Weirdest gig you’ve played?

[RFR]

I’ll start.
Little bit of background first.

Had a band with two Australian brothers with a real hokey band name that was cool at the time when all things Aussie were popular. “Outback”
We we’re doing your basic Australian rock.

Got a gig through the Australian embassy in Los Angeles.

The venue was USC University of Southern California.

They had an event called Aussie week. Our band was supposed to be the grand finale of the weeks ceremonies.

Oh, and they were paying $1,500 bucks! Lots of money back then in a pay to play town.

We were epecting to play in the auditorium to a packed audience of rich kids AND get paid.

Whoo hoo!

No such luck

We loaded into the cafeteria! No stage, no drum riser. Just parked in a corner on the polished linoleum floor. Marshall’s and all.

So there we are. A Rock and Roll band turned down to the level of an acoustic act in a coffee shop, playing to an audience eating dinner.

No one cared, no one clapped, They just ate, and left.

I did have a cute redhead come up and tell us we were good, and she ended up coming home with me and stayed the weekend.

That was kind of Rock and Roll.

That’s my story.

And yours???

 

[spantini]

Hmmm.. we had a gig to play a club in Washington, D.C just a few blocks from the White House. We got there around 10:30 pm, had to park in an alley and move everything upstairs via a small freight elevator. I kept thinking I was going to be shot at any moment, outside or inside.

The upstairs club was sectioned off with drapes and curtains and the only lighting were red light bulbs - everywhere. The only person there was the manager.

He had us play for almost 4 hours to an empty room. At least, the room we were in was empty. Maybe there was some stuff going on in the curtained-off areas we didn't want to know about.

I didn't get home until 4:30 am and overslept the next day. A work day! I actually lost my day job over that. My boss asked me if I would guarantee this wouldn't happen again and I said no, so we mutually agreed to a separation.

___________

I know about that volume thing. We played a strip mall pizza joint in downtown Bethesda, Md. and the owner kept asking us to turn down - saying we were way too loud. Not for the room,... she didn't want to blow out the neighboring shops.

We ignored her and the customers loved it. They stayed packed until closing.

 

[WWLaidback]

My weirdest gigs have always had sound issues.
Here's the worst one:
We had a charity-project gig at the County Fairgrounds along with a couple of other bands and maybe 300 people in the audience.
We were hooked up to someone else's stage boost-system, that they borrowed from a 3rd party, and the sound went totally wonk.
There was a ground loop between the stage and the soundboard that nobody could figure out.
My Koch guitar amp has a record line out, and it was buzzing.
The keyboards sounded like melting plastic.
As the evening went on -- I could smell their stage amplifiers toasting.
I was thinking, we could have a fire any minute.
The sound was worse than terrible.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

The band had booked a clubhouse in Warrenville. Dutch Courage was headlining. We were the opener. I had been bounced off every song vocally, and only had skid rows 'wasted time' and then rhythms. The band had rotated most of the people I knew out from high school. I was practiced and ready for whatever happened.

Dutch Courage had a popular drummer at the time, and he handed flyers out at the local colleges. A large turnout was expected.

We set up.

Chuck got busted smoking weed, out back..shit down 1.

As we filled the drum riser we looked at the crowd. It was crowded. There were 2 floors. We were ground floor on a riser and the 2nd story was open in the middle and looked down on the stage like a Mez.

It had become so crowded , and smoking was allowed..Everybody smoking cigarettes made it a cloud. It was obviously beyond capacity People were hanging over the railings like monkeys.

Wheeling in the PA and cabinets, and hooking the final cables up. The smoke alarms went off.

After a short time..minutes everything was ready. The alarms stopped. We ascended to the stage. Plugged in and....just as I strummed the first chord.

Police cut the power. They came in from all exits. Raided and cleared everyone out. We had to wait for damage estimates to enter and claim our equipment..the smoke alarms sent a silent alarm to fire dept.

Fucking Dutch Courage!

 

[rob aylestone]

Playing underground, in a real cavern with stalactites and stalagmites. Amazing acoustics but very damp. Then mid gig the lights failed, but the audio power stayed on. I asked the audience if they’d like us to carry on in the dark, and they said yes! We did three songs in total darkness. It was really great fun. Worst gig was discovering a dodgy promoter had not mentioned we were a tribute and expected us to speak with American accents. My US accent spanned your entire continent and was laughable. We got away with it and crossed that promoter off the list.