PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic WAR STORIES (horror tales from your past music performances)

This thread is for the purpose of capturing all those great-yet-horrible stories of your life as a musician playing live music. These stories might include such things as:

- band mates who just didn't work out, and the story explains why...

- gigs where the accommodations did not meet your expectations or standards

- how about that time where you got booked at a place that was NOT the right audience for your music?

- crazy audience members / fans / groupies (try to keep it PG-13)

- nefarious club owners who tried to cheat you out of the agreed upon deal

- the night somebody's gear stopped working and what happened next...

- the guy in the audience who took an irrational dislike for somebody in the band and tried to stir up some drama...

- gigs with famous artists

- missed or seized career opportunities

- booking agent drama!

- band girlfriends and how they (sometimes?) undermine the band

- the time the club caught on fire or the police came or whatever...

- the time somebody spilled a pitcher of beer on your amp/drums

- the time somebody knocked your bass off the guitar stand and snapped the head right off

- and of course, we all want to hear about the time somebody stole your gear

- any other event, real or imagined, that has entertainment value

ready? set? GO!!

I was up in Canada With Easy Street and when we toured up there, we often hit a bunch of little cities in Ontario that hadn't been discovered yet. In one particular city, the name of which I don't remember, the stage was set up where the bar was about 40 feet and and 90 degrees to our left. (That becomes important later.) We set up, did sound check, all done by about 3 in the afternoon Monday.

Monday night we go down to play. I powered up my rig, which was 3 keyboards and a rack in those days. One of those was an Ensoniq Mirage (it WAS 1988 after all). Also a Korg Poly 6 and a Roland Juno 60. The Mirage required that an OS be loaded from a floppy, then samples loaded. And it was one at a time, so you had piano OR strings, but not both. I loaded up the piano to start the night with On The Dark Side. We played the song through. On to the next song, at which time ALL of my keyboards reset, meaning that I had to pop the OS disc back in and reboot the Mirage. I did that. Halfway through the second song it happened again. So I repeated the process. In the first 4 songs, I rebooted those keyboards 9 times.

I was frantic, trying to figure out why I was having problems and nobody else was. At break I got out sound guy involved. We traced and tracked and did whatever we could until I realized that I had taken my power from an outlet that was on the same circuit as the ice maker. Whenever that ice maker kicked in, the compressor drew so much power that my line level voltage was dropping to under 90, and my keyboards saw that as a power cycle. Who would have thought that an outlet over 40 feet away from the ice machine was going to be on the same circuit? So we ran some power from a different circuit and it was fine.

I thought I had heard all of the archetypal band stories, Eddie... but that one is new to me! I'm impressed that you figured it out!

A fairly recent story from summer 2016:
I was playing a private party in somebody's back yard after a couple days of heavy rain. The place where they wanted me to set up was all mud, a couple of inches deep. My rock and roller cart that I use to move gear from my car to the stage was useless. The ground was not level, so my speaker stands were precariously balanced and kept trying to tip over.

The post-rain sun was really bright, and I'm using a laptop to deliver my sound to the PA... but no matter how I positioned myself to the computers screen, I couldn't see ANYTHING. They had a cabana set up, but they wouldn't let me set up under it because it was for the guests. Nobody used the cabana the whole time I played.

The hardest part of doing a one man show is wearing all the hats at the same time. It takes practice, but eventually you can learn to play, sing, troubleshoot technical problems, adjust sound levels with quick hand moves between the instrument and the PA etc etc. Why people think its a good idea to strike up a conversation with me in the middle of a song is completely baffling, yet it seems to happen more often than not.

Pat, you are just such a friendly guy (I'm being serious here) that you invite conversation!

Now, I'm not going to get into this thread because I can probably cite something horrible in most of your suggested scenarios. I would rather make some new music than write a story about all the stories. But by all means, do have fun! That's how I take all that horrible stuff, as a chance to laugh about it years later.

Pat, you may be the only person who will be aware of all these artists names....


