Scariest gig?

[Tedster]

For whatever reason, be it equipment malfunctions, Pancho Villa and his bandoleros in the audience, finding yourself a rock act booked at a polka club, or performing in front of someone with some clout, what were your scariest gigs?

[miroslav]

Funny you should mention that...

 

It's the late 70s, we are in the middle of our first set and in strolls a motorcycle "club". I belive they were called the Pagans(?).

 

We start doing a really good rendition of "Born to Be Wild" and they go nuts on the dance floor.

 

We finish and they say, "play it again", we do.

 

They go even more nuts.

 

They say "play it again", we look at each other, look at them, and play it a third time.

 

At this point one of the guys starts fighting with his girlfriend(?), then he start pushing her and really hitting her. We just look at each other and keep playing.

 

He pushes her one time right into one of the PA stacks and the speakers start rocking back and forth, we are now looking scared but we keep playing.

 

Finally one of the other motor cycle members walks up to the guy and his girlfriend and I guess he tells him to "take it outside".

We finish the third rendition of "Born to Be Wild".

At this point the owner of the club, backed by a few of the bouncers, asks the entire motorcycle crew to leave, and they do.

 

Whew..., after that, the rest of the night was easy.

 

True story.

[fet]

1) I'm subbing in a country band in a bar in rural Minnesota. The song ends and a guy comes up to me, stands 4 inches away (this was a low stage), looks me in the eyes and says the words, "You suck."

 

Me: "I'm doin' my best - what do you want me to do?"

 

Him: "Punch me in the face."

 

I moved away and we continued the set - I was a little shaky. Break time came, and there was no trouble.

 

2) I'm playing in a 50s band in a small bar in northern Minnesota in the winter. A reeling, stinking drunk staggers up and says, "I wanna sing."

 

I say, "No, the owner wouldn't like it."

 

He says, "I am the owner."

 

He sang.

 

Want more?

[Tedster]

Reminds me of the time I played a biker wedding. Now, I've got friends who are bikers, but this was a rowdy crowd. After we'd played about all we could, four or so relatively large guys tell us to play some more. "We already did", we say (it was way past the contracted time). They say, "You either play or we'll tear your equipment down for you".

 

Well, I had a Fender P Bass case a few steps behind me. In it was a 12 guage Mossberg pump. I firmly told the guy that we were done. Never had to demonstrate my prowess at "bass guitar". The dudes may have sensed something was unusual, but, for whatever reason, they went away and we tore down peacefully.

 

Remember, these don't have to necessarily be scary due to perceived threat of physical violence. They could be scary from the standpoint that your sound guy had a bad ear infection, your low-end power amp crapped out, and an A&R dude from some major label was in the audience. Stuff like that applies, too... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[wormhole]

My first big (500+) gig assisting FOH at a local punk rock club. We had 17 bands in 6 hours and the 15th band wouldn't get off the stage. We let them play 2 extra songs and then the head engineer cut the mains. Well they kept playing so he cut the lights (bad move). When the lights came back on the mains which were about 15 feet off the ground, were on the floor and the amps were being pushed offstage. Well he ran up to stop this and they beat the living hell out of him, broke a mike stand on him. So i jump onstage to pull people off him and got a black eye and a broken nose. 10 minutes later the cops show up to an empty club and two bleeding sound guys. I was ok but my boss had 3 broken ribs. I never knew that live sound was a high impact profession.

[Lee Flier]

When I was about 17 I played at a house party that got completely out of hand. It was some kid whose parents were out of town, basically. HUNDREDS of people showed up and crammed into this fairly small house.

 

Well at first it was really cool, the crowd were really into the band and dancing their asses off. But as more people showed up, and there was no actual "stage" for us to play on, we and our gear started to become indistinguishable from the crowd, and they were getting rowdier. We couldn't see the drummer at all before long, but we figured as long as we could HEAR him, he was all right. But then, I finished a solo, and the lead singer didn't come back in. I couldn't see him, and had no idea where he was or if he was getting trampled. I went up to my microphone (which amazingly was still standing upright) and yelled "Where's our singer?" Finally I see a hand raise up from the crowd. "I'm here!" He managed to yell out. "Take another solo!" I did and the singer finally managed to extricate himself from the crowd and start singing again. I was standing on top of my amp by this time to avoid getting overrun myself.

