cats wins.

I don't play shit, but some friends of mine swear Greenville, Mississippi is the single most entertaining place to play from the sheer Holy Fuck factor, including....

- A gal rubbing one bandmember's shaved head and asking, "Ooh, is everything shaved?", even though you can see his hairy ass chest (he was Paul Stanley for Halloween one year). Oh, and she weighed a soft 350.

- Band plays a mostly apathetic house, empty floor, dudes playing pool, conversations at the bar...then a dude is just rocking the fuck out 20 feet or so in front of the stage. Getting into it, fist pumping, jumping, flailing, and then rips his prosthetic arm off and throws it on stage.

- A middle-aged man and woman who show up at the bar with a wheelchair, like they just found it on the way in or some shit. The band sees them again as they are loading out; the woman is pushing the passed out man home.

- Club manager/owner/boss-type guy making sure, on several occasions, that he can "get you anything you want. Meth, pussy, liquor, you name it." Even noting that "you just point at one of them girls, and she's all yours for the night, my man" while gesturing at some of Mississippi's most permanently eligible bachelorettes (all wasted of course).

Our buddy Chitwood used to tend bar at some place around atlanta, for the life of me I no longer have any idea where it was, and he got us to play there a few times. For some reason I had some sorta older-woman thing goin' on in that place, because both times we played there I got hit on by ladies who were much older than me.


The first time, there was sorta this kinda frightening lady, big-n-wild, and she kept flirting with me, probably just because it was funny to see me get embarassed. Then after the show we're loading our gear out and Chitwood starts into me about her from behind the bar as he's serving drinks and cleaning up. "Dude, you know that girl digs you, right?" I guess so, Chitwood. "You know she's WILD, right?" Uh, I guess, not really. "...Dude, you tell her to lick your asshole CLEAN, she'll DO it. She'll suck the britches right off you." Ah, you know, that's cool but uh, you know .. etc. So twenty minutes later as we're outside getting the cars all set he comes out there with her under his arm and yells "GUESS WHO I FOUND!!" and walks her over to me, turning me bright red once again. She offers to drive me home, etc, I politely pass, etc. He was just looking out for me.

Second time, my wife was there (girlfriend at the time) and as I was sitting with her at a booth between sets, a lady leaned over and asked if I was single, giggling. She was pretty cute, too. There was something about that place. I think now looking back on it it must've been all Chitwood putting them up to it.

i think the one that really sticks out is playing down at college and drinking pitchers after pitchers of killians 6 hours before the show and probably playing the sloppiest and loudest show of our lives. we thought we were great but then friends came up afterwards with this real concerned look and were saying "oh no... no no no..."

this is amazing

I did this once with cough syrup. I had a fever and felt like shit but I wasn't gonna miss the gig so I just kept the bottle of Nyquil on my amp and took a swig every 20 minutes or so.

another time was in high school when we, for whatever reason, played this sports hotel bar in the burbs. we played two songs, i took my shirt off. the manager of the bar came by to ask us to keep it down and for me to put my shirt back on. we played another song, the manager came by and made us stop entirely. so the next band goes on and we were just sitting watching and the manager came by and asked us to leave because we were so young. i ripped into him with a tidal wave of obscenities that i can honestly say that i have never duplicated towards anyone else since then. the guy just stood there with this look of "look, are you done kid? scram." when i finally finished up we angrily walked out and two of the guys proceed to hoist themselves on the roof of the place and started destroying all of the christmas decor and ripping down the lights.

we were so bad ass, guys.

we played a show at a vfw in town (also high school) for halloween. it was us and the two other bands in town that we had these little shows with. it was amazing how many we were able to have until we were basically blackballed due to major underage drinking going on. so, we had this show and then afterwards i took my then girlfriend to the back of my parents astrovan to get it on. the cops come and open the door (we were done by then) and i'm sitting there in a diaper and bonnet with a baby bottle of beer and once they realized what they were looking at they shook their heads, laughed, and went on to bust someone else

i guess thats not really a 'worst gig' story but FUCK IT

i had something similar.

we're playing at some joint in columbus. this conversation takes place as there is a drum/bass intro going on, about 30 seconds before i come in with something hott

drunk guy (DG) - where you guys from?
me - chicago
DG - oh, is that where they dye the river green?
me - uh, yeah among other known things
DG - can i buy a CD?
me - can you wait until after this song? i have to play
DG - nah i gotta go now
me - sorry man. i have to play
DG - ok man, see ya

we played a show in pittsburgh where we were asked to do the sound for the band after us because the soundguy had to go smoke meth

business skillz.

I think this is the most entertaining / interesting thread that I have read on obner for some time.

good thread.

Pretty sure that portion of the story is extremely common among Obnerds.

That last part about the E string is true: It broke on the first chord of the first song of the first set.

I can think of two off the top of my head though Squirg that top those:

In high school when as reward for placing second in the local bands we were promised a full hour's set at the end of summer festival but then yanked off after about fifteen minutes because some faux hair band that nobody had even liked was allowed to go over their time by a good 30-40 minutes. Then when they realized that they couldnt control the horrific ear splitting noise that I was producing in protest because it was coming out of my amp and not their house system they threatened to arrest me for disturbing the peace.

Another time we were playing in a bar and some drunken, roided up monsters through an ashtray at our percussionist and a melee broke out.

I can also think of at least two gigs where two different singers were so drunk that they could barely play.

Ooooh fuck the roido's who threw the ashtrays were fucking amazing. I see something whizz by my face and I hear a crash back by the drumset, and the next thing I know Terry is looking like he's gonna tear someone's face off. And they didn't even get kicked out.


Rory being so drunk / having such back pain / whatever at the Georgia Theater that he was laying on the floor of the dressing room mumbling, like seconds before we went on... didn't we tie one on at the Georgia Bar across the street first, for like ... way to long?

And was that ampitheater gig the same one where the golf cart cop came and yelled at us for your driving?

there's way too many good and bad memories to sort through.

worst gigs....

had a band leader stub a cigarette out on my forehead at a street fest with a few thousand people present. He was high on H. It was my fourth gig with the band. I finished the set, and thought i had quit the band, and i never did get an apology, but somehow i played with them for years after.

nearly crashed the van with that same band in wyoming in the mountains when a different band member woke up and started beating me up in the middle of the night because i switched radio stations.

nearly got left behind in mexico by the same band in the guadalajara airport. No one seemed to give two shits.

i guess that's only one gig story.

i've had amps catch on fire, those are almost always bummer gigs. I've had all kinds of crazy crowd members, or sharing bills with crazy musicians or dealing with crazy venue employees... they're either sane or crazy and after a while it all blurs together. I've been sick during gigs, i've had band members with addictions, or crazy ho on the road stories, or super stalkers (of other band members, not me thank god).

That cigarette thing still pisses me off.