- The time we were playing for a Jimmy Carter fundraiser on the same bill as a bunch of Hee-Haw artists from the tv show. We finished our part and as we were getting ready to leave the stage Roni Stoneman walked out and said help me out boys. Without another word she kicked off the fastest banjo instrumental I'd ever heard and I thought we'd heard them all. No mention of key or anything...just wham! We all just stared at one another and caught up about half way through the song. She just laughed.

- We mostly played festivals or acoustic/roots clubs that pretty much catered to bluegrass but we were offered a gig for decent money in a small town in south GA and said what the hell. We drove up and it was a gravel parking lot in front of a cement block building. And, no BS, the stage was behind chicken wire. Fortunately they liked us and didn't bounce bottles off the fence.

- I played in bands long before Janice decided to join the party. Our best friend Randy Howard was a noted (grammy nominated) multi-intrumentalist (see our website) who I had played with since he was a kid. He kept encouraging Janice to sing and after she'd learned a few numbers he talked us into playing as a trio with him on a gig he was already booked at. We met him there and had no idea that the venue was a large outdoor festival. We got out of the car and Janice heard the announcer's voice booming across the field and she turned white as a ghost. This was her first time on stage When we were called up and stepped out into the lights and stared at the crowd her eyes were as big as saucers. But she did just fine and says now that she hardly remembers anything after that moment.

- Gigs with famous artists? Well, we shared the bill at different dates with Alison Krauss, Del McCoury, Vassar Clements, Blue highway, the Seldom Scene, etc., and parking lot pickings with many more. I always had what the hell am I doing here vibes when picking with the luminaries.

Bud

Wow... I could write a story on practically every one of those points....

Since I've already covered the story of my guitar getting stolen 2x and recovered both times.... I'll tell you about the time the police walked up to the stage and stopped the band.

It was at a little honky tonk out on the middle of the NC countryside. Just a few weeks before, at this same club, a biker rode his Harley into the club, pulled out a gun and started shooting at the band. Apparently, the singer had hooked up with the dude's old lady.... but that wasn't our band.... just told that to let you know this was a rough place.

So yeah.... we're playing.... about halfway through the set, and these 2 cops walk up to the stage and flag the band down.... telling us to stop playing.

They asked who the leader/manager was, I said that would be me...and they said... You're under arrest, come with us. I asked them what the charges were and they replied... broken seal violation. I said What? They said open liquor bottle in the band's van setting on the motor cover in plain sight.

I said... it isn't mine and I didn't ride up here in that van, I drove my own vehicle.

They said...OK... who owns the truck? The bass player said I won the truck. They said YOU'RE under arrest. So the bass player says, I won the truck but I didn't drive up here in it either.

The cops are getting frustrated and cut right to the point. OK wise guys, who's bottle of Jack Daniels is setting on the motor cover....somebody's going to jail tonight.

The sound tech speaks up.... Sir, that would be MY bottle of Jack. So they escort Dave out the door in handcuffs, get the van opened and confiscate the bottle as well. The lighting tech says to the cop, hope you enjoy that Jack.... the cop gives the light tech a dirty look.... they load Dave and the bottle and head to the jail.

We go back inside and finish the gig. After the gig, I have to ride to the county seat and get Dave out of jail.

Turns out that Dave took one for the band.... the bottle really belonged to the drummer. Dave told me this later on the ride home.... he took the rap so that we could finish the gig and get paid.

That club went out of business soon after due to the police presence because of the trouble that was going on out there.

Broken geetar....

Another place we played had started an open mic thing on Sunday afternoons. So we had played there the weekend and they asked if we'd be interested in hosting the open mic.

We agreed. Not much money but the club was a good place to play.

So a buddy of ours comes in with his Gibson Hummingbird and plays a few songs then sets it on the stand. We go on a break.... next thing we know... there's a crash and this guy is laying in a tangle of cymbal stands and ..... yep... the hummingbird is in pieces. He was drunk as a skunk... could barely stand up and had gotten on stage thinking he was going to sing a song.... grabbed for the mic stand, missed, lost his balance and fell backwards into the Hummingbird and drum kit.

The Hummingbird was damaged beyond repair.

The drunk starts apologizing to everyone and ...I got to give it to my friend.... he held his temper well. The drunk promised to pay him for the guitar to which my friend says that was a $900 guitar.

