shoot

and for the sake of casting a wide enough net, we'll even expand the definition of "musician" to include dj's.

Where is yours?

Mine is pretty fucking awful.
My first band had played a couple of shows at the now-defunct Avalon at Belmont and Sheffield. We did well enough on weeknights in their smaller room to earn a Saturday night show in the big room.

Pretty psyched, as we were young (I was the oldest at 21) and this was a pretty well-known, established Chicago club.

Time came for the first song and something was wrong. The drummer didn't seem all there, but we got through it. Second song came, and the drummer played the same intro for the first song. And kept playing the first song, even while we tried to play another song.

Trying to be professional, we played on, sounding like a total fucking trainwreck.

The next song was a quiet one, but the drummer still POUNDED out the intro to that first song AGAIN. And kept playing, even after we all stopped, having aborted the song. We explained to a glassy-eyed drummer that we were playing a DIFFERENT song now. He nodded wordlessly and then gave us the same pounding drum intro. Then started to play like Animal.

We took him off the stage (he fought us all the way) and left the singer there alone to play an acoustic number. During that number, the bassist came back in, shot us a look and made a motion across his throat "cut it".

We finished the song and packed up.

We found out later that the drummer had had a nervous breakdown right there on stage.

And, that was the end of that band.

Maybe not my worst gig, but it was memorable for a very awkward moment.

I was playing a block party stage in the middle of the afternoon before the party really go started, and pretty much nobody was listening or in front of the stage.

Midway through one of my songs this dude kind of stumbles up to the stage and starts dancing all crazy. He's clearly wasted, either on booze or meth or both. He applauds wildly. I start playing a new song and he's trying to have a conversation with me while I'm playing and singing.

He asks, "what kind of music do you play?"
I kind of just smile and keep playing because I'm mid song
He repeats, "what kind of music do you play?"
In a musical lull without lyrics i attempt to respond to him, "i play music exactly like this, it sounds like the music I'm playing right now!"
he looked confused and asked me some more questions before someone finally saw what was going on and asked him to leave. He kind of put up a fight, but then dejectedly danced away off into the day.

I swear sometimes your gear KNOWS when the show matters, and decides to pay you back for all that spilled beer and bong water.

it certainly seemed to that night

I don't know if I have any really epic bad gig stories, or if maybe I blanked something out. Two so-so experiences come to mind at least...

1. "Don't Go Back To Rockville"

So in college the band I was in with Bloor and Ze Doktor had this drummer who knew some people up in Rockville SC who were having a "huge house party" and wanted us to play it. I think it was the drummer... him or the keyboard player one. Anyway he talked it up a lot, so we loaded all out shit into 2 cars and drove for 2 or 3 hours up there in some pretty heavy rain. Bloor's camry went off the road at one point into the ditch shoulder of the highway, and in the process of pushing it along through the muddy tall grass I got sprayed pretty good with mud (hot mud - the tires warmed it up, I'll always remember being surprised by that) but we got it out and kept going.

When we found the place, it was an old house on a small road in the midst of nowhere, and the raging party was about 20 people quietly standing inside around a keg of bud light. We set up our gear in the living room, at which point all 20 of them went outside, leaving us alone in the house. Not ones to miss a chance for free beer and some practice time, we ploughed through especially angry versions of 7 or 8 songs, then packed it up and went all the way home. Well, Doktor hooked up with some girl in the bathtub and stayed there with the drummer but Bloor and I cut out in a foul mood at like midnight.



2. "Frat Party Headshot"

Our keyboard player was in UGA's jewish frat, and they invited us to play. They had a stage and everything, even a backstage room if I remember right. They had us a cooler loaded with Newcastle and shit, and I remember thinking it was better than a lot of clubs. They were incredibly nice and professional.

