Weird Gig Moments...

Played a wedding yesterday at one of the colleges in Cambridge. All standard stuff. Until the last song where one of the guests just wandered across the stage and stood behind me whilst I'm belting through Honky Tonk Woman.

The saxophonist couldn't resist a photo. So weird! He just stood there whilst I worried he was going to get a stick in his face!

What weird gig things have happened to you?

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mpointon attached the following image:

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Edited by mpointon on August 1, 2016 at 12:46 AM

Lol that's creepy :D

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Hahahahaha ...

I'll have to think about this one.

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My 1st ever gig, way back in the 1980's, started with a bang. We opened with our Anthem song "No Rights Under the Law". It had this drum intro, which for me back then was a bit tricky, and required very good timing. So of course,being nervous as hell, I f&*ked it up, started the roll out before everyone else was ready...the band all was looking at me like what!!!! All in front of friends and family....it was turning into a disaster when, all of a sudden, the smoke machine we had rented (oh yeah) blew out the whole circuit board of the club we where in...!0 minutes later we started again, and yes I nailed it......

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To me the idea of mixing the audience with the band seems an interesting one. Maybe not at a wedding where the music is just a small part of the set. But as an experiment to study how musicians and audience interact in less common situations

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Well, this is not as an instrumentalist, but when performing on stage (I was dancing - the horrors!) I jumped onto the stage and my seam ripped. And, to boot, the previous performer had puked on stage. What a great day that was! 1984.

Oh, and as a guitarist, I can't tell you how many drummer's girlfriends ended up sitting on my lap after a gig. Awkward ...

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LOL, Danny. Us drummers are used to being ignored by the fairer sex! Women view us tub thumpers all wrong: they see sweat and stupidity whereas they should be thinking, "wow, he's got lots of stamina..." ;)

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Saved by the electricity! Yes! I got saved from a gig I didn't particularly want to do by a powercut. Less than a minute into the first song, the power went out completely. Turned out the local travellers had broken into the nearby electricity substation and stolen the heavy-duty copper wiring and therefore taking out the electricity in the city of Ely for 4 hours! So I can genuinely claim someone stole the electricity from my gig!

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This is a very promising thread :D
The first funny story I recalled when reminiscing is one involving four other wikiloops members which I shall not name here - you know who you are :)

During one of this years performances of the infamous "penetrant dilletants"-band, we played a quite wicked 7/8th meter jazz rock groove, I believe it was actually the first time we played the song live (me on drums, btw)... two-thirds thru the song and all works out well, when all of a sudden there's is this unbelievably loud plastic 4/4th drums coming from my monitor and belching out of the PA.
My first thought was: the front of house engineer (who had already shown dramatic signs of lack of experience during the soundcheck) must have either started or accidently un-muted the channel with the canned music playback.
So I look at the bassist who also looks quite irritated for a moment, and we continue as if nothing happened, hoping this nightmare would end quickly.
But it wont, the groove continues...and so do we.
I was quite sure the audience in the village feast would be challenged quite a bit by the 7/8th timing, but I was totally sure the 4/4th + 7/8th-at-the-same-time ployrythm had to be more than anyone (including me) could carry :D
So, we manage to finish the song, and as the last live-chord rings out, leaving nothing but these darn midi drums, suddenly appears a look of surprise on our keyboard players face, who performs a hectic move to some button on keyboard number two,
and ahhhh - silence :D


p.s. @mpointon:
the "bystander" experience of yours is a very cool one, maybe we should introduce "bystander" as a new way of musicianship. I've been "standing by" on stage in songs where I wasn't playing anything, and I do believe there is some magic in that, too.
The audiences perception can be changed and focused in a way that is not possible in any other way I could think of (except maybe if you have a light guy who hides 90% of the band by blackout).
Don't we all love live gigs :D

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definitely a funny thread !
the unintentional plastic groove bursting at the worst moment !! been there done that !!

one of my weirdest live moment happened in a gig ... i was drumming and the song was going good at something like 140 bpm ... when all of a sudden the beater of my kick just jumped out of the pedal in an elegant salto but left me with just nothing under my foot :/ ... had to switch asap to floor tom mmmffff wth ???

