Strange / Funny / Awkward Live Show Experiences

[The4455]

I was playing an outside "festival" and this guy tried to hand me a cigarette mid solo, to which I said, oh no thanks and waved my hand at him, then I kept playing, it was weird, more so that I kept soling and still was polite and whatnot, not that he offered me a smoke.

[bongoben]

Years back I used to sit in with a jam band (I played aux. percussion) and somehow they booked a gig out of town in a metal bar. Yeah, there ended up being like 15 people there who were obviously not there for the music. But the highlight of the show was the drunk guy standing right in front of the stage screaming "PLAY SOME KID ROCK!!!!" repeatedly. When the lead guy in the band finally acknowledged the drunk dude and explained that he didn't know Kid Rock and wasn't interested in playing it the drunk guy obviously offered to hop on stage to sing it for him. The night got even better when on the drive home the drummer (who was nowhere near sober) asked for us to pull over because he had to puke. This was December in Wisconsin so it was right around 0 degrees with really wicked wind. So we pulled off the highway, he got out and after about 5 minutes, right when one of the other guys was going to go see if he was okay, the drummer got back in the van and we started on our way. About 30 seconds down the road he says, "Is something wrong with my mouth?" Turns out he had passed out while he was puking, slammed his mouth into the road and knocked out his two front teeth. I think I finally got to go to bed at about 7am that "night" after that adventure plus a stop at the hospital. That band broke up not too long after that.

[theavondon]

One time, at one of my band's album releases, not only was the mic shocking me to the point of going blind every time I sang, but the crowd of 200 some odd people (free show, woo!) was just surrounding us and moving very wildly. One girl said to another girl "If you take off your shirt, I'll take off mine", and then I looked up, and saw like five girls in the crowd without shirts on in this big blurred mass of humans moving around. It was fucking awesome. Some guy tore up a dollar bill and threw it at us. I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT COMPELLED HIM TO DO THAT.

[jrmy]

Many years back, my band at the time got to open for Yo La Tengo (one of our favorite bands), who was playing as Jad Fair's backing band. The show was packed. Midway through our set, I looked out into the audience and saw a chick standing next to my then-girlfriend (now wife) flashing her bra at the band and bumping & grinding with someone that I had to assume was her boyfriend. Her bra was turquoise - for some reason, that's lodged in my memory. After the show, my gf said that Turquoise Bra Woman and her skeezy boyfriend had tried chatting up my gf and her friend into going back the guy's place for hot sex. They declined. Apparently the couple then moved on up the bar to try chatting up other ladies.

During loadout, Ira and James from Yo La Tengo walked by and said that my Rickenbacker's bass tone was better than Lemmy's. To this day, I do not know if they were being sarcastic, or genuinely giving me a compliment. At the time, I was too shocked to say more than "Hey, thanks."

[gunslinger_burrito]

Good topic! One time, I was playing a show in a tiny garage, and people kept running into my amp while moshing around. It got to the point where they were knocking it back further and further, so my roommate and I kept pushing them back (me, with my bass while playing). When our first song finally ended, I apparently (I don't recall ever saying this) held my bass over my head and screamed "IF ANY OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS RUN INTO MY AMP ONE MORE TIME, I WILL BLUDGEON YOU TO DEATH WITH THIS". We played the rest of the set, and everyone stayed away from my amp for the rest of the show. One guy who lived there came up to me after and said "Hey, you like, threatened to kill me in my own house. That's not cool, man." I just said "Well, you should have stayed the fuck away from my amp".

There aren't any great stories I can think of at the moment, but I AM reminded of this (at about 2:35-2:40)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urlF9jrJ5O0[/youtube]

[theavondon]

Good topic! One time, I was playing a show in a tiny garage, and people kept running into my amp while moshing around. It got to the point where they were knocking it back further and further, so my roommate and I kept pushing them back (me, with my bass while playing). When our first song finally ended, I apparently (I don't recall ever saying this) held my bass over my head and screamed "IF ANY OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS RUN INTO MY AMP ONE MORE TIME, I WILL BLUDGEON YOU TO DEATH WITH THIS". We played the rest of the set, and everyone stayed away from my amp for the rest of the show. One guy who lived there came up to me after and said "Hey, you like, threatened to kill me in my own house. That's not cool, man." I just said "Well, you should have stayed the fuck away from my amp".

There aren't any great stories I can think of at the moment, but I AM reminded of this (at about 2:35-2:40)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urlF9jrJ5O0[/youtube]

Honestly, one of my biggest inspirations is that clip.