We had a lot of other friends there too, and two of them are these guys who just sorta egg each other on. One of them convinces the other one to crumple a beer can and throw it on stage, which he does, pretty hard. And it hits me square in the forehead. I had no idea who had thrown it, and I can only say that there is nothing quite so humiliating to take you down 10 pegs in milliseconds like being heckled in that manner, like being fucking hit with something right in the face as the whole room is looking at you... beer droplets on my glasses and everything. I snapped, quietly. I stopped playing that second, turned around to face the Marshall, picked up my bottle of Newcastle, chugged the last few inches of it, and turned around to see who I was about to throw the bottle back at. And I was going to, absolutely. I scanned all the faces really fast to see who did it, and there looking amazed and sheepish were these two guys I know well, who are friends of ours. So I put it back down and kept playing, but was REALLY fucking mad. They were really apologetic afterwards, and for a long time afterwards, and it still took me a long time to not to be so damn mad about it, which sucks. Embarassment is a powerful thing.

**Oh and fuck, I think Bloor broke his low E string on the first note of that gig.

I haven't played enough gigs to warrant a truly awful experience, but I have several stories from my experiences working arena shows and helping with local gigs.

The worse being the Nine Inch Nail concert of February 2006.

The catering load-in for the show was like 5:30am, so I had to brave the sub arctic temps outside to be at the building by 5:00am to open it up. As I was turning on all the lights in the lower level convention hall where they place catering for concerts, I noticed a bunch of standing water. I initially think it is coming from the ladies restroom nearby, but when I open the door the floor is bone dry. So the only other place it could be coming from was our boiler room.
When I open that door, incredibly hot water that damn near burns my feet comes pouring out. The water inside the room is near ankle deep. I quickly close it back up, since the seal of the door is containing most of it and call the Director of Operations. He doesn't believe the water is hot nor does he think it can possibly be ankle deep, and wonders why I didn't turn on the light in the room to see where it was coming from.
As he drives down to the building, I shut off the HVAC system using the computer and carry on with my task. Once he gets there he opens the door and nearly scalds his feet as well. Inevitably he discovers that a boiler pump blew over night and states that the building will be without heat most of the day.
The technical load-in for the show was brutal, since we had both overhead doors open and gust of frosty air lowered the building temp to near freezing temps. They got the heat going before the show, but the backstage dressing rooms still remained rather frigid. This did not make Trent Reznor very happy, so he or a member of his entourage left a turd on a deli platter in his dressing room after the show.

Didn't have the quad boxes on different circuits?

I also got great stories about Kenny Rodgers ripping out his road crew during a load in, Ron White's dog crapping a few feet from me on the arena floor and a IATSE Union head threatening the tour manager of A Perfect Circle.

Remember this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXFsa4XY8V8

its been so long i cant really say

back then we probably plugged 19 cords into a power strip and then plugged it into a wall

I don't often DJ house parties because it's a huge pain in the ass to rent equipment and set up and break down and all of that. But early in my DJ years I didn't really know this and was just excited for any opportunity.

A guy I didn't really know cold called me and said he loved what I was doing at my bar gig, and was having a party and he really wanted me to "just do what you do" which was mostly old school rap and 70s funk. His only specific request was that I play "back that ass up" at least once.

The party was in a rich suburb a little bit past where I grew up, and was definitely a very different crowd that I was used to playing to.

Very early on a guy excitedly comes up to me and asks for Pearl Jam, I reply that I don't really have anything like that, and that I don't play rock, he says, "oh" pauses for a bit and asks, "Any STP?" I reiterate that I don't have any rock, and he searches his brain and makes one last request for Creed, I think in his mind compromises and with some exasperation and assumption that i would at least have some Creed.

He dejectedly leaves.

I have a particularly upbeat James Brown song and a girl came up to me and said, "do you have anything we can dance to?" Now I understand that James isn't for everyone bag to obsess over, but it's hard to not dance to James. But I knew what she meant and what kind of music she wanted to hear, but I didn't have it with me because I was assured that if I "did what you do" that people would love it.

All I had with me for a dance party type deal was Michael Jackson and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I must have played just about every song off of both.

I played "Back that Ass Up" and the guy who specifically requested I have that song asked WHILE I WAS PLAYING IT if i remembered to bring "back that ass up" and if i could play it soon.

Mercifully the cops came and shut the party down.

my bar mitzvah.

This is exactly why I stopped DJing. The college parties I used to do were a waste, and (at least at my school) if they didn't recognize the song, they refused to dance to it.

I still remember one little twerp walking up to me and trying to give me advice saying that the "stuff people like is a mix between rap and hip-hop." The crazed look on my face that followed sent him quickly off.