 

Well, while this was going on, more people were continuing to arrive, and getting drunker and more stoned, there were people shooting up in the bathrooms and doing coke, and the vibe was just generally ugly. Inevitably, there was a knock at the door and a policeman demanding entry. Someone tried to open the door, but apparently the kid whose house it was had locked the door from the inside and taken the key with him, to keep any more partiers from coming in, and now no one could find him. So we've got a bunch of people holding drugs inside, a cop outside, and he thinks we're deliberately keeping him out. To make matters worse a couple of the partiers thought it was just hilarious that the cops couldn't get in and were yelling "Fuckin' pigs!" out the windows.

 

I finally went and took a look out the windows, and by that time, there were cop cars lined up around the entire BLOCK. They had the whole block surrounded, and they had paddy wagons and riot gear. FINALLY someone located the guy with the key. Our singer meanwhile had been trying to explain what was going on to the cop, through the door, while we packed up our gear, hoping to disassociate ourselves from the rest of the crowd as being reasonable, sober (which we fortunately were) and willing to just get on our way.

 

Still, when the cops finally did get in we really thought the whole band would be arrested. They busted into the bathrooms and found so many kids with drugs that they were in a real mood and started slapping cuffs on just about anybody who looked at them sideways. Luckily we in the band really did come off like we had it more together than anyone else there, so the cops didn't pay us too much attention.

 

They finally, amazingly, let the singer and I out to open the van, and we loaded our gear. We all got into the van and took roll call. Our drummer was missing, and pretty much everybody that was still in the house at that point was getting arrested. The singer finally went back toward the house to try and find him, instructing us to just leave and not come after him if HE didn't come back within 15 minutes - after all somebody was going to have to not get arrested so they could post bail for the others! Luckily, he did locate the drummer, who was trying to wrestle his remaining gear out of harm's way, and they both got back out after quite a lot of delay.

 

When I think back on it, we were awfully lucky to have gotten out without getting either hurt, busted, our gear confiscated, all sorts of things. Lucky for me I was 17 and really had no idea how serious the situation was...

 

--Lee

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Lee Flier on 01-11-2001 at 01:34 PM

[David R.]

Oh yes, so many horror stories. So little time.

A gig in Boston at the Middle East, we were a world music band somehow on the bill with the Fleshtones. My band gave up and ended a song with the drummer sitting on the side of the stage with his head in his hands, the guitarist lying on his back, and the sax player cussing me out. And we still had a few songs to go.

 

-David R.

[michael saulnier]

Shit, we missed playing Woodstock and we saw that it ended up being such a bid deal we thought, "we gotta do something"...

 

So we decided to have a free West Coast concert... you know, invite all the hippies and love children to a real groovy time... get together with some of the biggest West Coast bands... Man it'll be bigger AND better than Woodstock.

 

Well, we made the mistake of having it at this run down old race track, and well... the security, uhhh... Hells Angels, we hired got a little out of hand... and this dude was killed and a bunch more beat up... and well... it kinda ended the 60's and killed the idea of peace and love...

 

Uhhh... uhhh... oh yeah that wasn't me... that was Mick and Keith...

 

(in the voice of Gilda Radner as Emily Latella)... never mind.

 

guitplayer

[Michael Riehle]

Local bar, we've never played there before.

 

We play Top 40/Rock music. Some classic rock. Van Morrison, Paul Simon, 10000 Maniacs, etc.

 

We show up and start setting up. We have a pretty extensive setup for a bar band, so it takes a while. Long enough for the live version of Free Bird to play twice on the jukebox. At which point someone wanted a change and it switched to Gimme Three Steps.

 

The pool tables were packed.

 

The dance floor wasn't.

 

It was the first gig with the new singer. She wasn't entirely sure of all the songs. But that was okay because none of them were by Lynyrd Skynyrd, nor were any of them Southern Rock of any sort. Since the audience wanted all Lynyrd Skynyrd Radio, we were screwed to begin with.

