Your most rememberable gigs.

[vjboc]

What are your most rememberable gigs?
When I was 17 we were playing a small club. Our sound man was a marine with a temper. 2 Army guys walked in and the next thing I know a fight breaks out. The whole bar was fighting (Except the band we kept playing) all kinds of thing were getting thrown until the cops came and shut down the club down for the night. (reminds me of roadhouse) Even though it happened before that movie came out.

Playing the RocknRoll Hall of Fame in 2001. Our band opened for Good Charlotte. That was part of the MTV concert series. It was a packed house and was alot of fun.

Vinny

[Alan VEX]

I just talked with my wife last night about a gig I remembered because she was going near there last night.

In 1990 I was playing in a local cover band that was about to take off on the road for some A circuit work. One of the last few nights we played locally we played directly - less than 30 paces - across the street from another bar. While we packed the house and brought more people into our gig, that really wasn't the funny part. The funniest part was the band that was playing the other bar was none other than Pantera! We outsold Pantera!

In all honesty though, Pantera had just released "Cowboys from Hell" like that week and was not very well known in our neighborhood just yet. We knew who they were and kept taking our breaks to go watch them. I'm pretty sure their venues got much bigger after that week.

[SuperPuss]

That's a classic about Pantera, Alan!!!

Vinny, your fight description reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Marge becomes a bodybuilder and the fight at Moe's at the end.

I have a few gigs that are memorable to me for various reasons.
The most nerve wracking would have to be playing on the main stage to a full house at the Sydney Opera House. I was playing first trumpet in our concert band and we were playing a combined gig with the Australian Air Force band so there was about 150 of us on stage. Anyway, because I was playing first trumpet, I had to play a number of solos standing up. I don't know what was more nerve wracking, the 150 other muso's critiquing my performance or the audience but, either way, I had no trouble producing vibrato that night!!!!

Another of my most memorable gigs was somewhat more intimate and was the very first SuperPuss live performance in 1999. It was the debut of a show I wrote called 'Becoming Real' which is based on one of my dreams.
I recently re-edited the video footage from that show and uploaded it to my music video hosting site.
The clips are embedded on my website HERE

[John.b]

What are your most rememberable gigs?
When I was 17 we were playing a small club. Our sound man was a marine with a temper. 2 Army guys walked in and the next thing I know a fight breaks out. The whole bar was fighting (Except the band we kept playing) all kinds of thing were getting thrown until the cops came and shut down the club down for the night. (reminds me of roadhouse) Even though it happened before that movie came out.

Playing the RocknRoll Hall of Fame in 2001. Our band opened for Good Charlotte. That was part of the MTV concert series. It was a packed house and was alot of fun.

Vinny

I had a very similar experience, though back in the mid 60s.

Living in W.London our agent got us this gig down in Swanage, on the Dorset coast.

I had to take the day off work without pay and we travelled down there during the night in a ropy old van that kept filling up with oil fumes.

We made it in down there in the early hours and slept in the van for a bit.

The gig turned out to be in a hotel, but in the cellar. No Stage. We set up on the floor and started playing about 8. We were doing rock blues at the time and everything was going well. Then a group of about 60 rockers turned up on their bikes, closely followed by a BBC film crew. The film crew engineered a fight and all hell broke loose.

Alot of our gear got smashed up but we evenetually got out OK after the cops arrived.

We never got paid for the gig and we never used that agent again.

[Sook]

In the vain of Amononline's story, I went into Shipleys Sound and Video, I was looking to buy a projector, anyway I got talking to "the guy out the back" who fixes them, we got onto music seeing a pic on the wall of a stratocastor. I asked him if he played, we spoke a while telling stories as you do.
He was saying when he was in England many years ago (he's now about 60 years old) he was onstage playing a little song on his guitar, in the wings were Eric Clapton and others of noteworthy mention, after the gig he said a little known band asked him if he wanted to play lead guitar for them, he said no but thanked them anyway, turns out that band was Led Zep. To get this in context NZ has 4 million ppl, one million live in the south island, 300 thousand live here and I walk into the shop that has this man. lol . He invited me to his studio but years passed and I never got back in contact with him, silly boy.

[Navare]

My fave

1998 the band I was with won the ""Friday rock show" battle of the bans on BBC Radio 1 the DJ Tommy Vance only just passed away, we did a live session from Mada vale and one pre recorded that was my 15 mins of fame.

The other was a low down dive in Manchester we were top of the bill again with Loermel the same band and on the under card were "The Rain" two brothers who later became Oasis...lol and they were crap.

I miss playing in bands but not the BS that goes with it


N.

[Fullback32]

In all honesty though, Pantera had just released "Cowboys from Hell" like that week and was not very well known in our neighborhood just yet. We knew who they were and kept taking our breaks to go watch them. I'm pretty sure their venues got much bigger after that week.

