What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you at a gig?

[Blue-Jay]

Its difficult for me to pick a single one as I've seen some weird shit over the years of playing in bars. Here's the first one that comes to mind, however.

Goodness Gracious, Great Flaming Chicken Parts Afire!: I was playing at a friend's wedding reception as a favor. The "chef" who was in charge of the catering had a signature dish that he was a little too proud of. We were instructed to play a CD when he was ready to present his famous "flaming chicken parts". The CD was the OSU fight song, for some weird goddamn reason.

So we fire up the CD player and he runs out among the crowd, highstepping to the fight song with a giant pan of flaming chicken parts held above his head. Quite the production, no? Anyway, the "chef" slips as he turns a corner, and fiery chicken death rains down on the assembled party goers, and sets some kids pants ablaze. The poor kid sees that he's on fire and (forgetting his stop-drop-and-roll training), begins to run around like a.....well... like a kid with his pants on fire.

Some brilliant adult catches the kid and throws him into the vat of ice and beer cans to put out the trouser-blaze. The kid wasn't injured, and the party continued with no resulting lawsuits.

We immediately launched into covers of Fire by the Ohio Players, followed by Burnin' Down The House. The chef was not amused by our choice of songs.

[LifeDuringWartime]

1. lol

thats a good story. i dont think ive played enough gigs to have a weird story like that though *shrug*

[Ron Green]

2. Here's one:

I was playing in a jazz trio at a club, and it seemed that some of the people wanted to dance rather than just listen. We decided to just fake a tune with a rock beat, a D minor vamp of some kind, so that people without real steps could dance to it.

About 2 minutes into the tune, a man was on the floor. An ambulance was there within another 3 minutes, but this guy was pretty blue as he went by the bandstand on the stretcher. We found out later that night that he had died, and wondered what to name that rock tune in D minor.

[bullimiami]

3. d minor. isnt that the "saddest of all keys"

you know the key of "lick my love pump"


played one night on a cruise ship skirting a hurricane with drunk dancers laughing and falling from one side of the ship to the other, knocking over stuff. and the horizon through the windows across the deck first ocean then stars....

[Blue-Jay]

4. Ouch. We had a guy die once as well.

The circumstances were a bit different. I'll just tell the short version.

Mama Said Knock You Out: A bar fight broke out when we were playing at Marsha's (a shithole so amazingly shitty it dwarfs all other shitholes in the wake of its shittitude). Some guy gets punched and falls. On the way down, he apparently hits his head on something slightly harder than the human skull and dies right in front of the bar.

Marsha was used to having motionless people on tables, chairs, and the floor so everyone assumes that the dead guy is merely passed out. People were actually stepping over him to order their drinks for close to a half hour before someone thinks to call an ambulance. We didn't find out about the whole incident until later that night, as the bar was in a seperate room from the stage.

[dbt]

5. A well-known DIVE in Little Rock a couple of summers ago.

About 3:00 AM, word filters through the crowd that a Disgruntled Patron who had been previously ejected had returned with a gun. He was at the front door, and naturally the back entrance to the joint was at the center of the four-square-foot stage!

Better than half the crowd passes right through the middle of the band, scattering amps and sound gear to either side. Most of us are down behind the amps, hoping to avoid bullets and/or getting trampled--all except our bass player, who is from Northern Ireland.

He stands at the microphone, yelling at what remains of the crowd: "Fuck's sake, where ya all goin'? It's just a gun, ya wankers!" We drag his ass outside, where he proceeds to give us all holy hell for being "a shower o' gutless c*nts, not a real man among yez!"

We never found out whether the guy had a gun or not--and had to suffer through endless weeks of Steven calling us sissies!

:smoke:
dbt

[Ron Green]

7. LOL - I can see the crowd "rushing the stage"...

Here's one that happened indirectly to me:

East side of Dallas, about 1971, in a bar notorious for bad actors, a loud drunk kept shouting that the drummer was playing too loud. The drummer, being a drummer, kept doing his normal thing, and in a few minutes the drunk pulls a gun and shoots the drummer dead on the bandstand.

