gig stories

eternalpayn said:
Those were some shitty cops if they missed under the sheets and a pocket big enough to hold an ounce.
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No argument! It was a small town (I think we were in Iowa), so we're not talking big city cops. They were actually fairly decent about the whole thing and I think they thought it was more funny rather than a "serious crime". Our guitar player was still pretty out of it and they had a hard time waking him up - one cop was lightly hitting him with a night stick and both cops were laughing.

I can only speculate that they did not anticipate we would have drugs in the bed - and the Army coat was one of those thick, heavy duty winter coats, with a dozen pockets. The coat was like the last thing they checked. The motel owner and the maid were standing outside yelling and cussing and I think that at that point the cops just wanted to make the whole stupid situation go away! It was probably easier to simply tell us to leave than to try to book us.

This was over 30 years ago (I think about 1974) - and candidly, times were more "laid back" than now.
 
mikeh said:
After a gig, we're invited to a house party (each town we were in we would annouce from the stage that the band was looking for a party - and in almost every town we found one). Through the wonders of various liquids and chemicals we were in very, very bad shape by the time we arrived at our motel.
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Haha yeah, I was on the other end of that stick once:

We'd throw huge house parties all the time, me and 4 roommates would get like 6 1/2 barrels, $5 at the door, 200 ppl, that kinda thing. We went to a death metal show at The Rave in milwaukee, my friend's band Morta Skuld was playing with some norwegian headliner, I forget who.. Show ended and we went back to one of those, where my roommates were taking care of biz. They brought about 100 wasted ppl with em. The destroyed my big Fisher 15's, huge tower floor speakers that were rockin the party. And they ripped a toilet off the floor! We laughed about it cuz we made more than enuf $ to pay for the damages. College days :D They dont call em 'the good ol days' for nothing!
 
mikeh said:
Our guitar player was still pretty out of it and they had a hard time waking him up - one cop was lightly hitting him with a night stick and both cops were laughing.
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Not being able to wake up when a cop is poking you with a nightstick in your own bed? That is rock and roll. Damn. He should have been given the Key to the City.
 
I was at a historical reenactment in Florida and was playing with a fiddler from upstate NY. he got us booked to play a dinner party, for decent pay and of course a meal also. Now we had been playing together and doing rather well at it too, I also play the fiddle and he also played guitar so we could follow each other well, though our styles were very different when we would swap instruments.

We had a larger format gig following our meal with maybe 500 people there on an outdoor amphitheater stage. Well anyway we played about a 30 minute set at the party and got our food, they gave me what looked to be chicken tenders and wings, and man oh man was it tasty!!!!

I was then told that in fact the chicken tenders were "gator meat" and the wings were quail! the bowl of stew that I had been gulping down was in fact made from equal parts Bear, Deer and Buffalo!

Me being raised on road kill I just looked up grinned and said "Tastes great! What's for desert?"

But the fiddle players girlfriend who is a little more city bred freaked out and tried to take both our meals away from us saying that we should not be eating such "poor animals" We both about fell over laughing on hearing that and went to our next gig shortly after, and played a rocking set that got us offered a contract to play again the next year. for double what we were being paid that year! Too bad he never went out on tour with me the second year:mad:
 
This is one of those "you really had to be there" - but it is my favorite gig story (this may be a little long - but you may find it worth the read).

1976 - Memorial Day weekend. We had 5 back to back one nighters in 5 different cities in 4 different states (our booking agent was an idiot). I was leaving the road to get married and these were my last gigs with the band - so we were hitting the booze and chemicals harder than normal (there was very little sleep during those 5 days).

The last gig was a Sunday night gig for a "school dance" in a small town in southern Illinois, sponsored by the fire department. We were a "show band" and did 4 "theme" sets of "top forty, then 60's, then a "Vegas" Elvis "show" then a 50's Sha Na Na (each set with era costumes, etc.) - and during the last set we did the George of the Jungle theme and our sound man came out dressed in a gorilla costume throwing fake fruit (I know it sounds stupid, but the crowd always dug it).

After the gig, the band was invited to the fire station to party (still in our "Sha Na Na costumes") - they thought we were the craziest band they ever saw. They had a very nice recreation center next to the fire house which was set up for a bake sale the next day, to be sponsored by the wives of the firemen and the police. There were dozens of pies, cakes and other assorted bakery ready to be sold the next day.

While we had to avoid any drugs....we drank mass amonts of booze (fire guys & cops party big time!!!!). After a couple hours, the Fire Chief asked our sound guy to put the gorilla costume on and go to the fire station next door, where an old 3rd shift part timer was at the front desk (it turns out he was just starting to eat a sandwich). So the monkey goes in, jumps around and then jumps up on the desk, grabs a yellow and a red "squeeze bottle" containing catsup and mustard and takes aim at the old guy (we and most of the fire & police guys are watching through a window, laughing our asses off).

