Let's hear some gig stories!

Donnie B.

Donnie B.

Banned
Well-known member
Disclaimer: My gigging was 1975-1981 in a 3 piece power trio (we did lots of Rush)

- once played in a basement gym at a college. Completely lost power mid-way into the show.
After a 10 minute acoustic drum solo by flashlight :LOL: we gave up and had to completely break
down and load out via a large window fire escape. Miracle nothing got stolen - it was pitch black!

- played a high school gig out in a field behind the school using a generator. The plan looked
cool on paper but the fucking generator proved to be a 4th member of the group - LOUD! It was
like someone was hitting a Db on a bass pedal in the background but none of our songs were in Db.

- huge backyard party where we again broke down under weird conditions; via the spotlights on
a few police cruisers who'd shut it all down

- played the going away party for a hometown hero who'd been drafted by MLB. Good thing his
blood test wasn't the next day cause he would have got busted on about 6 different substances :ROFLMAO:
Dude went on to win a Cy Young Award, pitched in an All-Star game, and got a World Series ring!

I've got more but let's hear yours.
An NO church gig stories allowed - unless they involve groupies. :cool:
 
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[ Donnie B. ] said:
Disclaimer: My gigging was 1975-1981 in a 3 piece power trio (we did lots of Rush)

- once played in a basement gym at a college. Completely lost power mid-way into the show.
After a 10 minute acoustic drum solo by flashlight :LOL: we gave up and had to completely break
down and load out via a large window fire escape. Miracle nothing got stolen - it was pitch black!

- played a high school gig out in a field behind the school using a generator. The plan looked
cool on paper but the fucking generator proved to be a 4th member of the group - LOUD! It was
like someone was hitting a Db on a bass pedal in the background but none of our songs were in Db.

- huge backyard party where we again broke down under weird conditions; via the spotlights on
a few police cruisers who'd shut it all down

- played the going away party for a hometown hero who'd been drafted by MLB. Good thing his
blood test wasn't the next day cause he would have got busted on about 6 different substances :ROFLMAO:
Dude went on to win a Cy Young Award, pitched in an All-Star game, and got a World Series ring.

I've got more but let's hear yours. An NO church gig stories allowed - unless they involve groupies.
:cool:
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What I’d I was the groupie?
 
All right, I’ll play...

Back in 1991, we played 2 weekends a month at a college bar as the ‘house band’ and the other 2 weeks we were on the road through an agency out of Mpls. Xmas break for the college, we still played that weekend and a buddy asked me if his brother could come up and play a song... he’s in a band out in Cali. Cool...turns out he’s Dave Marshall(Ullrich) who was playing with Vince Neil at the time. We’re super excited to hear him play...he asks if he can use my guitar but play through my singer Ampeg tube combo...I had an ADA + Mosvalve power amp at the time. My guitar was 2 months old, Hamer Centaura..so Dave gets up there and we do RNR by Zep...he cranks the Ampeg to 10 and blows it up while his deep pick attack and metal pick puts some nice scratches in my new guitars clear. He’s a super good player but we weren’t the happiest bunch after that lol.
Rock Fest 94....we were opening the Main stage on a Saturday and were super nervous; there were like 5K people already out there so we were having a few cocktails in the artists vip area when this smokin hot blonde shows up and starts chatting; pretty soon we’re all doing shots with here and inviting her back to our campsite when in walks Eddie Money....he’s super cool but says we gotta be careful she’s only 19. Oops. Except she wasn’t his daughter, she’s his wife!! Oops again. But he was laughing at us as we were embarrassed to all hell. Super nice guy with a good sense of humor...RIP
 
Went to high school with Bret and Rikki from Poison. They were a couple of years older and had a cover band called Spectres. After they graduated, they started playing more originals and eventually changed their name to Paris (all before they moved to LA and became Poison). Since they didn't have enough original material to fill an entire evening in the bars and clubs around central PA, they'd occasionally have my baby high school cover band open for them to kill some time.

We were all booked one horrible winter night at a bar in Gettysburg, PA called "What's a Harvey's Place?" Blizzard conditions outside and nobody in the bar except the band members, crew, bar staff, my dad because we were underage, and maybe 2 barflies. Completely dead.