[Bassus Sanguinis]

...my old band was performing on on this festival, as the last band, and the host was introducing us to excited fans and when marching on stage, escorted by hooded black monks as the intro tape plays church bells and backwards messages, in front of TV cameras - AND the host pronounces the bands name wrong. Badly. Silly. As a third grades that is just learning his first foreign language. And the front row goes silent. Or giggles.

There goes Your grand entré

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

some winners from various college bands i was in - there was a particular jam/funk band i was in that had SO MANY weird experiences... i was 19 when i was in the band as well. here's a few gems for now... i'll try and remember more.

- playing some guy's private 30th bday party in his basement. there was a stripper and we were her stripper music and i woke up in the morning freezing in the outdoor jacuzzi (in november) with 2 girls.

- playing a 3 show residency at some ski resort in VT, opening up for some blues band. we both shared this band house and barely spoke to the other band since we brought along like an ounce of mushrooms and just tripped balls every night. besides yelling weird shit and being awake until 5am, we built a touch tunnel up the stairs using all of the mattresses and cushions, i somehow went down to the other band completely nude and we left all of the furniture in the main room in a giant pile when we left.

- playing on mushrooms on new year's day (just a few days after the VT shows. had to finish off those shrooms!) since we didn't think anyone would be at the show. it ended up being totally packed and we played 15 minutes then our drummer walked off the stage, saying "that was the best show of my life!". his girlfriend/our manager ran back and was like, "wtf are you guys doing? get the fuck out there and play for another hour and a half." and we did.

[dubkitty]

i could tell y'all some REALLY wack stories from the psychedelic band in the early 80s with the bass player who was an acid dealer, but i dunno if you're ready for that shit.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Nothing too crazy, played a new years show in a small village pub a couple of years ago and it was just generally crazy. Everyone was completely hammered, we finished our 2 hour or so set, had some drinks and then got called to play more. We didn't know any other songs so we just played the set again but on the wrong instruments. Our drummer/bassist had to lie down because he just couldn't handle standing anymore, but weirdly was playing and singing completely fine on the floor.

Then at about 5am me and a couple of others found ourselves doing nos with a few people including one bandmates's dad. That was a little weird. Then I drove home completely not sober, when it had been snowing like crazy all night, and it was fucking INTENSE. Should not have done that.

[Eric!]

If I had a nickel for every time I've had a drummer have to run back home to get his cymbals...

[Seedy]

I had tix for Smashing Pumpkins in NJ the day after the Chamberlin/Melvoin heroin incident. The show was obviously canceled and rescheduled about 9 months later. Me and my crew were at the make-up show, on the floor, maybe 300 feet back from the stage. Then a quick series of events unfolded and I think I was the only person in the Meadowlands to see all the individual goings-on.

The band left the stage after the third song, prefacing Soma, while Billy played some quiet licks with his head down. Next to me were 3 kids huddling over something, I assumed a joint. However, it was actually a rolled up ball of socks. One gets up and hurls the socks towards the stage, and BAM! The socks strike Billy's strings perfectly and loudly, disrupting a show that everyone here waited six months for then an additional 9 months due to the overdose. The kids dropped to the floor trying to hide-out. Billy though, never lifts his head. He does however, lift his middle finger.

At this point, the arena explodes in encouragement for Billy. The 3 kids however, don't realize that Billy flipped them off and assume that the cheers are for them. So they stand up to take a bow and are promptly jumped by security and removed from a concert that they also waited more than a year for and got 3 songs out of.

If I could go back in time, knowing how insufferable Billy Corgan has become, I would have given the 3 kids a couple of doorknobs to put in that roll of socks.

[Moustache_Bash]

back in 1975 i went to see Jackson Browne

That's all I needed to read.

[dubkitty]

it was really easy to get under his skin...he was the Ryan Adams of his time that way. hoo BOY, did he take himself seriously. there was a legendary instance when someone yelled for "Whipping Post" at one of his shows--which was a cultural meme in the mid-70s...people did it at all kinds of inappropriate places and moments--and he got ALL pissy about it. (BTW this is why Zappa worked up "Whipping Post" with his band, to blow the heads off the smartalecks.)

[D.o.S.]

Also, the Whipping Floss bootleg song/jam is pretty phenomenal.

I remember ending every song at one free show with five minutes of Wolfmother's Woman. Because it was, and is, a retarded song. The guitarist and I would play each iteration faster. It was our own personal Awesome Sound.