After soaking the old guy in catsup and mustard, the monkey runs up a filght of stairs and comes sliding down the fire pole (yeah they actually had a pole). We then go back to the rec room are drink more (with the monkey still in costume). At this point, the police had in essence told us we had immunity (we had mentioned we were a little concernd about driving to the motel loaded, etc.). The police & fire guys thought we were the greatest think to ever hit their little town.

Since it was my last night, the band arranged to hit me in the face with a pie. We actually used whip cream "pies" in pie tins as a prop on stage as part of our "act" and if it was someones birthday, etc - they would get a "pie" in the face at some point in the night (I still had whip creme on my gear for months after I left the band) - so a real pie seemed logical I'm sure.

So, I get a pie in the face and the fire guys, and cops and their wives all thought that was very cool. Shortly after, the police chief (who I had just completed having a wine chugging contest with) pulls the gorrilla head off our sound guy, and hits him with a pie.................that's when things went bad!!!!

The sound guy did not like getting a pie in the face, so he picked up a cake and threw it at the cop. Suddenly, there were pies, cakes and bakery of every kind flying through the air - mostly being thrown by the band....of course (it actually looked like a Three Stooges routine). After about 30 seconds, there was dead silence..........as our hosts realized that the inventory for the bake sale was now on the floor, the walls and on them.

After an awkward moment or two, we were asked to leave (actually, told to leave). When we got to the motel.....our belongings were in the parking lot (we assume someone called the motel and told them we were not welcome in their fair town).

So we drove out of town (still covered in pie....and still in the monkey costume) - certain that we would be arrested before we made it out of town (we even got rid of any drugs we had to play it safe). We did make it out of town, and after about an hour of driving we finally found a 24 hour Sambo's Resteraunt (by this time it was about 4:00am). We went in (still in costumes and in pie) and sat down at a booth. It took awhile before anyone would serve us.......and only then after a couple of us went to the bathroom to attempt to wash some of the pie off (although the sound guy did keep the monkey suit on).

I kinda miss that band!!!!
 
Gorilla Suits and nudity.

I've only played really bad bars - the first bar I ever played was called "The Beaver" and it was when I was 15. It went downhill ever since then!

I played a gig backing up a burlesque show where the performer would come out dressed in a monkey suit then proceed to take it all off, she had these things stuck on her nipples that would twirl when she would jump up and down. Too bad that she should have kept the monkey suit on - she was ALOT of woman.


The worst nudity I've ever seen @ a gig - The Brunswickan Moose Jaw SK, CA. Any prairie band has rocked this s-hole, I'm sure. Friday night, there's at least 5 people there, including serving staff. Three drunks stumble in, 2 old dudes and 1 old woman. The woman was about 55 years old, 300 lbs, and 4 feet tall. Like a damn dwarf - anyway during Mustang Sally she decides to get on the pool table and drop her drawers and begins to masturbate on the pool table. Needless to say the band trainwrecked and the bouncers had to get her the hell off. It was horrible. Later that night was ran into Stompin' Tom Conner's bass player and he fed our the guitar/singer some cookies. Special cookies. The rest of the night the singer just kind'a wandered around the room with a vacant look - then we got a 'great' idea to roll a super-joint and smoke it on stage. It was cheech and chong style. Unbelievable. All for $50/night. I think the next day I played a Line Dance gig.

I think perhaps the 'worst' gig I've ever had to play was the 'Gay Pride' festival. I got a phone call asking if I'd like to play a dance, the pay was quite good so I said sure. Showed up at the gig, ran through the set met the guys - no big deal. Anyway, it was a little wierd with all these penis pictures on the wall - I didn't know what the gig was for. Anyway, we start playing and it's a total sausage festival but it hasn't clicked in yet... Until two guys in tiara's, dresses, fishnets, AND beards start to boogie on down + make out. Sha-bamn - total musical trainwreck. I played the rest of the gig either looking straight up or staring at my feet. I took my $200 and went home and showered.
 
Well this ones more pathetic than anything else but here goes. So the band that i played drums for at the time was asked to play a gig at a local billiards hall. So of course we agreed. We weren't getting payed but we enjoyed playing so who cares. The guy who asked us to play worked as the sound guy and he was just awful to work with. Well to start this off we were playing last at about 1 in the morning to 4 people in the bar. I was using the drum set of another bands drummer who was kind enough to let me use his set since i did not have my own for a reason i can't recall. He actually had used the drum throne of another drummer who had left after his set, so i end up sitting on a really low chair using a kit im unfamiliar with, and to make matters much worse the idiot coordinating the whole thing decides to mic the amps and drums through a PA in a small ass room. Also the guy had no idea how to properly mic anything...so there were mics all above the kit that i was hitting anytime i raised my arm...crappy mics too. So i played like crap. Which of course screwed the whole band up. The vocals couldnt be heard since the PA speakers sucked and we had a million sounds going through then including all of the room sounds picked up by who knows what mics were set up elsewhere in the room We get through our set and needless to say it did not sound that great, and at the end of it all we left the place feeling like shit but got a good laugh out of the one girl way way way in the back of the bar who was drunk as hell yelling at us to keep playing.
 