This thread is sorely lacking some Prince Of Darkness

i thought his kickin-a-turd-out-the-pantleg story was pretty good, albeit probably not the worst show



maybe the best?

Probably the best and worst gig. We were hired to play on top of a Boat's Heli pad(we really were not that good, but whatever we did anyway). That's the fun part. It was the Columbus Day regatta so tons of other boats came hovering around. The bad part, in our last set a BoomBoom go-fast boat came right beside us blaring some form of early horrendous reggaeton. The exhaust bafflers let alone their sound system was louder than us. The not so bad part, they had strippers on the boat doing their thing, including liquor bottle play toys if you know what I mean. The bad thing, they ugly. The bummer, I jumped off the pad to swim back to the boat I was sleeping on for the night and lost a decent watch when I hit the water. I was in haze by then and glad I could escape to grab another beer.

hmm... played lots of shitty gigs and im sure i'll continue to do so.

New Years Eve @ Dixie Tavern in New Orleans, 2002 I think.

We'd played there on the previous tour and the show was great. well attended. payed well. we got lots of drinks. we were kind of expecting the same, especially since it was NYE.

When we got there they told us we had to run the door.
We were surprised at that... but nobody ever came anyways.
We played to the bartenders and the other band we were on tour with.
Occasionally, someone would peak in and then leave.

During our set this elderly lady with crazy Einstein hair entered the bar with a younger white thug kid. The old lady was going crazy, headbanging faster than I'd ever seen anyone headbang before, definitely destroying her neck. It looked PAINFUL. This thug kid came up to me DURING a song and tugs at my pants like he has something to say.

I bend over to listen, he's trying to sell me ecstasy.

We're smack In the middle of a (1 minute tops) song. I shake my head NO and he signals to the meth'd out elderly lady and they both leave.

Then, the bartenders start shooting bottle rockets at us ... for the remainder of our set.

We made little to no door money. The bar gave us a steaming hot case of Red Bull Beer as payment. (I guess it's better than nothing?)

We went back to our hotel and I argued with my insane girlfriend (of the time) on the payphone for about an hour.

Next morning, we forgot to close the latch on our trailer and our equipment went all over the highway. I lost my wallet in the process of getting it and didn't realize it until we were a couple hours away.

Holy fuck Cats.

PopTodd's is like a nightmare I've had several times.

FIRST AND LAST GIG


While I was in my last year of high school I was introduced to a group of would be metallers and asked to audition then rehearse for a show near the beginning of the summer. We were all pretty horrible in our own way but each of us tried hard and we practiced what seemed like a whole lot, like three times a week for several hours at a time in the drummers basement, so how could we not become great?

After a few months of this we developed enough courage to have people come over and listen to us and in doing so over the next few weeks began preparing for THE SHOW which was going to take place at some shitty club in the north suburbs of Chicago where all of the other hopeless, untalented local bands went to play for their girlfriends. THE SHOW was to be the culmination of our hard-earned efforts so we flyered the high school and even developed some picture print ads that were displayed in the local newspaper as well as an area band zine.

The night of the gig, we were so surprised to find that a lot of people actually showed up so we were determined to put on the best show we could for our "fans". If things went well enough we imagined that we would start recording demo tapes and then from there it would be an easy step towards getting a record deal and on to superstardom.


We weren't used to setting up our equipment on such a small stage but we made do and fit in the space we were given, pushing the drummer back against the rear stage lights. So. The band played and I sang, all of us dressed in ridiculous outfits that pains me to remember even now. We plodded through our rehearsed set and the few times I looked back at our drummer I saw that he was becoming increasingly redfaced, bent over like he was severely constipated as if it was killing him to continue. Also, he was profusely sweating so halfway through the set he took his shirt off, but as they say, the show must go on. By the time we finished a short half an hour later the drummer cried for help and had to be extracted then carried out from behind his massive drum kit. He was dripping in sweat from head to toe like he just got out of a pool and trembled with exhaustion. But it was his back, which was being heated under the continuous rear stage lights like a Chinese buffet dinner, that was as red as a boiled lobster and was beginning to show signs of blistering.

An ambulance was called much to the bemusement of the establishment and local fans who gathered around him on stage as he writhed around in agony before eventually being taken away to the hospital.

THE END