The club closed down for a few weeks after this, and I was in the next band in the place. I'll never forget the first set that night, turning to our drummer and saying, "Mike! C'mon, man, play out some - I can't hear you." You could barely see Mike behind his cymbals, he was shrunk down so small.

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. Playing a bar in Orange CT.............

A bunch of people were out dancing in front of the stage. I'm doing the lead vocal and playing rythum guitar when something catches my eye sliding across the dance floor. Turns out to be a pistol and just as I see it the lead guitar player sees it also. We both look at each other and at the gun wondering who's going to get it. Of course we couldn't stop playing. Next thing you know a chick reaches down, picks it up and takes off. Turns out it fell out of her fanny pack. After the song was over the manager comes over and ask us if we saw anything. We told him what happened and the chick was long gone. We talked later about how lucky everyone was that the pistol didn't go off when it hit the floor.

[TrogL]

8. Somebody threw a chair through the front window

probably because we were playing reggae and channeling Freddy Mercury in a redneck country and western bar

[bullimiami]

9. ahh the gun reminded me of an old one....

playing in the back room of a small bar on south beach back in the days before it was "south beach".
it was pretty run down then, bums, marialitos (you know from the mariel boat lift), old people and punks (of course).

well we are standing on the sidewalk in front of the bar. the "turf pub" (there had been a race track on the end of south beach at one time) when a couple of bikers come out of the place next door dont remember if it was another bar or the "chicken shack" , pissed off. "nobody f&*ks with the outlaws" and some other choice words and they were gone.

a few minutes later a station wagon comes around the corner and out of the back one of the bikers has a shotgun and blows out the front window of the place and took off.

we were just standing there amazed.

[jdots]

10. the Zappa band shows up to goof on the shitty show band

At the scenic airport hilton looser lounge after thier gig,there i am in a polyester early 70's suit in a retched show band(needed the money) mid way thru " have you ever been jello ? " or some fine tune.The band is so lame they don't get the fact that the Zappa band are goofing on them,so they try to impress them.Mid way through the guitar player doing " Stormy Monday" with the wrong changes I was so embarrassed that I walked off stage with my bass and hid in bathroom till they left.Wierder shit than happened in my crappy career but that was the most embarrassing.

[no name no slogan]

11. True story-- I met my wife

Nearly 10 years ago to the day, actually.

My band was playing at the bottom of a bill at a local club. A new batch of employees had been hired at my company, and I knew one of them from college. I invited her and her roommate (my future wife) to the show that night, since we didn't think anybody would make it (it was a Tuesday night).

Well, my college acquaintance/new co-worker dragged her roommate to the gig, despite the fact that her roommate had to go work an overnight shift in a couple hours. I noticed the roommate right away, and began chatting with her. She watched the gig, and was impressed, and I made up a bogus excuse to walk her to her car. It was a freezing February night in Minnesota, but I had to get that woman's number.

On the following Friday, we had our first date, and soon became exclusive. Two months later, I proposed to her. Fifteen months after that, we got married, and have been together ever since.

:D

[Pepperbelly]

12. drug-related or non-drug related? nt

[Blue-Jay]

17. Either.

[Pepperbelly]

21. back in the day ... early 70s, we were to play at a Guerilla concert ...

and I took these pills ... green, they were. No one was quite sure what they were but they were going around. One made you feel drunk, like you'd drank a 12-pack. 2 and you got twice as stupid.

We were having logistical problems ... i.e. my guitar didn't make it with me and I took my car to go get it. The concert was on International Paper company land in the middle of no where in South Arkansas on Mothers Day and the thought ... among the ararchist instigators of the whole thing ... that since it was private property, the state cops couldn't make us leave until they got hold of the property owners. On Mothers Day.

<snicker>

Anyway, on the way to get my guitar, I ran into a friend who had seen my guitar at the house and was bringing it to me. So I put it on top of the car and shot the breeze with my friend for a few minutes and when I left, I forgot to fetch the guitar from the car top. Didn't realize anything was amiss until my hardshell case went cliding past me on a curve.

