Craziest thing ever said to you at a gig

[Edgar Summers]

Quote of a Quote

"Hey! Can you guys play some Whitesnake or something good?"

 

Could you use Whitesnake as the lower baseline and "something good" as anything better than Whitesnake?

 

I like the comment either way!

[Andre Lower]

For what it's worth, Whitesnake is among my favorite bands, hands down. I dig the two guitar players work (Bernie Marsden and Mick Moody), and David Coverdale's voice and drive are superb.

 

I wonder if they made it in the US as much as in the rest of the world...after I came to know how Queen was "ignored" in the US, nothing else will surprise me in that sense !

[Dave Pierce]

Originally posted by Andre Lower:

...after I came to know how Queen was "ignored" in the US, nothing else will surprise me in that sense !

Wha?

 

Some of my best adolescent memories involve listening to Queen on pop radio.

 

In the U.S. of A.

 

 

--Dave

[Andre Lower]

Originally posted by Dave Pierce:

Originally posted by Andre Lower:

...after I came to know how Queen was "ignored" in the US, nothing else will surprise me in that sense !

Wha?

 

Some of my best adolescent memories involve listening to Queen on pop radio.

 

In the U.S. of A.

 

 

--Dave

OK Dave, I know it did not last forever and that eventually Queen did become popular in the US. However you should be aware of the gap between their popularity in the USA and in the rest of the world. That is what I meant with my observation. It was not meant as any offense to America's musical taste or anything like that, just an exemple of how much the US market differs from the rest of the world, Queen being much bigger outside the US than it ever managed to become there.

[mate stubb]

Pete Rose to me one afternoon in a bar while we were setting up:

 

"I sure wish you could teach me how to play piano."

 

Me back to Pete Rose:

 

"I sure wish you could teach me how to be rich!"

[TommyBoy]

Hey, you're an Accordionist? Cool.

[Dave Pierce]

Originally posted by Andre Lower:

Originally posted by Dave Pierce:

Originally posted by Andre Lower:

...after I came to know how Queen was "ignored" in the US, nothing else will surprise me in that sense !

Wha?

 

Some of my best adolescent memories involve listening to Queen on pop radio.

 

In the U.S. of A.

 

 

--Dave

OK Dave, I know it did not last forever and that eventually Queen did become popular in the US. However you should be aware of the gap between their popularity in the USA and in the rest of the world. That is what I meant with my observation. It was not meant as any offense to America's musical taste or anything like that, just an exemple of how much the US market differs from the rest of the world, Queen being much bigger outside the US than it ever managed to become there.

Seems like a false dichotomy to me -- the world does not consist of two markets: USA and Rest Of World.

 

I could start listing all of the great Bay Area bands that no one else ever heard of. But there wouldn't be much point to it, since I'm sure we could all do that about our local area.

 

Love Queen though. Maybe the problem was that I wasn't old enough to be a fan in their early years.

 

--Dave

[stepay]

I sure always thought Queen was huge here in the US. Guess I can't compare it to their popularity in the rest of the world because I live in the US, but kind of hard to imagine they could have beenmuch bigger than they were. Certainly not like a David Hasselhoff in Germany kind of thing.

 

Dave Pierce -- I used to live in the Bay Area (Mountain View and Stanford) and went to graduate school at San Jose State. Miss that area a ton.

[StillFightingIt]

this is such a great thread.

It's great hearing other peoples gig stories...

[Garrafon]

One for the stupid humor/dumbest comments column:

 

As you are hauling in gear, setting up, or warming up, you get this one "hey, are you with the band?"

 

Reminds me of a joke I heard years ago from some comedian. A guy was in a bus station waiting for a bus and sitting on a newspaper. Another person comes in and says "hey, are you reading that?" So, this first guy stands up, turns the page, and sits back down again.

[Dan South]

Whoa! Your left hand looks like a spider up there! You play bass like John Entwistle!

 

---

 

Me: Who's that brunette that you came in with?

 

Blonde girl: Oh, she has a boyfriend. Sorry!

 

Me: Okay.

 

(Two minutes later)

 

Blonde girl (runs up to the stage): She wants to go out with you!

 

Me: Okay.

 

---

 

There was this senile old guy who would always hang out at this one bar on Friday nights - somebody seemed to know that his name was George. He couldn't really speak (it was just mumbled gibberish) but he was really enthusiastic and always had a big smile on his face. He'd come up to me, stand right beside me and say in a loud, beer-breath voice:

 

Muwuwururuwuwurumuruwururuwuruh!

 

And then he'd say: G chord! G chord!

 

Sometimes he'd reach out and grab the neck of my bass between songs and make this loud, hideous noise.

 

After a while, I figured out that George was asking us to play a song that he liked, but we could never understand what he was saying well enough to guess the title. No matter what we'd play next, he'd get all excited, beam ear to ear, and play air guitar along with the band. Those were the good old days!

 

[Dan South]

Thinking back on it, there were some women who said some pretty amazing things to me, but they did it in the language of glances and dance moves.

 

 

The most outrageous things that I ever heard on stage came out of the mouths of my bandmates. Those are stories for another thread.