Cool stuff about Pantera, Alan. We knew those guys casually. They used to play a lot of the same clubs my band played though we never shared the same venue. They were metal...we were hard rock. They got famous and, well, here I am talking about them.

Yeah, a lot of folks don't realize there was a Pantera before Cowboys From Hell and Phil Anselmo. I actually own those four pre-Cowboys From Hell albums as I have this need to own ALL albums by my favorite bands no matter how bad they may be. Dimebag in Hair Metal...oh my god...pitiful....just pitiful. Check out Dime...he's on the far right. Anselmo is second from the left. This is when he first joined the band after the got rid of Terry Glaze as singer.




Most memorable gig? Well there was this groupie.......

[drumslinger50]

I've played in temporary back up bands for lots of country music stars, but none of them impressed me much. In 1988 I was hired to play drums in a Vegas act (I had been playing bass for a while) I had a to learn two different precise shows durning a 22 hour van ride. Each show was an hour and twenty minutes with no dead air and the drums moved the show from song to song. By the time I got to the gig I was already up for like 48 or 50 hours. New drums and guys I didn't know on stage. Very nerve racking. I got through the first night and all the shows star ever said to me was that the tempo was slow on the middle song. I had absolutly no idea what song he was referring to. It was a two week gig and I got hooked into that kind of venue and have always enjoyed the casino crowd. I also like the energy of a big concert stage, but I always feel detached from the audiance in a really big venue.

[vdrummer20]

Back in high school we just started our band. And one of the first "gigs" if you want to call it that was in a temple playing to kids in an after school program (the lead guitarist belonged to the temple and got us the gig). What is notebale is my little brother and his friend were my rodies, and my drums kept sliding around, so we played with him and his friend sitting in front of my bass drums to keep them in place! Cracks me up!

Similar to Alen's thread, we opened for Black 47 in college (they played at our college and we were asked to opn for them by our school). They were/are a local Irish rock band well known in the NYC area (102.7 WNEW played them once in a while before they became crap station! ). Perhaps the biggest audiance I ever played for? 2-5K people? Anyway half way through our bit they cut the stage monitors off ... We always thought it was so that we would not show them up. Then after they started to play we heard people asking for us to go back on stage. I liked that. One of my last gigs ....

[3Cup Candy]

It wasn't as a drummer but I did 2 tours for our troops overseas after 9-11. Every appearance was just as memorable but also so emotional and we were always doing something with them just like a promo from the time we got there until we left, not just when whatever performers or bands or comedians on each tour were doing their actual gigs.

[Herl]

[vjboc]

This isn't about me. I went to see a band play one night. The drummer was wailing away. He was on at least a 2 foot riser. He placed his drum throne back a little to far on the riser and leg slipped back and he feel of the riser. To make it more complete he bashed his head on the gong on the way down. Luckily he didn't get hurt.

Another night there was this guitarist doing an awesome solo toward the end of a show. As he was finishing his solo , He decides to spin his guitar over his shoulder. It went around once then twice and the third time the strap lock broke and his guitar went flying across the stage and landed on the ground. Broke the guitar and left the crowd speechless.

[SuperPuss]

Herl, that is VERY cool. That would've been a blast getting a chopper ride to a gig!!!

[badnomad]

I think I posted this before, in a similar thread, but it's always worth another go......
We were playing a club gig in cottage country, in the middle of winter, at a place we called 'The Cockroach Hilton'. It's -28C outside in the middle of a serious blizzard, with something like 2 feet of snow already on the ground. Our Bass player had recently purchased one of these newfangled 'solid-state' amp stacks by Kustom.......Anyway, midway through the second set, this amp head bursts into flames and is spewing out thick clouds of smoke as well(the sparkle naugahyde wrap on those amps was incredibly flammable).......needless to say the management was not too happy when the entire audience headed out into the snow, and had to stay there until the fire department showed up, and confirmed it was safe to go back in. (we had already put the fire out).

Myke C.

[Herl]

Herl, that is VERY cool. That would've been a blast getting a chopper ride to a gig!!!

It was very cool indeed and I am glad I tried it... but now that I have "lived a little", I am not sure I will do it again... after all, first the band pays for a chopper ride for me and then a new TD-12 ... I better start MAKING money before they throw me out

I think I posted this before, in a similar thread, but it's always worth another go......
We were playing a club gig in cottage country, in the middle of winter, at a place we called 'The Cockroach Hilton'. It's -28C outside in the middle of a serious blizzard, with something like 2 feet of snow already on the ground. Our Bass player had recently purchased one of these newfangled 'solid-state' amp stacks by Kustom.......Anyway, midway through the second set, this amp head bursts into flames and is spewing out thick clouds of smoke as well(the sparkle naugahyde wrap on those amps was incredibly flammable).......needless to say the management was not too happy when the entire audience headed out into the snow, and had to stay there until the fire department showed up, and confirmed it was safe to go back in. (we had already put the fire out).

Myke C.

I would love to have seen that ... very cool! Best stage show ever.