*** you! Never again!'

[The Real MC]

At one of our Journey tribute band"s rehearsals, I played the intro to 'Open Arms' in D minor. The band loved it so much, we kept it in the show.

 

D minor is the saddest key

[RABid]

I've faked feedback when the singer pissed me off. Faked police sirens at a bootleg joint. Played with a guitarist who always wanted to play on my keyboards during practice. I hooked up a remote MIDI keyboard in another room and every time he would start playing I would bend notes or change patches. This was on a brand new DX7 and DX remote, before most people knew what MIDI was or that it even existed. By the time I was done he was sure he had screwed up my keyboard. My favorite prank....

 

The guitarist/band leader in a band I was in insisted on playing my keyboards on the best piano song we did, Since I Fell For You. One night I had enough of him and as he was coming across stage to my keyboard rig I reversed the keys, a really nice feature of the Rhodes Chroma I had. He would play two hand chords and know something was wrong, but never did play single notes and figure out the keys were reversed. He started the song twice and stopped when it did not sound right. Finally called me over to check it out. I reversed the keys when he was not looking, played a couple lines, told him it was fine, then reversed it back again. He started the intro one more time and it sounded really wrong. The singer finally told him to get back to his guitar and let me play the part. He never did understand why he suddenly could not play and I never told him. He was so embarrassed about messing up so badly in front of an audience that he never tried to play my keyboards again. It could not have worked out any better. I would have felt bad but he was a total dick and deserved everything he got.

[ksoper]

I worked with a sound guy who had a deliciously evil trick for 'prima donna' lead singers. He patched a pitch shifter into the monitor send from the singers mic. He would raise the pitch by 1/2 step for brief periods (usually long held notes or melismatic gymnastics). I watched him do it on a soundcheck with one particularly obnoxious guy. It created such a train wreck that the rest of the band almost fired him (the singer) on the spot!

 

Yup, every touring FOH soundguy I talked to kept a "Suck" preset handy in their harmonizer. The pitch is raised ONLY in the singer's monitor, while the crowd out front hears him singing flat and the band get boo'd.

 

I played for a short while with a brand new artist. He had one strong hit at the time. We opened for a fairly well-known young act with a couple of hits under their belt. Their foh guy mixed for us and I got to experience the "suck" preset first hand. Now, I'm not a singer but I can sing bg in tune. I couldn't wrap my head around what was happening. The artist had a fantastic voice and I had never heard him that pitchy. Nor myself, for that matter. We decided later that we were detuned. No reason for it that we were aware of.

 

A devious prank that I was party to was perpetrated upon a rhythm guitar player on his last night with the band. He deserved this, I promise. The lead guitar player changed the names of the first 8 or so presets on the guy's Line 6 pod to "Error 32B." So as he stomped around it all his sounds were there, just with scary names. He asked the lead guy if he knew what this might be. "Oh, I heard about that. Line 6 had a bad batch of pods. 32B means it could die at any moment, or it may be nothing at all. No way to tell."

[MathOfInsects]

Not keyboard per se, but: my most frequently performing band is a collection of trolls the singer calls her "four big brothers," not because of age, but because of the endless trolling. Our most-used device is to mess with the end of a song. We'll do the fermata before the last hit, and then either

1) never hit the hit, just let it sit there in eternal silence, or

2) after doing 1 a few times, let her think we are never going to hit the hit, but then wait until she's doing her thank-yous after the song and hit the ending chord hard, and this can happen a few times on the same song, and can sometimes even include an impromptu coda or tag, or else

3) hit the hit in time, but do it in a different key, or finally,

4) the ultimate troll, do everything as it should be, which leaves her unsure why nothing bad has happened there

[Josh Paxton]

Pranks I've played on others...

 

In my cover band days I would set up next to the guy singer. One night during "Summer of '69," on the line "Oh and when you held my hand" I reached over and took his hand, and when he looked over in surprise I was gazing lovingly into his eyes. While I can't adequately describe the look of sheer horror on his face, thinking about it still makes me laugh.