 

It couldn't get any worse.

 

Well, unless you couldn't hear anything in the monitors. Now, we were used to having to struggle a bit with monitors, but it was particularly bad this night. We were chalking it up to the mirrored wall right behind the stage, the construction of the stage (four hollow plywood boxes pushed together) and the acoustics of the room. But the LF feedback was still annoying.

 

So we sucked. The bass varied from boomy and overpowering to inaudible. The guitars never did sound right. The drummer was struggling to figure out where I was. The singer had no idea what note she was singing half the time (singing by brail, gotta love it).

 

And the audience started out hostile.

 

While we were breaking down at the end of this fairly dismal night, the owner and the bouncers were announcing that everyone who wasn't with the band had better leave right now. Right now. Not in the band? Out! They were literally physically removing a few stubborn types and it was clearly a normal part of the routine for them.

 

Then the motorcycle came through the front door. A Harley, of course. It had to be a Harley.

 

Nothing really bad actually happened, but we packed up and left as quickly as possible. No sense pushing our luck, we figured.

 

The next day I discovered that the monitor amp was putting out about a third volume from what it usually did. I took it into a repair shop to find out that it was pretty much burned up. That was why we couldn't hear the monitors. Of course the amp hadn't quit altogether so it gave us the illusion that we'd just set something up wrong.

 

Somehow, it fit.

 

 

------------------

Michael Riehle

Bass Player/Band Leader

fivespeed

[Pro Jules]

corrupt chums "running" a colledge's "entertainment' Society booked a band called The North London Invaders. It was a wild night, my chums had done some huge beer theft scam as well as having booked the band and I had a bottle of Amyl nitrate the size of a coke bottle just for a laugh. My substance abuse managed to make the entire venue stink of old socks, oh and the band brought with them thier, then small, band of friends/fans whe were all skinheads, who beat everbody up!!!

A wild night! I think I hid in the office with the 'Junior Mafia' when the chairs started to fly! All involved were only about 18 years old...

Oh, the band, they changed thier name shortly after that to Madness.

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

Jules

[Alndln]

I lived and played in Montreal in the 80's for a time when we were hired to play for the Hell's Angels(Montreal chapter)in which Hells Angels from all over attended(Europe,states ect.).Since we had a well known and great hrmonica player we sometimes used to end our set with a Doors cover of "Road House Blues" which would usually end up in a fight in normal circumstances,so needless to say when it came time we opted to play something else.The exits were guarded by members armed with shotguns(right behind our drummer) to ward off rival gang interference.The next day it turns out that almost all were murdered because the senior members were going into a more legit type of buisness,or whatever.It was the top of the news for 2 weeks,they were finding bodies in lakes all over the Provinces.

[ST.Morigeaugte.net]

We were hired to play a private party for a hospital staff. Paid in advance. The gig was going well till one of the nurses that hired us started making some really off the wall requests that quickly turned into demands. Some heated words were exchanged between her and our lead player.. through her slurred words she was stating that we were paid to play till 12:30 and if we didn't do as she asked we could leave now... this was around 11:00. Jack leadman just said that's it boy's lets go. Not a lot of fun tearing down and loaded up with a mob who's anger is torn between one of there own and the hired help. Made it out okay... even were hired to do a gig for one of the clearing thinking party go'ers.

 

Mo http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/cool.gif

 

This message has been edited by Mo Thumper on 01-12-2001 at 09:59 AM

[fet]

How about this: playing electric guitar outdoors under a tiny, leaky canopy during a driving rainstorm, while standing on a soaked tarpaulin resting on the wet grass. The afternoon wedding reception was held under one canopy, and the band huddled under another canopy; the wind was blowing the rain sideways and I had to stand near the center to avoid being drenched. Wet extension cords and power strips lay at our feet. Although my shoes, feet, hands and microphone were wet, I was neither electrocuted nor even shocked - thank you, God.