AndyK12 said:
I played a gig backing up a burlesque show where the performer would come out dressed in a monkey suit then proceed to take it all off, she had these things stuck on her nipples that would twirl when she would jump up and down. Too bad that she should have kept the monkey suit on - she was ALOT of woman.
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Man, that takes me back to my 20's - I used to play a lot of gigs in strip bars - which in most cases was very cool since the band normally shared the dressing rooms with the strippers.

But there was one club that had male strippers (it wasn't a gay bar - more like a "ladies night" club) - but one the the male dancers was the most militantly gay man I've ever met. He would prance around the dressing room naked, try to reach out and grab our dicks in the dressing room - or he'd stand at a urinal and stare at your dick while you were pissing. He was a big draw for the club because he did a rather clever and funny act (and the club paid us very well) - so we had to put up with him......but the band made it a rule that we had to have a "buddy system" so no one would be trapped in the dressing room alone with this guy (it would have been worse than sharing a cell with a guy names "bubba").

The shit musicians put up with to play some music and make a few bucks:confused:
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
In college, I played in this... Hmm. The singer/acoustic guitarist was into Dave Matthews, as was basically every acoustic guitarist at college. The other electric player was hugely into Phish, as was basically every pothead in college. I was a seven string guitarist big into Joe Satriani and his ilk (still am), and we had a bassist who was a huge Flea fan, and a drummer who pretty much could have sat in for the dude from DMB and no one'd have known the difference. The dude was a monster. Anyway, so we're a very eclectic group with a lot of technical aptitude and some jam band tendencies.
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this is the most stereotype filled paragraph EVER.

WIN.
 
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Another comes to mind.....

In the same band as the "really drunken gig" post, we had another one-week engagement at a club called Whiskers in Tulsa, OK. The second or third night was wet t-shirt night (thanks, Charlie! :D). We stayed on stage playing the theme from Peter Gunn while the ladies danced and soaked themselves and flirted with the band.

The hottest of the bunch was this little minx with a perfect size 1 body - no tits to speak of but nevertheless a picture of female perfection. She worked it, damn near got herself the hook for exposing too much, flirted heavily with one of the guitarists (me), and won the contest.

So the next day I find out that the bass player had hooked up with her that night. "She fucks like a snake," he said. "And she's only 16!"

:eek: :eek: :eek: :D :eek: :eek: :eek: (Might I add that we were all well over the age of majority.......)
 
I was 18 and a country boy from rural Connecticut.
South Shore of Boston in 1966, played a club gig with local guys until 1:00am and we packed all the gear in several cars - the other guys left first and the Drummer (Bobby) & I were packing his stuff into his 66' Camaro when a car starts up across the lot and screeches to a stop in front of us and 4 shady looking guys jump out - I thought "oh shit" we're gonna get robbed.
Without missing a beat, Bobby pulls a .38 Special from an ankle holster and fires a shot in the air ! It sounded like a cannon and I must have jumped & screamed. The 4 guys burned rubber across the lot.
Back where I came from nobody had a handgun - welcome to Boston.
 
jasonbmerrill said:
this is the most stereotype filled paragraph EVER.

WIN.
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Did I mention I went to school in Vermont? :D

Nonetheless, you probably know exactly what we sounded like, lol. It was actually a really fun band to play with, simply because we all had such radically different influences. I kept dropping prog-metal inspired riffs into what'd started out as acoustic singer-songwriter arrangements, and I had a lot of fun working out harmony lines with the other electric player, something I don't generally do.
 
I never seem to find a productive band, and this is just a testament.
We were bored a few years back and decided to start a band, play some bar chords and solos and have some good times--maybe make some cash too. We payed a friend of ours to sing and told him to just make some stuff up, we played some covers, but thought it would be to cool to play some of our tunes--we just didnt have lyrics to them. So first gig the dude walks out on stage turns around and sits cross legged on the floor. we didnt know what to do and just play normal then he jumps up and starts screaming smack the kids or something. totally ridiculous and we were well embarrassed. we made it through a few covers and started to pack up in a hurry. funnily enough the kids actually liked it we were payed like 200 bucks to play at a birthday party.
so at the party we start to play and get through the first song. the singer is always heavily medicated and he runs of during the next song still singing. he sings through two songs and no one sees him. turns out he was underneath the birthday boys deck. we grabbed our shit and left after that. because he sang so terribly we werent payed.
 
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