[The Real MC]

"I play vocoder. Can I sit in with you guys?"

 

(come on, you saw that coming...)

[Mr. Nightime]

The other night this guy comes up to me and asks if the band members are married. I told him that we were all married. The guy said "Too bad. I'm with my sister and she wants to meet the guy in the purple shirt." Great, but none of us was wearing purple.

[keyoctave]

A very entertaining thread!

 

On a more serious note, I can think of a lot of stories on crazy things said, but the one that sticks out with me had to do with racism.

 

I was playing with a group in the late 70's doing southern rock, Santana, progressive jazz, and some originals. At that time, we had an African-American bass player and pecussionist. For some unknown reason, we were booked into a club out in BFE in (name withheld). Something was not right the minute we started to set up. The place was red neck city. We were booked for Thursday-Saturday.

 

After the Thursday night gig, the club owner (who was a splitting image of boss hog off the Dukes of Hazzard) comes down to the stage and say's......"Now boys....... don't get me wrong......I ain't got nuthin against N******.....but I had a lot of complaints about them being in here..... You all can just pack up and leave now".

We tell him, did he not get the pictures, song lists and tape from our agent. He says he did but did not look at them. (DUH!! )

 

To make a long story short, he only pays us enough gas money to make it back home (500 miles). When we said we would call the Sheriff......You guessed it...... he was related.

 

This experience allowed me to see up close and personal the detrimental effects racism has on people. Something I have never forgotten.

[Dave Horne]

Keyoctave, that reminds me of a story attributed to Groucho Marx. Many years ago Jews were not welcome in the swimming pools of some hotels in Miami. Groucho's daughter mentioned an incident to him and he wrote a letter to the hotel stating that since she was half Jewish would it be OK for her to wade up to her navel.

 

My very first group consisted of three friends and myself. They were Jewish and I was the only gentile (now an atheist). I remember playing an audition with them and as I was walking away a customer commented to me, well, at least there's one. I never forgot that either.

[frostbyte]

This one is a tie between my bass player Joey and some ditzy girl.

 

We were setting up for a gig, and the club was plastered inside and out with posters for our band (The Matches).

 

During set-up a girl walks up and asks if we know who is playing tonight. Joey asks her if she has ever heard of The Matches. She sort of looks around the room, and I guess subliminally is reading all the posters, and says "yeah, that name sounds familiar, I think I know that band"

 

Joey then says - "well, we're a Matches Tribute Band - we play nothing but Matches songs".

 

She says "That sounds hot!" and convinces her girlfriend they should stay for our set...

[Andre Lower]

All right, this falls outside the proper boundaries of this thread, but is so funny that I can't help sharing.

 

My mother and father in law were flying (to Canada, if I remember it right) and upon boarding the plane were told that it was supposedly full, and there was only one seat available in the tourist class, which was their original ticket. As it was the airline overbooking policy's fault, they promptly sat them in the first-class, where there were indeed two vacant seats. Of course they were pleased with that.

 

Later on comes dinner, with all the bells & whistles of first class, big airline catering service. My mother in law proceeds to thoroughly examine every detail of the vast dinner shelf, and after a while tells my father in law "George, hand me your moisturizing cream, I'm gonna give it to the girls (my future wife and her sister) back home". He quickly replies "sorry, I've already eaten mine".

 

It turns out that he had spread the Clinique hand cream - mistaken for salad dressing - over his lettuce & Brie salad and finished it on a wink. Now can you imagine the tactile sensation of swallowing lettuce & hand cream together ?

[Phred]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! LOL

[stepay]

Originally posted by Dan South:

Whoa! Your left hand looks like a spider up there! You play bass like John Entwistle!

 

---

 

Me: Who's that brunette that you came in with?

 

Blonde girl: Oh, she has a boyfriend. Sorry!

 

Me: Okay.

 

(Two minutes later)

 

Blonde girl (runs up to the stage): She wants to go out with you!

 

Me: Okay.

 

---

 

There was this senile old guy who would always hang out at this one bar on Friday nights - somebody seemed to know that his name was George. He couldn't really speak (it was just mumbled gibberish) but he was really enthusiastic and always had a big smile on his face. He'd come up to me, stand right beside me and say in a loud, beer-breath voice:

 

Muwuwururuwuwurumuruwururuwuruh!

 

And then he'd say: G chord! G chord!

 

Sometimes he'd reach out and grab the neck of my bass between songs and make this loud, hideous noise.

 

After a while, I figured out that George was asking us to play a song that he liked, but we could never understand what he was saying well enough to guess the title. No matter what we'd play next, he'd get all excited, beam ear to ear, and play air guitar along with the band. Those were the good old days!

 

Hey, I know the song he wanted! Low Rider! It's G the whole way without ever changing (well G7 anyway).

 

Low Rider!

[Tonysounds]

#1- You guys were really good; I could feel EVERY bass note you played between my legs. I was listening to everything you did. Whadya doing after you load your equipment? (She blonde, me, the bass player that nite. Happy ending? Being a broke musician with no money for a hotel room, took her to my office, or more precisely, to my boss' desk. Idiot had a bowling pin on his desk, and now I can't see a bowling pin without cracking up.)