A few weeks later, we were back there for a Wed night college nite... my friend comes up to me and recounts the story.... he tells me the guy met him at the club one night and peeled off 9 crisp new 100 dollar bills and asked was he sure that was enough to cover the guitar, and again apologized.

Cool ending.

Mine is mild compared to others. my wife sings and a friend plays guitar and sings, I did the sound and on this occasion had to guard the tip jar as the only money was the seed money I put in but several folks were eying those few bucks hungerly . Or invited to play at a festival only to find our spot was facing an empty parking lot closed to the crowd and lastly, our friend ,who plays great,really fine guitarist, tends to go off on improv riffs that were not part of practice without notice. It was fun but doomed from the getgo.
Wyndham

This is one that I posted on another thread:

I was pulled out of music playing retirement by a dear friend. She wanted to put a band together for her church's social. Myself and another friend agreed. We practiced twice a week for about a month and got down enough songs for the gig. At the gig another church member saw that we didn't have a bass player and volunteered for the job. My friend said that would be great. It wasn't! All he knew was a Johnny Cash tonic fifth bass line in the key of A. We didn't do any songs in the key of A. We had three part harmony in Hotel California in the key of E with him playing tonic fifth in A. Talk about awful. I will never play out again............for anybody!

One prior to that was when we had a very important Christmas gig. Several people mentioned that their daughters were getting married next year and they were looking for a wedding band. Wouldn't you know it, the drummer never showed! it's always either the drummer or bass played ain't it!

Fortunately a friend was there who said he has a daughter that plays drums and they lived close by. She played that gig that night and she was fantastic, even though she was only 15! She play drums for us for 5 years with her father always coming to the gig. That way it was legal.

As I looked at your suggested scenarios, I also could tell a few tall tales to each of those. Here's a couple. We had booked a weekend gig in Sarasota. We get to the club early to set up and do a sound check. Just as we were about to start the lead singer looks over and says Hey Tom check this out. Through the front door we see a van and matching trailer pull up and out gets five guys in matching western shirts and cowboy hats. The singer goes By God it's the Good Ol Boys. Exactly like the movie The Blues Brothers. They walk up to the bandstand and demand we tear down because they were booked there that night and had driven a long way. We also had driven a long way and the club owner informed them they had the wrong weekend. When they turned to leave I yelled out OK Boys Rawhide in A. We actually played a pretty respectable version for the sound check and it became a story that we laughed about for years.

Back in the Nineties we had won the Reginal Finals for the Colgate Country Showdown. We had to travel to the Florida Panhandle for the state final. We played the contest in the afternoon at this huge festival. 50,000 people was the crowd estimate. We ended up coming in second behind a really cute blond girl who sang to a karaoke backing track. That's the Music biz. Anyway we're packing up when I overheard the promoters saying that they were in big trouble. The headliners that night were The Mark Wills Band followed by Lonestar. Turns out the opening band Clifton Chenier, a zydeco band from Louisiana were stuck on the road with a broken down bus. I butt into their conversation and tell them we can fill the slot. They asked if we could fill an hour and I said we play 4 sets a night 4 nights a week. No Problem. The singer had the flu and had to be talked into it. It went great and it paid for the trip. So instead of being bummed about the loss we were pumped about the gig. Backstage later I got into it with John Rich after I told him to quit whining about the caterer, but that's one better left untold. I played in bands for fifty years so I've got more than a few.

I had that happen once in a country band. It was the Friday night, the first of a 2 night stay in a place we had never been before. We started an hour late and played straight through because I had to sit down and quickly program a dozen or so drum patterns on a drum machine so we could play at all. Nightmare. 2 waltz tempos, a couple of shuffles, swings, straight 4/4 beats..... dialing in the tempo for songs where I never even thought about how many BPM the song was... I was picking up headphones between songs, starting a pattern and singing in my head to dial in the right BPM. The owner came over later and said that he was very impressed that we were able to pull that off. I went out the next day and bought a memory cartridge so I could back those patterns up just in case. We found another drummer during the day Saturday for that night but I backed that Roland 707 up and might even STILL have those patterns, and this was like 1985!! I still have that 707, too!! Man I have old gear. I still have the Ensoniq ESQ-1 that I bought in 1989.... AND play it every year at the reunion shows!