When I got to the concert, I checked my guitar and all that was wrong was that it got knocked out of tune. So I tuned it up by ear and, as it turned out, I shouldda checked against a piano because I tuned the low e to like a g and couldn't sing any of the songs or reach any of the notes or figure out what the hell was the problem because ...

Did I mention the little green pills?

BTW, if you are still reading and are interested, the concert started at noon and the cops couldn't raise the property owners until almost midnight. A spendid time was had by all.

[jpgray]

13. Working a community service gig for our drummer (long story)

We were charged onstage by a gang of the mentally disabled / deranged. We did keep playing.

:D

[Al Dente]

14. I once played a gig on the back of a boat.

It was on the 4th of July and it was some lake tour where the band crowded onto the back of this tiny boat and played for the 100 or so boats that followed us. It was really fun until we pulled up to this marina where there were about 300 drunk celebrators with water balloons and huge three man slingshots. We got our shit blasted by water balloons. My bass got one right on the pickups and it cost me alot of money to repair. My amp got it as well, our sax player got one right in the bell of his horn. The drummer didn't get much and our guuitar player got it pretty bad. I was pissed, I about jumped off the boat and swam to the dock and started knocking peoples heads together. Luckily a bigger boat saw us in trouble and pulled out in front of us to deflect some of the fire. It was not good.
I also played jazz at a horse show once. That was odd, especially considering our piano player was totally awesome and could have been doing better things with his time. Harold O'Neal, he's played with Greg Osby and Nicholas Payton and frequents New York. He got hired for the gig by our teacher Bobby Watson. Poor guy, he spent most of the time showing me karate moves. Heh

[mitchum]

15. Had a strange girl jump on stage...

who kissed me and rubbed all over me. Then she pulls out a syringe and attempts to hit me up with "something" I politely declined and as she persisted, I gave her a shove. She attempted to right herself, grabbed my amp rig, fell off the stage with my cabinet landing on top of her. And the band played on...

Later that evening, her BOYFRIEND apologized for her actions and offered to pay for any damages (there were none) Touching in a way.

[Susang]

16. A drunken marine tried to kiss me and grab my tit......

Then started a fight with one of the army grunts at the base we were playing in Southern Korea.

The stage was so small that there was only room for the drums and bass set up, the guitarist and I were on the floor in front of the stage with our mikes. So basically, we were right in the middle of a full fledged military bar fight, with chairs, bar stools and fists flying, bodies crashing into us, all the time my bandleader (the drummer, who was safely above the fray onstage) kept yelling "Keep singing, goddamn it!".

We didn't play for two nights after that because the commander of the base closed the bar because of the fight, but we still got paid.

BTW, this isn't really the weirdest thing that's ever happened, it was just the first thing that came to mind tonight. ;-)

[Blue-Jay]

18. Yeah, right. Who ever heard of a drunken marine tit-grabber?

[Susang]

19. Sounds like an exotic species of bird, doesn't it?

"Look honey, it's a drunken Marine tit-grabber, they're supposed to be extinct!"

[jpgray]

20. My days in the service are not among my proudest

:cry:

[RetroLounge]

22. Weirdest? God, all gigs seemed to end up weird...

We were playing a nasty biker bar in Chicago called The Rusty Nail circa 1980. We were all about 19 or 20 yrs old and from the north suburbs, not too much city experience. Some big, and I mean 300 lb big, nasty and mean biker dude tells us top play "Born To Be Wild" so he could dance with this way-hot biker chick, so of course we did. Two songs later he grabs the mike and tells us to play it again. So naturally we did. and they danced again. About 3 songs later, same thing. This time we broke into about a 20 minute guitar lead with Wild thing, Gloria and a few others thrown in for good measure and by that time he had passed out at the bar and we felt we could move on without getting killed. We finished our set, the hot biker chick bought me a beer and showed me her appreciation in the cab of a pickup truck in the parking lot.