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I've had something similar a long time ago, Oli. Playing a gig for the singer's birthday party. We were all hammered and I was playing on a wooden surface with no carpet... My hi-hat had already started drifting off in one direction, the stool moved backwards and I was playing almost at arm's length. Then the kick drum, with two toms attached, fell off the front of the riser!!! Ooops.

I've never left my carpet behind ever again...

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... bassdrum-beater getting caught inside bellybottom pants is a nice experience too :D :D :D

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Danny, I dont know what you are talking about, stay away from my girlfriend! :)

One time we played a Frat House in upstate NY. It was crazy...Crazy! At the end of the long gig I went to toss my drumsticks out to the crowd (yeah I thought I was something back then), but we were in the basement! The ceiling was low and instead of a toss it was more like a missile throw: some poor college student got pelted by my my stix, and they weren't even worth anytrhing. Afterwards we got a VIP tour of the Frat House....right outta Animal House!

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Ah pyrotechnics and the 70's!

In the mid 70's the band I worked with was well known for our light show and pyrotechnics during our shows.
We used a lot of flash pods, flame pods, dry ice smoke machines, etc.

One evening our pyro technician made the mistake of using too much flash powder in one of the pods.
At the climatic moment in the song he detonated the over filled flash pod which promptly blew out dozens of ceiling tiles, some of which caught fire and rained down upon the stage.
Fortunately no one was injured but the crowd loved it!

Another time a patron that had perhaps drank one too many beers (or something) approached the stage and purposely dropped his lit cigarette into one of the flame pods.
The result? Total loss of all head and facial hair with burns to the face requiring medical attention.

And then there was crowd participation with the use of amyl nitrate poppers.
I'll save that story for another day.

In summation, I feel fortunate to have made it out alive.

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One gig I had done the band was kicking it to Riding the Storm Out when my Bass amp started to smoke and then the main stage speakers started to do the same. Next thing that happened was flames shot out of the speakers. Cool effect by accident. Glad it was the last song of the night and the crowd thought it was part of the show and we got a big following that night to see what we would do next. Oh well they were disappointed no more smoke or flames, to expensive to let that happen. Fun anyway.

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I'm liking that, Rickplayer! A guitarist in a rock band I played in years thought he could do the 'Steve Vai' spin with his guitar. Whilst he didn't lose his guitar like the player below, the guitar spun around him and wrapped his cable round his neck!

Although when it comes to Steve Vai impressions gone wrong, this is one of my absolute favourites:

[youtube]3O72lItS4OA[/youtube]

The funny bit is at 1:17... I know, poor guitar, but it's laugh-out-loud funny.

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The scariest gig I had was back in the 70ties when our band had a mobile dressing room right next to the stage. We had the instruction to wait for 20 minutes behind schedule to get the tension going …until the crowd climbed up the mobile and start to swing the thing …they swung till the tires came half a meter off the ground…we were scared to death and thought the mobile would flip over..

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2:38 "Thats the second time that happens..."

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One of the most hilarious moments: there was this girl in the studio a few months ago, who said, after a few takes, that she couldn’t sing with her bra on……! so she undressed…, in a moment of clarity I just could shut down the talk- back mic for the guy’s in the control room went crazy…., then she put her T shirt back on ….and we went on recording…

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ok, something positive, we had a unplug gig ( like mostly) and playing "when I´m dead and gone" and a woman came on the place and start do dancing, then she came to us and start to singing. we was impressed and it was really good. As we finished, we said wow great, do you knows this song?
she said NO, never heard before. I try to persuade to make music with us. But she was a professional singer and we are not good enough.

einmal mir profis arbeiten:)

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