The Good Old Days - "Lip Zap"

[The Real MC]

I'm old enough to remember holding a guitar (before wireless was affordable) or with any hand on a metal component of a keyboard, then your lips touch the microphone while singing and ZAP your lips get fried because of ground differences between stage and FOH.

I've heard stories where lip zap was lethal...

[Docbop]

 I think it was one of the Rolling Stones who got knocked out at the Hollywood Bowl from a ground zap.    Back in the day there was a small reflection pond in front of the stage at the bowl.  A bunch of Stones fans got into the pond and splashing around and water got on the stage.  One of the Stone was in some water and went to sing and ZAP and knocked out.   After that the Bowl started draining the pond before rock shows.   

 

But since those days amps have 3-prong power cords and ground reverse switches.  I've gotten a couple good shocks over the years and learn the right what to test ground is with the back of your hand, not trying to touch a mic with your finger tips.   Using the back of you hand the natural move if shocked pulls your hand away, if touching with finger tips the natural move makes the hand want to close over the mic.   

[o0Ampy0o]

 

Somewhere there is 8mm film of Richards being zapped during a performance in Sacramento. It melted his guitar strings. Some witnesses thought he had been assassinated. He ended up in a hospital. The shock story

 

Apparently Kesha's zap contact was her vagina by a flame shooting chastity belt. 

 

 

 

 

 

[lsj]

got zapped from touching the metal on my Hammond B-3 and microphone on my lips.  big blue spark, that's when I called my organ tech to install a ground on the organ.

[BenWaB3]

There was a British group who's guitarist got killed from a zap. It was late 60's or early 70's IIRC. I'm fuzzy on the details but it may have been Stone the Crows.

 

[The Real MC]

34 minutes ago, BenWaB3 said:

There was a British group who's guitarist got killed from a zap. It was late 60's or early 70's IIRC. I'm fuzzy on the details but it may have been Stone the Crows.

 

The UK power system was both AC and DC.  I don't know the details of the mixed system, but if you plugged a device for DC into the AC system, it was a lethal hazard.  After enough deaths the DC system was finally eliminated from the supply side, but some DC devices were still in the wild.

[Bobbo Fett]

Back in the 80's I gigged for a while with Bob Burns, Skynard's original drummer. He told me once that Ronnie Van Zant (who liked to perform sans shoes and socks) would have one of the roadies take off his shoes and grab his mic at sound check to assure he wouldn't get shocked during the show.....

[CEB]

Been zapped hard!   Sometime in the 80s I began always using foam windscreens.  I always brought my own windscreens.  Plus some contractors didn't clean their mics and they could be gross. Nasty as heck. 

 

If I need to use a mic today I use my own headsets.  I have both condenser and dynamic headsets.

[Stokely]

A buddy of mine in Nashville told me he still had some medical issues a couple years after that happened to him.  He said he was basically locked to the microphone, I think it was not lip zap but rather his guitar neck that had touched the mic.  Really scary.

I always use my own mic, not that this would save me from lip zap.  

I do not miss amps on stage.  The only one we ever occasionally have is a bass amp when we have a sub player.