RL

[Disturbed]

23. the Bourbon Cowboys

The Wild Saga of the Bourbon Cowboys pt 6
by Phil Frazier

There was an underground song that was real popular when we were in Canada called "The Rodeo Song." The lyric that we most related to was, "Well it's 40 below got a heater in my truck and I don't give a fuck 'cause I'm off to the rodeo." We were there in December and the heater in our van wasn't working that well and we were freezing, especially our feet, as we drove to our final gig. It was about a 70 mile drive and we were hoping like crazy that our van would make. Man, we were jumpin' with joy when we finally got there. The place was warm and that's about we cared abut at that point.

At the gig before that we were summoned to appear at the Customs Office. Each of us was interviewed separately. It seems that the Canadian Agent hadn't filed papers regarding the Green Cards, work permit. After our little talk there we forgot about it and figured everything was fine.

Three nights into our last gig we found out that it wasn't so fine when two Mounties arrived at our gig and informed us after the last set that we were to be outa Canada that night. If we weren't then we would be going to jail. We were handed a deportation notice. Lucky for us that we only had two more nights to play but the club owner wasn't too happy because he probably couldn't get a sub band on that quick of a notice. Oh well...nothing' we could do about that.

We packed up and got the Hell outa there. As we crossed the border line we all laughed.

Parts 1 - 5 are here:

http://www.indiejournal.com/indiejournal/columns/philfrazier.htm

[no name no slogan]

25. Rodeo Song kicks @$$!!!!!!

Back in 1992, I used to 'sing' that song as GHW Bush, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton at a local karaoke bar. I used to knock the crowd stoopid with that one. I even won a number of contests with it, totalling around $300 altogether. I ended up saving them all up and blew it on a party for my coworkers on St. Patrick's day in 1993. Good Times, Good Times.

Oh, it's 40° below and I don't give a fsck
Got a heater in my truck and it's off to the rodeo....

[XNASA]

24. Once, I broke my G-string.

:shrug:

I can't think of any one particular thing that has happened to me at a gig that I would consider weird. Last year, the singer of the band I was in dropped trou.....

That was kinda weird.

[chaska]

26. Drunk played the William Tell Overture by tapping his teeth....

Once walked offstage to find a bunch of high school girls lined up wanting me to kiss them (I was barely out of high school myself). That same gig there were two girls who fought over my sweaty towel. Kids are crazy.

Surely every musician has seen the inevitable nudity that results from mixing beer and togas.

[Zorra]

27. One time a redneck wedding party came into this little dive country bar

in a small town about 5 minutes after we started playing. Some drunken fool slapped the bride (who had around 5 big mean ugly gap toothed brothers present) and the place turned into a genuine wild west saloon brawl. Cue sticks were cracking heads, billiard balls were breaking windows, blood was everywhere as we were scrambling to get our equipment to the back of the stage. The cops came, the bar closed, and we got paid in full with only a little beer spilled on our speakers.

Another time a club owner asked me to throw a member of a very well known white rap band off our stage because he was drunkenly thumping on our bass player's bass during a break, along with his drunken friend who was happily playing along badly on an out of tune guitar. They did not want to leave the stage and got really pissed at me, but finally agreed to leave after about 15 minutes of me telling them how their music was really great but that the club owner was going to fire us if we did not get back on stage.

At another gig, our drummer, Alex, had an alcoholic relapse before the gig and was wild eyed and screaming whoop, whoop, whoop, in a high pitched voice repeatedly in the horrified club owners' face because she had asked him to leave as he was shitfaced and obnoxious. He soon passed out on the floor and the club staff promptly deposited him on the front steps of the club. We didn't know what to do with him because we had to hook up another drummer real fast (luckily there ended up being a fairly proficient drummer in the house), we had 45 minutes to be on stage, and we were really pissed and the bar owner was adamant that we get him off the premises. So we threw him in the van and drove him down a nearby dirt road and out to this clearing in the woods, and dumped him off there. It was drizzling and we weren't sure but didn't think we really wanted him to die there so we called up this crazy girl that he had told us that he was scared to death of who lived nearby and who had the major hots for him. We cruelly but somewhat gleefully told her where to find him, knowing that she would be a very, very, happy camper. He then disappeared for 3 days, so we figured we'd better go look for him, especially after his girlfriend called all worried. It turned out that the girl had driven him to her house out in the woods and locked him in her basement for 3 days to sober him up, all the while preaching the evils of alcohol and telling him that it was for his own good; he somehow managed to break out and we received a desperate phone call from him asking us to come get him at a nearby store where he would be hiding. After that he came to be known as "Alex In Chains".