 

Same band, same singer. One night he showed up wearing a really ugly shirt, and we all proceeded to rip into him about it. Then the show started, and a couple songs in we did Johnny Lang's "Lie to Me." The first line of the song is "Lie to me," followed by a few beats of rest. So in that rest I said, on mic, "Okay, nice shirt." That was the only time I ever succeeded in causing a full-on train wreck by cracking up the band.

 

Oh yeah, and after Van Halen's infamous out-of-tune "Jump" video, one night I kicked off that song about a quarter-tone sharp. When the rest of the band came in, it wasn't a total train wreck, but close. Unlike Van Halen, I then returned to standard tuning for the rest of the song.

 

Pranks that were played on me...

 

Playing Tipitina's with my regular band. There's a barricade set up in front of the stage, forming an aisle wide enough for people to walk through. Middle of the set, suddenly I look out and there's someone in an inflatable T-Rex costume dancing down that aisle past the front of the stage. I start losing it because I realize it's my wife (though I don't think we were married yet by that point), in the costume I had just gotten her for her birthday. (Yes, it's what she had asked for.) She danced her way out the side door, then came back inside a moment later, sans costume, looking innocent as could be.

 

Cover band days again: at some point someone used a combination of white and black tape to turn my Nord keyboard into a Nerd. No idea how long it had been like that before I noticed. No one in the band ever owned up to it, but I loved it and left it that way until that board was stolen. (PS â Having my car stolen with a trunk full of gear worth more than the car itself was probably my least favorite prank ever.)

 

My wife also got me good on a solo gig just after we'd gotten back from Cambodia. At one point I looked over and "someone" had left a note on the table next to me without me noticing. I opened it up and it said "Please play 'Piano Man'" (my least favorite request), printed slightly off-center on the paper (to trigger my OCD), in Papyrus font (my most hated font â yes, I have one). Then I noticed that the tip jar suddenly contained a Cambodian bill worth about 25 cents. Props to her, she really hit all the marks.

 

Pranks that happened around me...

 

Playing with a Somewhat Famous Rock Band, doing a tour opening for an Exceedingly Famous Rock Band playing arena shows. One night during our third song, our singer was unhappy with the way his guitar was set up, and decided to go full-on rock 'n' roll front man prima donna about it. He pulled off the guitar, dropped it to the floor with the resultant crash and squeal you'd expect, said "Good night" and walked offstage. The rest of us looked at each other wide-eyed and kinda slunk offstage after him. Words were presumably exchanged, yet remarkably we weren't fired. But... next night we took the stage, and the headlining band's teleprompters had been altered. Now instead of displaying the opening lyrics to their opening song, as they always had before, they said:

 

"[name of our band] set list:

 

[name of our first song]

[name of our second song]

Throw down guitar, storm offstage"

 

Because I was pretty well over that band by that point, I think I enjoyed it as much as they did.

 

Next... pit band for a musical. Five guys in the band, and we were the only straight guys in the entire production; the whole rest of the cast and crew was either women or gay men. Never an issue, good humor all around. Closing night came around, and with it, closing night pranks. At one point during the last song we turned the pages in our scores, and instead of the music, we all found ourselves looking at some rather explicit gay porn. We didn't train wreck, but came pretty close, and no one in the cast and crew ever fessed up to it.

 

To this day the other four guys don't know it was me.

 

Finally, there was that time that, more than 20 years after Andy Kaufman's death, I spent the better part of a year as Tony Clifton's musical director. The details could fill a book, but suffice it to say I'm pretty sure the entire experience was one long, incredibly elaborate prank, though by whom and on whom I still have no idea...

[Josh Paxton]

4) the ultimate troll, do everything as it should be, which leaves her unsure why nothing bad has happened there

 

One of my best friends got me good two April Fool's Days in a row. I no longer even remember how. What I do remember is that I spent the NEXT April Fool's Day doing the psychological equivalent of sitting out on the front porch with a shotgun, ready for whatever he was gonna try... which turned out to be nothing. That was definitely his most successful prank of the three.

