The worst thing happened at the gig...

[bonzoboy]

The craziest thing that ever happened to me in a club was way back in 1974.A club owner had been good enough to let a few of us jam in a spare upstairs room on slack days when there wasn't much doing in the club.After we had practiced one day and were packing up our gear I took my '65 Strat and '63 Hagstrom and my footpedals and started for the door,the guys told me to leave the guitars there with my amps but I told them that where I go my babies go.Anyway that night the bar was gutted and my Traynor Guitarmate and a no-name MIJ piggy back amp that was probably made by Silvertone were behind a wall that collapsed on them.When we were allowed to go in and get what remained of our gear and I picked up my amps the water just poured out of them.The drummers Ludwig Super Classics amazingly survived behind the collapsed wall as did a set of conga drums.I hi-hat and crash cymbal on stands were drooping like mushrooms from melting partway.I was glad that I had taken my guitars and effects with me but the bass player didn't fare so well and his Hofner Beatle Bass copy was in very hard shape.Amazingly some 30 years after the fire,I took the old Traynor that I had kept in the furnace room since the fire and took it to a local tech to see if he could get it working.He took out the some oil and paper caps etc. and the water ruined speaker and replaced it with a Vintage 30 and it once again sang like new-even better than it had before.

 

While we were taking out our gear a guy came over and started chatting to us and asked us if we were playing there.I told him that we were merely practicing with hopes of getting some gigs further along but mentioned that we had gotten off to a flaming start,the guy must have been a reporter because my comments were in a newspaper story the next day where the reporter said that even in adversity we can still see some humor in things.

 

There is another story that's funny but sickening too-I won't go into detail but here's the scenario: A very seedy water-front lounge,a drunk patron and an even drunker,extremely large hooker and a urine-soaked bathroom floor.'Nuff Said.

[1998StandardSG]

There is another story that's funny but sickening too-I won't go into detail but here's the scenario: A very seedy water-front lounge,a drunk patron and an even drunker,extremely large hooker and a urine-soaked bathroom floor.'Nuff Said.

 

Haha! Now I'm listening! lol that is pretty crazy

 

"Ok so you wanna see blood??," picked up a broken bottle and stabbed himself in the chest 3 times

Was your singer Iggy Pop or GG Allin?! hahah Just the thought of that is making my chest hurt

[buliwyf]

Our singer used to twirl his mike (ala Rodger Daltry) during some songs but he at least was smart enough to duct tape the cord down to the mike itself.One night he had a bit to much to drink(oh there was a suprise)and he twirled his mike cord to hard and to far out.I guess you see it comming the mike came off the tape and cord and went flying and hit a pitcher of beer and spilt it all over the large bikers sitting at a table.Luckly it was the last set because it would have been tough for our singer to sing while his lip was bleeding and swealing up to the size of a hot air balloon,plus they emptied his pockets till they had enough money for another pitcher.Well that brought back some strange memories,thanx!

[jaxson50]

We had to kick a guitar player out of the band because he was getting real....strange (when a guy asks you for a sample of your blood to add to his colection it's time to end the relationship)..anywho, he was doing heavy drugs, speed etc. So we cut the cord, and he would stalk us, come to gigs and stare at us like Freedy Krueger...then he started beating his wife, she kicked him out, and one night he came through the bedroom window screen with a knife, so she started hanging out with us (me) nothing nasty going on, just for protection, she went to a club that we played at all the time with the band one night, we were a pretty good blues band and had a good following in the black community and we had one fan that would come to see us every chance he got...cheap beer will do that, Andrew was about 65 years old, 6' 14" & built like a brick wall, I told him what was going on and asked him to dance with Cindy all night and keep an eye on her.

Sure enough, about 11:00 Buzz walks in, we are in the middle of a song, the dance floor was packed, he walks out on the floor and grabs her arm, and suddenly he staggers backwards, after taking a fist to the throat, we stop playing, the place goes silent., then Andrew our black fan does something I never seen before or since.

He takes his false teeth out, drops them into a pitcher of beer and shouts---"NOW I AIN'T GOT NUTHING TO LOOSE MOTHER F___KER LETS GET IT ON!!""

Buzz was never a problem after that night, and Andrew became our official security guy.

[1998StandardSG]

""NOW I AIN'T GOT NUTHING TO LOOSE MOTHER F___KER LETS GET IT ON!!""

 

That is probably the best fight story I've ever heard!

 

It reminds me of a friend of mine who had a friend (I know it sounds fake already right?) SO the story is my buddy is at a bar with his friend and he starts (his friend) to get into a fight with some guy. From what I gather, the guy is pretty crazy because he bit off a piece of his hand and spit it at the guy then shouted "YOU WANNA PIECE OF ME?!"

[retrosurfer1959]

yeah strange things happen playing especially in bars these all sound so familiar. I'll add a few;

 

We were playing in a kind of a dive bar you've all been there chicken wire over all the windows and around the stage area to keep people from throwing crap. well it was a fourth of july party which means this bar that probably held 200 people had closer to four hundred people in it a real mess. so were playing after coming back from a break and I was playing a black Les Paul when I go to pick it up I saw something on the front go to wipe it off and get a good sized splinter turns out it's a bullet hole No clue if it happened when I was playing it or if somebody just popped it while it was in it's stand on the stage. Made us all a little nervous so we call the owner over he kind of frowns and says yeah it happens they shoot out the beer lights over the bar sometimes too. He looks right at me and says don't worry though it's just a 22 look it didn't even go through it. So I learned to things that night first not to play the fourth in country dives in places like camp verde Az and second a Les Paul will stop a bullet at least a 22. The guitar was fine didn't hit anything major the repair guy drilled a little plug out, plugged it and painted it couldn't even see it after that although the bullet's still in the guitar since he said it would do more harm to dig the bullet out. Strange thing is about fifteen years later they told me the same thing about my chest and left a bullet lodged in my shoulder right below where the collarbone would attach.