(Ironically, the girl and the drummer ended up living together on and off for over 5 years after he got out of rehab, and maybe still are)

[Floogeldy]

28. A rotund 60 + year old woman dropped dead on the dance floor!

I was playing at a small, local country & western bar (Hey, it was easy money) back in the late seventies. This lady loved the band. She and her husband were dancin' up a storm and she just went down to the ground and didn't move.

The ambulance came and tried to revive her to no avail.

The weird thing is, her husband later told us she had said that, when she goes, she wanted to go dancing to our band. I kid you not.

[ZoCrowes]

29. Never one that weird

We were playing a party about 3 years ago and I am up onstage doing my whole guitar playing thing and all of a sudden this girl jumps up onstage runs over and kisses me (tounge and all.) Before I had a chance for this to register (and ask her if she would like to go with me to one of the bedrooms) she runs offstage. Well right as she is geting offstage this dude rushes up after her, trip over a mic cable, falls flats on his ass and then gets up and continues to chase her. Turns out it was the boyfriend of the chick and they were fighting over something. She decided to piss him off and well...she succeeded. Definitely one of the most surreal moments of my musical life.

[MazeRat7]

30. From the "that's just strange category"... I give you this.

We were in a notorious rock club here in Austin called the "Back Room" sometime around 1988-89. It was late so most everybody was trashed, including some of my fellow band mates. Then for whatever reason, the dance floor cleared and there appeared this lady (I use that term lightly) in a motorized wheel chair. She was hanging on to this pole in the middle of the floor with one hand and somehow had the wheel chair full throttle. Hence she was doing circles around this pole at a rather brisk rate. If that was not enough (her going round and round and round), she began to take off and toss her clothes on to the dance floor while everyone around egged her on.

I think we were just wrapping up Sunspot Baby when the bouncers finally came and escorted her now naked self away. It was not a pretty sight and to top things off she was waiting for our front guy outside after the show (now dressed) wanting to know if he needed some "oral assistance".... *gezzzz what a weird night.

MZr7

[Ron Green]

31. Here's an amazing thing that happened at a wedding....

We were set up to play the reception on a summer afternoon at a big house in the Dallas (Texas) Arboretum, and the actual ceremony was about to take place next door on a long lawn between rows of tall shrubs. After setting up my equipment I moseyed over to watch the wedding from behind the bushes, from where I could see about 200 guests sitting in folding chairs on the lawn, a small stage/altar where a harpist was playing and the minister and groom were waiting, and the bride and her father about 40 yards away, hiding behind the bushes and ready to "walk down the aisle." Suddenly, a sprinkler came on (must have been on a timer) and almost got the bride and her dad. They escaped the spray, but the dad spoke sharply to an Arboretum employee who quickly ran to secure the irrigation system.

About that time, the harpist began the Wedding March, and the bride and her father started to move out as the guests turned in their seats to enjoy the procession. About the time the bride reached the back row of seats, ALL the sprinklers came on, the ones not directly under the chairs spouting 10 feet in the air. Amid the screams of scores of people drenched and surrounded by jets of water, two people in wheelchairs in the front row went over backwards, the harpist valiantly tried to move her instrument out of the deluge, and most of the chairs above the spray heads, as soon as they were unburdened, flipped into the air and struck people as they came down to earth.

I never saw such a thing in my life, and I was quite surprised that no one had a video camera at that event. This was about 1995, when they were already quite common. I remember thinking that such a videotape would have gained the big prize on "America's Funniest ... "

Some people went home to change clothes, but there were many who danced themselves dry at the reception that day.