[nhcomp45aol.com]

Like Lee I did a big house party that was loaded with people before I even got there. It was a NYC neighborhood around 1977. As I approached the house to setup the person holding the party was chassing a guy down the street with a baseball bat, I thought wow this is going to be fun. When I got in the house it took about 5 minutes to go 15 feet to where I was going to setup my drums. As we played countless fights ang brawls went on inside and out, but my favorite moment was in the middle of playing Aqualung some gug was thrown head first through the side window leaving shattered glass all over and a very fucked up guy,we kept on playing like nothing had happened and were very dissapointed when the cops showed up and shut us down. Another time I was playing bass in a very rowdey bar in Queens NY.We were in the middle of playing Cant You See and some big guy was bothering my young girlfriend, without any hesitation I shoved the guy as hard as I could with the bass still around my neck and he went backwards over a table. By now the band stopped and was ready to die fearing he might have a buch of friends with him, But he got up said he was sorry and shook my hand the rest of the band was shitting bricks. I felt good and thought I had done the right thing but my girlfriend was mad at me the whole night. Just cant figure out women.

[Kris]

Played a private party on the deck of a pool. As I was playing harmonica, I had the luxury of checking out the scene, whereas the other guys were really getting into the music (eyes closed, etc.) This was a pretty rough crowd and they were really lovin' it and feelin the groves. Next thing I know a big tall redneck blond with huge knockers rips off her clothes, does a crazy dive into the pool and backstrokes across the pool and back, right in front of us. Funny thing was that no one else in the band saw a thing!! (If you were there, you would understand that this really is a scary story!)

[JohnBartus]

Back in the early '80's, I was playing a club in Scranton, PA. The entire wall in back of the stage was mirrored glass -- acoustical nightmare. Of course, our speakers were set on stands in front of the mirror wall. Near the end of our last night there, one drunk pushed one of his drunken buddies into the speaker stand, forcing the speaker to fall into the mirror wall, which shattered into a gazillion pieces. Those two beat feet, leaving us to deal with the pissed-off owner.

 

Another time we were playing at this posh hotel in very conservative Lynchburg, VA. The hotel manager came into the lounge on our first night, saw my partner in her leather miniskirt, and decided right then and there that we weren't "Lynchburg material." Gig over, get out of the hotel... but not before some creative applications of Super Glue to items like TV volume knobs, telephone receivers, rowing machines, etc.

 

My least favorite occurrence is when they set the band up in an area way too small to be a stage, with the "dance floor" located in the 25 square feet directly in front of the band. It never fails that a drunk (or six) invariably will fall right into my microphone stand, sending mic into lips/teeth. I've quit using SM58s and now use SM57s with foam windscreens for "oral protection."

 

 

 

------------------

John Bartus

Radio Active Productions

We Make Great Radio Happen - Guaranteed.

1-888-93-RADIO

www.radioactivedigital.com

[breakwaybellatlantic.net]

Scariest gig? Aside from trying to make a Las Vegas Loung-Lizard Sinatra wannabe sound decent? Rio de Janiero, December 1989. On the way to a production meeting for "TV Globo" to shoot a Dionne Warwick show that I was FOH mixer for. There were too many of us to go in one car, so I wound up in the back of a taxi with the musical director. We go tearing off after the lead car, doing his best impression of Aytron Senna, the late F1 great. Then we run into massive gridlock at an intersection. This is no problem for Ayrton---HE DRIVES UP ON THE SIDE-WALK! We make it through the intersection, speed up, and then rear-end the lead car. The MD and I both fly into the backs of the front seat, since the rear bench seat cushion IS NOT ANCHORED DOWN. Luckily, we are not hurt.

We had our meeting, the tv exec's waiter(!) serving us drinks on a silver platter....it dawned on me, It's a different world there.

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Bruce

[trick fall]

Played a gig in NYC and started by my former guitar player, none of the two guitars or bass could get in tune. Of course the former guitar player insisted he was in tune and everyone else was wrong. It took them a half hour to get it together while the music was off. A half hour of just tuning. This wouldn't be so scary except this tends to be the gig that people I don't really know remember.

[BPSHOUAOL.COM]

about once a year we get to play at a nudists colony.the last time we played prior to david allen coe.i dont think they will call us back because we wont take our clothes off.scary?no but some of the people looked pretty scary naked...