What's your best gig story

[limitk7]

You know that one gig you played at, the one you always talk about when you get drunk, the one you'll recollect countless times to your kids, and then to your grandkids, and then to the caregivers at the nursing home; the one whose memory is burned so deep into your mind that it will remain, when everything else decays, to ride out on your death rattle as the last words you ever speak...

...you know, that gig.

Care to share? There's got to be some good stories around here.

Cheers,

 

[shamus63]

Hmm...done tons of great gigs over the last 27 years...

...to be honest, my very first gig is my favorite!

I was 16...had been woodshedding all summer long as a new bass player...got asked to be in a band by that October with some classmates...we did our first gig (on a Saturday afternoon) down the street from where I lived...200+ people showed up...did 1/2 a song...cops showed up...everybody went home for the weekend...

...come Monday morning at school, I had a bunch of people coming up to me and say "I didn't know you played"...made a bunch of new friends.

Lather, rinse, and repeat.

 

[Bill]

Mine's kinda long, but the short, 2:38 A.M. version is this:

I noticed that somebody was severly out of tune right after we started playing. After a few songs & me frantically trying to make sure I was in tune, I suggested that we all tune using my tuner (since I noticed that nobody else on the stage had a tuner...that was just one of the many bad signs that hinted of a disaster gig!). The bass player (I was playing guitar during this particular gig) said, "Oh, we're in tune already. We tuned to this...." And he pulled a pitch pipe from his pocket & blew into it!

This happened about 5 or 6 years ago, and I never get tired of telling that story!

 

[Mr Light]

Mine's kinda long, but the short, 2:38 A.M. version is this:

I noticed that somebody was severly out of tune right after we started playing. After a few songs & me frantically trying to make sure I was in tune, I suggested that we all tune using my tuner (since I noticed that nobody else on the stage had a tuner...that was just one of the many bad signs that hinted of a disaster gig!). The bass player (I was playing guitar during this particular gig) said, "Oh, we're in tune already. We tuned to this...." And he pulled a pitch pipe from his pocket & blew into it!

This happened about 5 or 6 years ago, and I never get tired of telling that story!

Wow!

That's a good one...

 

[Mobay45]

I hadn't been playing bass very long, maybe a year, when I was asked by my friend to play a gig with him and some other guys to play at an AmVets hall over in Ft Worth. There was no rehearsal, but it was all old country tunes that I had played several times.

My friend was a pretty good singer, about my age and played a solid rhythm guitar. The three guys we were playing the gig with were all in at least their sixties. We had my friend Mike on guitar, a steel player, a fiddle, a drummer/bad singer and me on bass.

What I will always remember from that night is one time on break, Mike and I were standing around talking when this little girl about 14 walks up to us. She looks right at us and says "Ya'll suck!". We assumed she meant the band and not us in particular so we just agreed with her.

That was the first and last time that I played a gig with anyone that I had never played with before. Mark it down as a lesson learned.

BTW - This happened in about '82 and I still remeber it vividly. Not a small feat for someone with my memory.

 

[Oldtoe]

LOL, Larry!

Damn kids.


I haven't played my best gig yet, I assure you. I HOPE!

 

[adouglas]

We've got a regular gig at a yacht club in NYC. We've been playing there for years...so the novelty has certainly worn off. It was always a good time, but most of the people in the place would hang out at the bar, inside, and we'd have a few people at the tables out on the deck where we play.

We'd just bought a couple of Bose PASes to try out, and were using them instead of our existing (decent quality) PA. This gig was the acid test, the first time we'd be using the equipment in front of a crowd, and it would decide whether we would keep the stuff or not.

All night long, the deck was packed. They opened up the doors to the dining room, and *it* was packed. There was a DJ party going on upstairs, and guests were abandoning it to come down and hear us instead, hanging out on the lawn. It was pretty cool to look up and see people at the very back of the room paying attention to us.

Evidently the gear made a big difference. We certainly didn't suddenly acquire more talent overnight!

We looked at each other and said, "I guess we're better than we thought...."

Sorry if this sounds like a Bose ad, but it's a true story.

 

[shamus63]

That was the first and last time that I played a gig with anyone that I had never played with before. Mark it down as a lesson learned.

I just passed on two gigs for March with a band that wanted me for a hired-gun situation (with more gigs on the horizon), based on what I had seen of them before...

...regardless of whether it's my band or not, I don't want my face and name out there with a band that sucks.

Just doesn't look good on the resume.

 

[LowDownDave]

I liked codemonkey's gig stories, they were super funny! Not sure how regularly he visits, but hopefully he'll have some more soon.

 

[cheezewiz]

Hmmm..I was 19 years old, playing in an 8 piece variety band with a horn section. We were all in college at the time. We were playing at a wedding reception, when Stan Mark, a trumpet player who had been in Maynard Ferguson's band, comes up to sit in. We start a tune, he asks me what key its in. I'm so intimidated by this professional jazz cat, that I give him the wrong key, twice.

 

[LowDownDave]

I'm so intimidated by this professional jazz cat, that I give him the wrong key, twice.

Ha-ha, that's a great story! I wonder if he thought you did it on purpose to make you look better

I wasn't thinking about non-bass stories, but I remember going on a min-tour in my school band where I played the trumpet. I was in grade 7 and we were all about 12 or 13 years old and were just happy to be on a tour bus driving around different schools and being away from our parents. We used to stay up pretty late (rebels) and I remember my trumpet playing friend beside me was so tired from staying up late the night before that he actually fell asleep in the middle of a performance and just crashed head first with his trumpet into our music stand and then onto the floor. I suppose thinking about it now, he was pretty lucky he didn't knock his trumpet through his teeth. I remember my music teacher used to charge us for dropping mouthpieces to make us more careful (50 cents per drop). I wonder if my mate got charged for that one, ha-ha.