 

#2- After finishing an encore, and breaking down and packing the gear, a very overserved yuppie walks up and says "$50 if you do two more songs." I apologize, and gesture to all the equipment in the cases, and suggest that maybe his timing was a little off. "Snort, bunch a a-holes!"

[marino]

Originally posted by tonysounds:

took her to my office, or more precisely, to my boss' desk. Idiot had a bowling pin on his desk, and now I can't see a bowling pin without cracking up.)

Ha ha!!

[Steve Force]

"Overserved Yuppie" --- can only be seen in Chicagoland..

[Alaskanblue]

Ahh yes, nothing like romance in the air! (ha ha)

 

This is more the dumbest thing ever said to me at a gig; speaking of Creedence, we're playing and this absurdly drunk guy comes up to the stage, motioning to me. I lean over and he shouts play "Proud Mary", to which I say-we're playin' it right now...

[stepay]

Had to bring this thread back to life due to something at our Friday gig.

 

A mid 20s something woman was in the bar dancing with her 50ish boyfriend. She was very flirtatious with the band but REALLY loved the blues we were playing. Our guitar player keeps his set list on the floor in front of him, and she came over and read the last couple of songs for that first set and noticed they were classic rock songs and gave us the thumbs down yelling "more blues, more blues!"

 

Well, she then gave the band a quick flash (pulled shirt up). I saw this out of the corner of my eye and wasn't sure if she were wearing a bra or not.

 

Between the break between our second and third set, the guitar player and I were discussing which songs and in which order to do in third set (had a couple extra songs to do because we cut the second set short due to the drummer breaking a drum head), and she comes up and puts an arm around each of us and says, "I can only be here for the first three songs or so of the last set. I'll bring the girls out again if you let me pick the songs." So the guitar player says "sure". She picked three blues songs and true to her word brought "the girls" out again...this time for much longer, and I was prepared this time...no bra.

 

Never had an audience member do that before.

[Steve Force]

So the girls are well?

[The Real MC]

Originally posted by stepay:

I was prepared this time...no bra.

 

Never had an audience member do that before.

You gotta be kidding. You haven't been gigging long enough if you haven't been flashed. That happened at a lot of gigs I played, my first flash was when I was 19, scarred me for life

[Botch]

I missed this thread first time around, great fun!

 

We played a small dive in Morgan, Utard a couple years back, there was quite a bit of flashing, including one middle-aged lady who probably should've been doing other things, but she was having fun.

 

During break, Jeff went to the bar to order a drink and started chatting with a young guy there, and Jeff said, "Wow, did you see that one lady flashing constantly?" Kid says, sheepishly, "Yeah, that's my Mom".

[Les Mizzell]

I started playing bars way before I was legally old enough to actually *be* in a bar...

 

We're taking a break between sets, and this guy walks up and says "You guys are great - beer for everybody!" and goes around the table asking what everybody wants. I'm only 15 at the time, and I've already seen how beer can make idiots out of folks, so I've no reason to want to even try one - so when he gets to me I just say "Thanks, but I'll just have a Ginger Ale if that's OK with you".

 

He stops for a second, gets this weird look on his face and then declares "PERVERT!!!" and walks off without buying beer for anybody.

 

Bandmates didn't speak to me the rest of the evening.

 

########

 

Few years later I'm playing with the 12 piece group out of Georgia. We could do big-band jazz charts, funk - you name it. We took up a good bit of space when setting up, and the two stacks I was using with Hammond B3 on one side with more crap on top and Fender Rhodes 88 on the other side with crap on top of that didn't help. The owner of the club walks in after we set up - "You're taking up too much space. You've got to get rid of something"!

 

Then he points to the keyboards - "What's all that crap? Why would you need that? What good is it? Pack it up, I don't want to see it"!

 

I quietly sat back and let our manager handle that one. I ended up playing the gig...

 

############

 

I was playing with a pretty slamming 8 piece funk group. We got booked for the Jr/Sr for a private school in Orangeburg, SC (School isn't there anymore). We showed up, set up the gear, and did our sound check. We hit the stage right on time - and before we played our first note the headmaster of the school comes up, points at our drummer and ask "What's that black guy doing up there?"

 

"Playing the funkiest drums you're gonna hear this year. Why?"

 

"Sorry, this is a private all-white school. We don't allow any blacks."

 

"You hired us. You had the press kit. These kids don't care, they just want to dance. What's the problem?"

 

"Sorry, you're not playing."

 

"That's just wrong. You're going to ruin this Jr/Sr because *you've* got a problem? Look at the kids out there. They're ready to get down! Besides, we've got a contract with your signature on it that says you're paying $2500. You're not going to stiff us. We've got legal grounds here if you want to push this. Just let us do the gig. Won't be any problems."

 

"I'll pay. Just get the hell out of my school". ... and he hands us an envelope with our cash in it as we start packing.

 

The students almost rioted.

 

What an idiot.

[StillFightingIt]

Far out Les,

that last story is ridiculous, I can't believe he'd not let you play. How long ago was that?