We hit the stage for our opening set to play to basically nobody and out comes Bret and Rikki from their dressing room. Those two stood at the front of the stage for our entire set and cheered us on. Took us back to the dressing room afterward and snuck us a few beers. They were a pretty big deal in the area at the time and didn't have to do that. I'll never forget it. People can rag on them all they want, but I got to know them fairly well over those few years and they were the nicest guys around. Worked harder and had more drive and dedication than anyone I'd ever seen.
 
Some great stories to read about so far! Love reading about this stuff!

I remember telling this story previously. It was the early to mid 80s. Our singer (who was a proper idiot!) told us he had this great gig lined up at the hospital rec centre in the basement. They had a stage and everything so we were set. We would get a couple hundred $ to play 4-6 songs. Being a bunch of teenagers, we thought this was great and easy money. I think most of us were 14 at the time.

So....we get to the hospital loading entrance and get directed to the basement back stage area. The curtains are closed and we setup and roll. I take a peek through the curtains and not really feeling the audience at that point. Everyone looks older than dust.

So....it turns out it was a retirement group with some nurses who wanted a band to play a few songs for the old folks and them.
The idiot lead singer did not ask what the venue was.....

Well...they got a bit more then they bargained for.

Our set list chosen by our singer was as follows (there were 2 other songs but it is a distant memory:)
1.) Lipstick and Leather - Y&T
2.) Turn up the Radio - Autograph
3.) Living After midnight - Judas Priest
4.) forgot which tune.....
5.) same as above....
6.) An original tune that we wrote

Yup....that's about all I have to say on this one. :bash:
Couple that with the fact that the Mayor of the city was there as well watching the performance. o_O

My god....what had we done.

Turns out there were several smoking hot nurses who came up to us after and asked us for autographs. Got a few dates out of that one as well. :p

So....you take the good with the bad.
 
1. The area amphitheater was "experimenting" with setting up a side stage that featured local bands to warm up the crowd before opening the gates to the main bowl. A way to make money with those arriving early for the vendors etc... So my old band was the guinea pig, and it was on Ozzfest. I told the guys we start at this time, end at this time and not a minute later or the main gates would open and the crowd won't give a care to what we're doing. So we play, all is good but we're running a little behind in the set. Still one tune left to play but I'm doing my best to let the guys know during the next to the last song, we need to end it on this song. They blow me off as the crowd is digging it, we crank into the last song and less than a minute in, the main gates open and it's like watching someone stick a needle in a balloon full of water. In less than two minutes we went from around 3k of people to 1. And to add insult to complete embarrassment, that guy flips us off and walks away lol.

2. To say half the band was inebriated before taking the stage would be an understatement. Band is on a three day run (Thur, Fri, Sat), covering two states but the party started after the Fri night gig. To the point that "they" (I say they because I warned them lol) were buying cases of beer off the bar owner. So basically from Fri late after the gig (Sat morning actually) two of the guys had not stopped drinking at the hotel. 200 mile drive to the next gig, they're still going at it in the van. We tell the bar owner(s) at the next stop - don't serve these guys drinks, they're already hammered. Well they didn't serve them drinks but instead ended up getting high from that point on with them. Short story long, we did the gig. Bass player literally is ghost white on the verge sickness, doesn't move an inch on stage until later. Other guitarist can barely stand...and both these guys were great entertainers on stage. Mid set, other guitarist passes out while standing, falls off the stage and crashes onto a table, onto the floor. Right out of a movie. The bassist who hasn't moved an inch, calmly turns around and turns off the guitarists amp which is feedback city at this point and continues playing. Was the only move he made all night onstage lol.

So many stories.
 
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Played a gig at Satyricon in PDX, had been to 100 shows there but first time playing the room. Had these fancy ass new picks I loved and equally fancy ass braided cloth guitar cord.....dropped my pick the first song and really got a good look at the stage floor when I was trying to find it. Found it and left it right where it was. Hands down the most disgusting surface I've ever stood on. Left the pick and the cable for the next band hahah