 

[phatduckk]

a band i was in a few years ago opened for Death Angel. LoL. This gig was great ...

our lead guitarist got pulled over on the way to the gig and he SHOULD HAVE been arrested (outstanding "stuff"). But the COP let him go b/c he had an Iron Maiden bumper sticker and he told the cop he was on the way to a gig. LoL. The cop was a huge Maiden fan and told him "dude, i should be dragging u to jail now - but its you lucky day ... anyone asks, i never pulled you over". LoL

Then at our gig we were pretty hammered and during our 2nd to last song i pushed our lead guitarist during a solo. He retaliated by kicking me and i kick him back. LoL. We're still playing too. Then i jump off stage cuz i see hes gonna kik me back and he jumps off stage to come get me. Yup, were still playing ... the mosh pip got a hold of us and we both fel ... kept playing as best we could. then our singer/rhythm guitarist jumped on top of us. LOL. Our final song started with only rhythm guitars so while Koda was on top of us he went in to the last song ... we all eventually stood up with help from people in the pit and ended the set.

It was the best! it was all pure fun

 

[Joshua]

LOL, Larry!

Damn kids.


I haven't played my best gig yet, I assure you. I HOPE!

I like the way you think!



That said, one of my faves occurred at a New Haven CT watering hole called Cheris, with a band that I was in and out of more times than I can count. This was the first gig on an "in" swing, and the band had just gotten a very talented, but nonetheless new, drummer. I was nervous, he was nervous, and we crushed it. It was beautiful.

Anyways, flash forward to the end of the evening. In CT, you can play until 2am on weekends, and bars very often set their clocks ahead to make sure all is cleared out by then. We were playing great, and hella loud, and the audience was seriously digging it all. We are screamed at to play another song, which we did, but we hadn't noticed that it was almost 2am real time, forget bar time. We are bashing our way thru it, the audience is dancing up a storm, when I guess the bar owner had had enough. He throws the main breaker, and suddenly you hear nothing but drums! Too funny, and we all instantly realized what was up.

A great night for sure...

 

[jongitarz]

When I was in 6th grade my band played for our graduation. Being that it was in 1966, we had to submit a list of lyrics of the songs we were going to play. One of the songs was Satisfaction, by the Stones. We were told we couldn't play it because it mentioned smoking. Guess what we opened with? \/\/

 

[limitk7]

We've got a regular gig at a yacht club in NYC. We've been playing there for years...so the novelty has certainly worn off. It was always a good time, but most of the people in the place would hang out at the bar, inside, and we'd have a few people at the tables out on the deck where we play.

We'd just bought a couple of Bose PASes to try out, and were using them instead of our existing (decent quality) PA. This gig was the acid test, the first time we'd be using the equipment in front of a crowd, and it would decide whether we would keep the stuff or not.

All night long, the deck was packed. They opened up the doors to the dining room, and *it* was packed. There was a DJ party going on upstairs, and guests were abandoning it to come down and hear us instead, hanging out on the lawn. It was pretty cool to look up and see people at the very back of the room paying attention to us.

Evidently the gear made a big difference. We certainly didn't suddenly acquire more talent overnight!

We looked at each other and said, "I guess we're better than we thought...."

Sorry if this sounds like a Bose ad, but it's a true story.

So it's actually the PA that makes one a stellar bassist, not the bass and amp

 

[T-bone]

While playing one night, I couldn't help but notice the women on stage dancing. One of them, wearing a t-shirt that said "I Swallow", particularly stood out. So later that night, while in the bar down the street, said dancer comes up to me, places one hand on my arse and the other on my stomach, pulls me in close, and says "you are so sexy." She then grabs her coat and heads out the door.

So I'm standing there, pretty much in shock, when I tell one of my bandmates what just happened. And he said to me "don't you know who that was?" "No, not a clue" I reply. "That was Penny Lane!"

For those of you too young to know, watch the movie Almost Famous. Penny Lane is a well known groupie. And she thinks I'm sexy

tbone


And there was this one time, in band camp:

 

[AnthonyD]

Can you say "Kiss-a-mania!

While in high school (1980) I had a Kiss tribute band (this was way before "tribute bands" were common place). We played for a few elementary schools in my area. Costumes, make-up, blood, fire and a smoking guitar. We never said we were Kiss - and we never said we weren't!

Anyway, we got a chance to play for a junior high school "special assembly" for the ninth graders... Kids age 14 and 15. We had the place going wild. Our "sound guy" managed to flip some switches on the school-wide PA system and had some of our show piped right into the classrooms - drove the school administrators nuts.

The kids made this one to remember. They mobbed the stage exits following the show looking for autographs and smears of sweaty make-up. A bunch of girls looking to get kissed by "Kiss!" (We were 16 at the time!) And the kids who had pieces of the smashed guitar brought them back stage to have them signed.

The closest I've ever gotten to being a "rock-star!"

 

[Colin]

that I give him the wrong key, twice.

There's a story about Frank Zappa doing that to Clapton on purpose. Clapton was onstage jamming and everytime Frank raised his hand the band would change key except for Eric.

 

[shamus63]

So I'm standing there, pretty much in shock, when I tell one of my bandmates what just happened. And he said to me "don't you know who that was?" "No, not a clue" I reply. "That was Penny Lane!"

For those of you too young to know, watch the movie Almost Famous. Penny Lane is a well known groupie. And she thinks I'm sexy

tbone


And there was this one time, in band camp:

Two more of my favorite movies!

 

[shamus63]

Terry's Lodge CD Release

BTW ~ had a friggin' awesome cd release party/gig tonight at titled venue (cd namesake)!

Audience numbers far exceeded both the band and bar expectations!

And we did it without a drummer...old hat for me.