 

Second one was just a few years ago and not as dramatic but more embarrassing. We were doing a gig for a friends bar opening so we got the group back together even though we had been on a sanity check break almost two years. Anyway the bar is full of friends and family, we finish our first set and I decide to hold my new custom shop firebird up to wave to the crowd and didn't realize that a 6'4" guy can't or shouldn't hold a long next firebird up into the air while standing on a 3 foot high stage at least not a bar with ceiling fans. Kind of embarrassing after all those years to have a simple wave turn into a dime size ding in the headstock and a joke for all your friends to tell every time you get out a guitar people start pointing out ceiling fans. I still have the guitar still lay's like a dream but when this happened I'd owned it 1 day.

 

Playing at a beach party close to 25 years ago I was playing a Ovation 12 string we finished and I was carrying gear over to my jeep to load up. I lean the guitar again the tailgate on my jeep and start putting stuff away. I decide to make life easier and back up to get the amps and over gear, after all why lug it all through the sand when you have a 4x4 right. I drop it in reverse and remember the ovation at the same instant I hear the crunch and nope, no matter what people say they are not indestructable a BFG 32 inch tire on a jeep turned that 12 string into only a memory even ksdaddy would not have been able to save it.

[1998StandardSG]

I drop it in reverse and remember the ovation at the same instant I hear the crunch and nope

 

I did this too after practice one day. I was driving a '95 nitro yellow green Plymouth Neon (look it up it's pretty ridiculous haha) and I just finished packing all of my gear... or so I thought. I put the car in reverse an notice my car lifts up and then drops down, immediately I realize what I did. So I get out of the car and I see my SG Standard's case laying there with a banged up headstock end of the case. I thought for certain that it was done but after opening the case I saw that the guitar hadn't beed damaged.

 

AND I would never play that bar again! Crazy

[LarryUK]

In the 70's I was in a rock band and we turned up to play a pub. We set up and settled down for a rest before the gig. Then the doors opened. All punks! It was the start of the era and we decided to speed the songs up. But I got a big one spat in my hair then it all went nasty. They were trying to pull our cables out and then the fighting started. The police were called and we were given an escort out with the gear. A lucky escape really. The punk era was horrible.

[Aster1]

 

Also, we have had the awesome experience of bar owners leaving before paying and telling us how it was a slow night and they didn't make any money despite the place being packed all night.

 

 

As someone that has done design/installation business for Bar & Rest. owners I make sure we have payment on delivery PERIOD. Why do you think they don't have open accounts with any of their suppliers & write a check the moment food or booze is delivered?

 

Just say'n

 

Aster

[1998StandardSG]

That's what we started doing actually. We get paid before the gear is taken in, makes it really easy for everybody.

[Enmitygauged]

I was travelling the US and playing in liberty City ??? Houston at a Dance hall. I was playing Acoustic originals. My brother who is a promoter booked me there. Mid way through the first set I see this girl staring at me I stare back and she smiles it was at that point I felt a beer glass hit me square in the face and the words get off the stage F.ggot. Im six two and ex military and about 120kgs so I got up gibson songwriter soaked in beer and blood and spear tackled the dude.. 6 of his friends launched into my back while I went all ground and pound on his head.

 

I was in hospital for a night and got bumped up to first class by my insurance company cos I couldn't fly coach with the bruises oh and my songwriter was stolen.

 

Ever since then I dislocate my finger really easily don't know why it didn't go out on the night.

[Aster1]

My late Daddy always tried to tell me, in my youth, "Son, nothing good EVER comes from being out late or drinking." At 16-20 I didn't think he knew what he was talking about. By the time I hit 24 he somehow became THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE WORLD as I then realized that I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT.

 

Sure miss him!!

 

Aster

[martinh]

Oohh dear lord……. about the last punk rock gig I played was a doozey . The gig was supposed to be in Laurence Kansas, but it turn out to be just outside of city limits in some sort of jurisdictional no-man's land, for reasons that became obvious. The venue was a (barely) converted concrete chicken barn. A place with concrete floors, concrete walls and concrete benches (!) is not the safest environment to have a mosh pit, and the wounded mounted up slowly, like the railyard scene from Gone with the Wind. I'd hazard that 70% of the audience who were not in the pit had come to the gig for the sole purpose of taking acid, or similar mind altering substances, and were wandering around in the corn field next to the barn, where various debauchery was taking place.

 

Just as we (thankfully) finished our set, a sort of traveling hippy circus that someone had invited showed up and proceeded to do very dangerous tricks involving fire and motorcycles in the gravel parking lot. I went back inside to find our lead guitarist standing over the recumbent form of the other band on the bill's lead guitarist. Apparently there had been a discussion of guitar styles that has let to someone being accused of sounding "too metal" and playing "crap" after which our slighted guitarist responded with a knockout punch. I announced that right now was a good time to leave the state of Kansas, pausing only to eject a couple who had decided that the back of our van was a better venue than the cornfield. Got back to the rehearsal room at 7am, lifted all the Marshalls and other heavy crap up the stairs (guitar player said he couldn't help because he'd hurt his hand punching the guy)

Finally got home after 26 hours without sleep, and announced that "I'm getting too old for this sort of thing"

[1998StandardSG]

Finally got home after 26 hours without sleep, and announced that "I'm getting too old for this sort of thing"

 

Sounds like a pretty full day!