Gig in Seaside at the local watering hole. Bar was packed full of surfers and crusty locals, everybody knew everybody else in that bar. Two military guys on leave came in and started hitting on all the ladies, announcing they were back from the Mid East and ready to party. Pretty well stepped all over it. Set was done and my Brother and his fiance' were talking to me, biggest of the two military dudes comes up and puts his arm around my Bro's lady and says " I don't think I got your name?" My Brother responded "that's because she didn't give it to you, beat it kook!" Big military guy shoves my Brother, Brother shoved back and somebody jumped in between them and pushed the big guy towards the front door. I'm still standing there with guitar strapped on....Big guy is screaming that he's coming back to fuck everybody up, and yells for his partner to follow him out. Partner does just that and as he's walking out decides to throw a little open palm slap to the guy sitting on the corner of the bar. Really bad mistake, horrible mistake. Big guy heard the screaming and turned around to come back in the bar. As he stepped in the doorway he was met by a 6'2" redneck AF State Wresting Champ. Before they knew it local boy had both guys in headlocks, clacked their heads together and knocked one of them out. The still standing guy ran out of the bar, the knocked out guy was taken outside and left on the sidewalk. Everybody in the bar clapped and raised a toast. Seaside cops showed up 10 minutes later and walked in to a normal regular evening in the pub an asked what was up? Bartender told them "just a nice night among Friends!" The cop kind of laughed and walked out. Military guys continued to make a huge scene outside and were both arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct :ROFLMAO: :rock: :ROFLMAO: :rock: (BTW this is the same gig I mentioned in the "worst amps" thread with my POS Mesa Nomad hahah)
 
Disclaimer: my gigging days were 1991 to 2013. In 1991 or 1992 (can't remember) I did a gig and was wearing white spandex. Thought I had to fart but turned out to be a blast of diarrhea. Fortunately I had a flannel shirt that I tied around my waist which was a common grunge era fashion statement that was just coming into vogue at the time.
 
The one I always think of first was a show we played with King’s X. We were going to be direct support on the show, all seemed well.

The management of the venue turned out to be a pain in the ass. This particular venue had just changed management and ownership. We showed up early and they attempted to bump us down in time slot despite constant reassurances of our slot. Most of the folks we knew that were coming were then at risk of missing us. Our drummer got into a shouting match with the owners...

“Do you know who our lawyers are? Our firm represents f^%#} Van Halen!”

“I don’t give a s*^% if you ARE Van Halen!”

It was good times :D Had a beer and watched the fireworks. Could hear them all screaming for miles away. We let it go and just played an earlier time slot, wasn’t worth the effort. Took the stage and weren’t afforded much a sound check, don’t think I heard a single note I played all night. Still swear it was on purpose because of the argument with management.

It was only about a month later when Jerry had a heart attack and was hospitalized.
 
MId to late 90s playing a weekend gig at a rural area bar in the middle of one of the coldest damn winters I remember. There were probably 8 or 9 people in the bar total including us and staff when halfway through a set one of the well hammered locals started running around the bar swinging a pool stick at god knows what. We keep on playing when we see him pushing a chair onto the dance floor and parks it front and center. On it, a freshly killed bird that was stuck inside the bar. It was like he was presenting it to us like a cat brings a fresh kill to it's owner.
Rock and Roll.....right?
 
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College house party. Drunk girl comes up to me, 3inches away from me and proceeds to have a full on conversation while I am playing guitar for my band. All the loudness Didnt seem to bother her and I don’t think it ever occurred to her that I wasn’t responding. Ha
 
Played a huge venue in the late 90s during an ice storm. It was so bad, we barely made it to the venue and our fully-loaded gear van almost slid across the entire parking lot an into a ravine. Barely saved by a concrete stopper. Bar was in one half of the building, stage and dance floor were in the other half. The only other people in the entire venue the whole time were the female bartender in the other half of the building and our soundguy.

During a song I sang, our lead singer, the soundguy and the bartender decided to go out the back door, brave the storm and have a smoke. Now the remaining 3 of us on stage are playing in this huge building to literally nobody. We finish the song and hear this pounding. The smokers ended up locking themselves out and couldn't get back around the building to the front door. I ran to the door, opened it and the bartender gal goes, "I think we can call it a night guys".

Only in Minnesota
 
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marvcus said:
College house party. Drunk girl comes up to me, 3inches away from me and proceeds to have a full on conversation while I am playing guitar for my band. All the loudness Didnt seem to bother her and I don’t think it ever occurred to her that I wasn’t responding. Ha
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Holy Hanna, drunk people wanting to talk to you while you're playing is the best. :D
 
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