Isn't serendipity great!!! This i snot a horror story. 180 opposite.

The Motown band I was in traveled from Cleveland to West Palm Beach to play at a rib cookoff in April of 1993. For SOME reason that defies ALL logic, they booked a rib burnoff on Easter weekend, Thursday through Saturday, with a rib vendors only party Wednesday night before the festival opened. West Palm Beach is populated by old people who have retired, many of them Jewish, many of them Catholic. Jews don't eat pork at all, Catholics were at the tail end of Lent, and in those years the practice was to not eat meat all all during Lent. That aside, the common thread of serendipity starts here. Right next to the Holiday Inn where we were staying was a shopping center with a bar. Now for some reason, all these years later, I remember that we were playing at John Prince Park, and that bar was called Racers. The singer and I went into that bar Wednesday night and saw that there was a guy named Paul Ferguson doing a MIDI based solo kind of gig. He played keys, guitar, bass and sang, and the software did the rest, much like the BIAB crowd does now. We struck up a conversation with him and joined him for a few songs. Just for the heck of it, we pulled out Gladys Knight's "Neither One Of Us". He put his bass on, I played keys, and our singer sang. Paul tapped in a drum pattern in just a few seconds, and the three of us KILLED the song. After a few more, our singer and leader was talking to the bar owner. We invited him to come to the party Wednesday, and he did. After hearing a set, he pulled the two of us aside, and in that 10 minute conversation he fired his band for that weekend, agreed to rent us a PA system, and hired us in for Friday and Saturday. So we played the burnoff, moved our gear to his bar, moved back to the burnoff, and then back to his bar. A very good country band from up here went with us, and both nights they came up and down to join us as we winged songs for 2 solid nights. A ribber came up and played harp, and was great. A ribbers wife came up and sang and we wouldn't let her off stage! SO our 5 piece band got our burnoff money and $450 each night for those 2 nights in the bar. AND with all the people coming up and down, only playing 75% of our show! It was the first time any of us ever played Achey Breaky Heart! :GRIN:

AND it was a week of vacation in Florida for us.

However, the horror stories far outnumber weeks like that!!

great stories, guys! Don't stop now, I want to hear them all!

One thing that's different about this thread and the one from my home town is that when everybody has played at the same places, sometimes all you have to say is the name of the club and and everybody already knows the story

I remember the weekend we drove up to Pean'n'Peak ski lodge in Clymer, New York, battling snow squalls all the way. We pulled in about 2pm on Friday afternoon and went it to get our rooms. We put our luggage into the rooms and went to start loading in, only to find another band already setting up. Unlike the Good Old Boys story above, this was a case of us BOTH having signed contracts to play that weekend! We tracked down the manager and went to his office where both bands had valid contracts. I said "Well, we could split the weekend and each play one night since they are already set up. Or, you could just write us a check for the amount of the contract you signed and we will leave and free up these 5 rooms, since it is nor Friday after 3pm and too late to book other work, so our weekend income can't be replaced." He didn't like it much, but he paid us.

However, on the way out, I handed my big Motorola brick cell phone (it was 1991!) to our band leader who was riding with me and said "Okay. Now you call Angie at Rack And Roll in Erie and see if she will fire her local band and put us in there." Which she did. So we got paid for the snafu at the ski lodge AND played elsewhere.

there needs to be a book about stories like this

Write it! In video form!

Back in the late 70's and early 80's pyrotechnics were all the rage. Flashpots.

We used them and in one club in Wrightsville Beach NC, an old movie theater, we set them off at the very beginning of the show. The song was "Ain't living long" as a full tilt rock and roll song. I was on the drum riser when the song started and the lights came on.... rocking with the drummer. He's laughing and rocking with me... pointing with his stick at the audience... I pay it no mind and rock on through verse one of the song.

As we hit the chorus, I jump off the riser to join vocally with harmony, spinning in the air and hit the stage, take a few steps up to my mic.... which was on fire. Yep... burning like a torch. Seems the flash pot was too close and set the windscreen on fire. I blew it out and sang.....