[KuruPrionz]

I have no keyboard pranks but this is by far the best gig prank I've ever encountered.

 

One of the bassists I used to work with was also a sound man. He developed an ability to make a high pitched sound like impending microphone feedback come out of his mouth without any visual clues - his face didn't change.

He could throw that a considerable distance.

 

So we would have a gig and the sound man would be getting into sound check. Robin would stand about a foot back from his vocal mic and launch microphone feedback sound into the system.

The sound guy would freak out, start pulling faders and twisting knobs. I put my ears in my fingers to ward off the piercing feedback that could come at any moment.

 

Robin would stop and wait and do it again. Same thing - freak out!!! The third time we figured it out. I was unable to be too pissed off because it was a great prank but the sound guy wanted to kill him!!!

 

I've never seen anybody else do that one...

 

Yeah....at that point if I'm running FOH, my level of caring about how you sound goes way down.

I have no keyboard pranks but this is by far the best gig prank I've ever encountered.

 

One of the bassists I used to work with was also a sound man. He developed an ability to make a high pitched sound like impending microphone feedback come out of his mouth without any visual clues - his face didn't change.

He could throw that a considerable distance.

 

So we would have a gig and the sound man would be getting into sound check. Robin would stand about a foot back from his vocal mic and launch microphone feedback sound into the system.

The sound guy would freak out, start pulling faders and twisting knobs. I put my ears in my fingers to ward off the piercing feedback that could come at any moment.

 

Robin would stop and wait and do it again. Same thing - freak out!!! The third time we figured it out. I was unable to be too pissed off because it was a great prank but the sound guy wanted to kill him!!!

 

I've never seen anybody else do that one...

 

Yeah....at that point if I'm running FOH, my level of caring about how you sound goes way down.

 

 

Yes, not good to screw with the FOH team. Two shows I know the house sound was bad because of jerk manager/mixer or jerk singers. The jerk manager was ZZ Top's and at sound check before even he heard the PA in the room he started barking EQ setting and other BS. We politely told him we've worked that venue many times why doesn't he listen first before making changes. No he got tick and in not so nice words said just do what I said. That night the sound was bad and he just sat there not willing to say he was wrong and let us dial in the sound. The other was Three Dog Night and all through the tour the concert reviews were saying how great the sound was, but night after night the singers said the sound sucked the PA sucks. The real problem is they want all attention on their monitor mix. So finally crew decided okay we'll give them what they want and we put up and okay mix for the house then spent rest of the night focused on the monitors. As you expect the singers were in heaven best PA they ever had, but the house sound was meh and singers didn't care.

 

 

Prank posts? I don't know any other way to take "serious" posts in a prank thread...

[niacin]

Standards jazz gig, There Will Never be Another You, friend of mine who is also a great piano player has me playing keys so he can play his newly acquired bass, we get to the end of the first verse "... but there will never be another you," my friend goes "Baaaa" just loud enough for the singer to hear, she loses her s^*t and he launches into a bass solo for a few verses more than most bass players would take, I figure he's earned it so just let him go.

 

Bar gig, Call Me Al (Paul Simon), bass player is a less-is-more in-the-pocket player, which is why we like him, there's no way he can play that solo so he skulls a beer in the allotted time, smiles all round.

[Threadslayer]

Not sure if this qualifies as a keyboard prank, but when I got my first sequencer-equipped synthesizer, I think it was my Roland JX3P, I painstakingly programmed in "The Entertainer" to play while I called the upcoming break between sets. While I was giving my spiel " Don't forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses..." etc. I'd be mimicing playing two handed. As time went on my hands would start to wander, drinking a beer, adjusting a knob, until I was eventually just talking with both hands off the keyboard. Sort of a cornball Victor Borge from hell schtick. The funny part for us was that we'd watch the crowed during my bit and NO ONE ever noticed and I did this off and on for months at various gigs.

Just goes to show that no one pays attention to the keyboard player.