Gothic Playground gig #2: Lead singer took a step back and knocked over half of the drum set half way through the first song. The gig ended with someone accidently unplugging everything during the last song.
Gothic Playground gig #6: FSU with The Flaming Lips. Everyone that came to see us were high schoolers and were not allowed in. We played to a nearly empty place while looking out the window and watching fights, police, ect. The Flaming Lips were not impressed with FSU, and I don't think they ever came back. Also, that afternoon before the gig, the lead singer got a staple from a staple gun shot through his hand. He almost got in a fight with a skin head during the last song.
Gothic Playground gig #?: The place we were originally scheduled to play had the electical fuse box blow up when we plugged in our equipment. We ended up playing in a warehouse. Tightest gig we ever played.
Dream Deferred gig #??: About 800 people showed up, but it was a sorority rush party. No one listened to us. No one. I'm not kidding. This was exactly a week after playing at the same club where three people showed up and will always be remembered as the best audience I've ever had.
Dream Deferred gig #???: The only person in the audience was my wife.
Oenyaw gig #1: Had a cold all week then played out doors, freezing night. Stuffy head, frozen fingers. Totally messed up everything! The crowd liked it, though.
I learn so much from every gig, that's why I love doing it.
Brain-cleansing music for brain-numbing times in a brain dead world
http://www.oenyaw.com
Interesting gig notes there, Oenyaw.
Just a thought - I strongly believe that audience can make a big difference in making a gig go 'wrong' or 'right'.
Interesting gig notes there, Oenyaw.
Just a thought - I strongly believe that audience can make a big difference in making a gig go 'wrong' or 'right'.
Could not agree more! And I love the stories so far...
-Mike
Yep, the audience plays a big part.
Somewhere around 1979 I was playing in a cover band in a little Chicago dive called the Bottleneck. It was a dart bar - the front door was set back from the street, so when you entered the door there were dartboards on the walls behind you on either side in little alcoves. The stage was at the far end, directly in front of the door.
The bar was within walking distance of a couple of colleges, the drinking age was 19, and it was quarter beer night. The place was packed, and most of the patrons were fairly well over-served.
Some people are calling out requests. One drunk yells out "play Sympathy for the Devil", and we did.
Other people are calling for requests, but this guy keeps shouting "play Sympathy for the Devil". Since we'd already done it, I ws trying to ignore the guy.
Which makes him mad.
He comes up in front of the stage, and keeps shouting "play Sympathy for the Devil". I finally tell him we've already done it, and we're not going to do it again.
He staggers/pushes his way back to one of the dart boards, grabs some darts and starts throwing them at the stage.
Luckily he was too bombed to throw straight, and the doorman was only a couple feet from him, so he got ejected before he could get off more than a couple of tries.
The gig wasn't a disaster, but it was one of the more memorable ones I've had :)
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
My first gig experience of any kind - our band was going to do 3 songs to cover the break for the bassist's dad's band in a care home. The bassist was one of those in-it-for-the-attention type band members, and although not bad, he was convinced he was the greatest bassist ever to live. He had strut, excess volume and the ability not to notice his own bum notes while picking out everyone else's, the whole works. When the night came, he turned himself right up, got hit by nerves, hit a bum note and then spent the rest of the three songs trying to hide behind me and/or one of the speakers from people who weren't playing the slightest bit of attention to any of us :lol:
My Dad used to always put his drink on the ground next to his amp - anyway he was doing this one gig where his amp was at the back of a raised stage. All the power leads etc were on the ground behind the stage. Somehow his guitar lead knocked the drink over and it fell back off the stage on to all the power leads - cutting the entire power, mid song, so a 300 people full night club. He never confessed this and the club owner never picked up on it.
Lesson: keep your drink away from leads!
Anyone use drink holders? $15 for this one.
http://www.amazon.com/Gibraltar-SC-SDH-Soft-Drink-Holder/dp/B0002F76XC
Cheap investment to avoid that, save your drink, and save your back!
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
My first note in a live gig was the wrong one.
I was lined up to play bass on Paul McCartney's Yesterday, it's in F and the arrangement hadn't messed around with very much, and I launched into my big fat opening note....
... G
Sometimes a wrong note wll eventually sound right if you just are persistent enough - but I guess this was not one of these times :lol:
...only thing I know how to do is to keep on keepin' on...
LARS kolberg http://www.facebook.com/sangerersomfolk
