We played a show at a popular club with a real electrical grounding problem. All night, thru 4-sets, we were shocked on the lips whenever we were playing electric guitar or bass and touching a mic.
Later, at home, I woke up in the middle of the night, jumped out of bed and ran screaming through my house, thinking the house was on fire. Turns out I was dreaming, and it was my burned/blistered lips and the smoke smell in my hair that caused the dream.
Funniest thing that happened on a gig?
Bob, that club got shut down for other reasons, but I think it has since reopened. I last played there in 1997. It's actually rumored to be haunted - the story goes that the original owner who built the place got electrocuted but survived, and later returned to the club and hung himself there. "On Broadway" Club, downtown Springfield, Illinois.
I'm too old to play there anyways - they used to book us Friday and Saturday nights back-to-back, 11:00pm to 3:00am both nights. Doesn't jive with the whole dayjob/family thing I have going now.... That club was something else, though....
I'm too old to play there anyways - they used to book us Friday and Saturday nights back-to-back, 11:00pm to 3:00am both nights. Doesn't jive with the whole dayjob/family thing I have going now.... That club was something else, though....
There's a place here in Ashland Ma. was called John Stone's Inn, that has been on TV for being haunted in documentaries, has recently changed hands and names, is a really nice place, is at least 200 years old. they have a good blues jam there on Sundays.
Electrocuted means dead by electricity, he got a shock if he lived, very important distinction, haha!.
Electrocuted means dead by electricity, he got a shock if he lived, very important distinction, haha!.
I worked in a band where the lead vocalist/guitar player had a fight with his lady friend and told her not to come to the gig that night...well, you just knew that she would show up. About 1/2 way through the second set we did a slow song where someone from the band would say something like "Here's a song for the couples to rub-bellies to". That's when his (ex?) girlfriend made her entrance...WITH ANOTHER WOMAN!!! OMG they moved right up in front of the band and had-at-it!!! LOL! It was as close to a live sex show as they could get without getting thrown out (this was in the 80s, things were not quite what they are now). I gotta hand it to our singer/guitar player, he was both ****** and worked up at the same time but never missed a note. The rest of us made LOTS of [musical]mistakes. That was a great night!
Long ago and far away now, but at the time.. A guitarist friend of mine asked me to join his band after their bass player left with only two weeks before a 'battle of the bands' gig. The singer is a bit of a prima donna (but mostly a cab driver with delusions of adequacy). Comes the day we go to the Queanbeyan Leagues Club - think Shriners of Baltimore - and do the sound check at 3.00pm.
Then we head home to spruce up before the 9.30 slot. At least, most of us do. The singer, a Jimmy Barnes fan (think Joe Cocker crossed with Ian Dury) stays at the venue soaking up the rock'n'roll lifestyle and drinking his way through a bottle of scotch.
When we get there he's a little strange but we're too busy with gear and nerves to notice much. Our time comes, on we go. We start with Roxanne by the Police, and get through it OK. He's a little extraverted but he remembers the words. We start our next number and, flushed with success from the first song, he cuts loose, twirling the mike stand wildly and then tripping over it, yowling all the while.
Luckily his forward progress is arrested when he put his right foot squarely into a foldback wedge. He heaves his leg back, throwing the speaker across the stage and then steps straight into thin air dropping five feet off the stage. He bobs up in the crowd, blood streaming from a gash to the head and singing to several girls. He's feeling no pain, and doesn't notice the girls dancing away as fast as they can.
Meanwhile.. the guitarist and I wander forward, still playing, and have a quiet chat:
"Is he with you?"
"Never seen him before."
"They'll let anyone in these days.."
"Oughta be a law."
A soundtech runs from the desk to the stage:
"One more song then you can F**K OFF."
Great days. I can still see him crumpled in a stairwell, farting, snoring, and burbling quietly to himself "Mate, Maaaaaaate, Jeez maaate, we was robbed.. maaate..."
What, and give up showbiz?
Then we head home to spruce up before the 9.30 slot. At least, most of us do. The singer, a Jimmy Barnes fan (think Joe Cocker crossed with Ian Dury) stays at the venue soaking up the rock'n'roll lifestyle and drinking his way through a bottle of scotch.
When we get there he's a little strange but we're too busy with gear and nerves to notice much. Our time comes, on we go. We start with Roxanne by the Police, and get through it OK. He's a little extraverted but he remembers the words. We start our next number and, flushed with success from the first song, he cuts loose, twirling the mike stand wildly and then tripping over it, yowling all the while.
Luckily his forward progress is arrested when he put his right foot squarely into a foldback wedge. He heaves his leg back, throwing the speaker across the stage and then steps straight into thin air dropping five feet off the stage. He bobs up in the crowd, blood streaming from a gash to the head and singing to several girls. He's feeling no pain, and doesn't notice the girls dancing away as fast as they can.
Meanwhile.. the guitarist and I wander forward, still playing, and have a quiet chat:
"Is he with you?"
"Never seen him before."
"They'll let anyone in these days.."
"Oughta be a law."
A soundtech runs from the desk to the stage:
"One more song then you can F**K OFF."
Great days. I can still see him crumpled in a stairwell, farting, snoring, and burbling quietly to himself "Mate, Maaaaaaate, Jeez maaate, we was robbed.. maaate..."
What, and give up showbiz?
I was in a popular half cover-half original local band around 1980-81 and the lead singer got into a fight with his girlfriend the night before. He stayed up all night drinking Jack Daniels and comes to the gig the next night completely shattered. We huddle, what are we going to do? Damn, ra ra ra. Finally we decide, alright we'll let him see what he can do we have no choice anyway, either that or cancel. He gets up on stage, keeps dropping the mic on the floor, boom! the sound man loved this, haha! He's doing his best Mick Jagger impersonation (was a country rock band but he had just seen them) then sitting on the stage and dropping the mic, singing out of key, mumbling, forgetting the words, etc. Finally he lied down on the stage and got up again with a lollipop stuck to his back which stayed there the rest of his "performance". We had had enough, sit down and relax Charlie. I forgot whether he passed out or what but me and the pedal steel player ended up singing anything that came into our minds, Beatles, Louis Louis, all sorts of stuff we have never played before. we played there every Thursday so we just passed it off as a bad night and everyone knew the band etc., those sort of things, you know. In all the excitement I had noticed some guy out in the audience writing in a notebook but hadn't thought anything of it. It turned out he was a reporter for a local rag who was organizing a voting 'best of' for their readers of all the local bands and had never seen us before. The only catagory he nominated us for was: 'The most over rated band in Worcester" haha!
Was not funny back then though.
Was not funny back then though.