Later on down the road.... in another club, we had planned to end the night with a flash pot but played a request and changed the song... so the pot never got used. Saturday night was a slow starter so we didn't use it on set one. By the second set, the crowd had picked up so we plugged it in and started that set with ...Ain't living long.... It didn't go exactly like expected.... we expected a ball of fire and residual smoke.... what we got instead was the equivalent of a fragmentation grenade tossed at the front of the stage.

The loudest BOOM I have ever heard. And it felt like someone body-slammed me. Then everything looked and sounded really weird.....then I realized the drums weren't playing....so we stopped and looked around... The drummer had fallen or been blown off his stool into the wall and dragged our curtain backdrop down on top of himself.... The stage looked strange because all the PARs were white... the concussion knocked all of the gels out of the cans. Our sound was funny because all of the open back speaker cabinets took the full force and the speakers were all ripped from their baskets. The ceiling paneling was hanging down where the blast knocked it loose.

All in all we lost over 14 speakers to that blast.... one 15" JBL in the bass bins, all the guitar and bass amp speakers in open back cabs, and all of the floor monitors. The blast was picked up by the mics and it ran through the system. We had a limiter on the mains and only lost one speaker in the mains, but the entire monitor system was toast. We also lost one power amp from the back pulse from the speakers being slammed by the pressure wave. The footlocker the flashpot was setting on (down on the floor) was destroyed and the block of wood that the flash pot was screwed to was never found.

As the pot exploded, it was made from 2" steel pump pipe.... it fragmented and pieces went in every direction. Fortunately, no one was hit by any of those fragments except our drummer. A piece entered the kick drum tearing the front head, hit the top of the drum, dinging it like a bullet does to a window, and bounced back down through the beater head and hit him in the leg just below the knee. Cut clear to the bone. So we had to take him to the hospital to get stitches. Needless to say, the show was over and we were almost out of business. We needed a couple thousand dollars for repairs to our gear. The club owner laughed, said don't worry boys, paid us the door take to that point, and asked us to not use pots in his building again.

We were so "gun shy" from that point on that we decided to get rid of the pots from our shows. We had had several other disasters with pyro but nothing like that wakeup call on that Saturday night.

Note: Our band was responsible for getting the use of fire, flames, and explosives banned from the military base in Jacksonville NC. We had a drunk Marine trying to set an unused pot off by throwing matches into it after the show one night. Our drummer told him to stop... several times. He replied that he knew what he was doing since he worked with demolitions every day. Our drummer told him that if that was the case, he should know that he had to "put the fire into the powder to ignite it". Yep... you guessed it. That's exactly what he did..... to photographic flash powder. It sounded like a gun when off and the Marine starts hooping and hollering and jumping around on the floor. I thought he was happy util I heard him yelling ... "I CAN'T SEE, I CAN'T SEE"!!! He was white from his arms to his face from the powder residue and not a hair left on his arms, face, or head. Fortunately, the guy was OK.... they took him to the base hospital and treated him for mild burns and rinsed him off. The flash was what had blinded him temporarily. I got a call the very next morning from the base booking agent..... " Herb... are you trying to kill my Marines?"... NO more flashpots.

The other band partially responsible for the ban was a band doing a Kiss tribute set.... someone in the band did the fire eating thing..... and some of the flammable liquid didn't come out of his mouth properly and he set himself on fire in the club....

Anyway... we had fun....I guess that's what matters and no one put an eye out....

So.... way back... I was hired to play guitar in a band.... I was still new and hadn't really figured out the internal politics yet.... but was having a good time playing with the guys. I think I had been with the band maybe a month's worth of gigs. I had gone to jam with them by their invite, they hired me that same weekend and this was 3 or 4 weeks later.

So we have a booking at a club in Morehead City NC.... The band was sounding good, the place was packed.... close to standing room only, and we had played maybe 2 sets and were on our break.

The guys were at a table with their girlfriends and I kinda felt like the unneeded 5th wheel, and since the smoke was so thick you could cut it with a knife, I decided to go outside for some fresh ocean air. So I did. About 10 minutes later, I'm setting on the front steps when I see 3 ladies coming across the parking lot. I recognized them as the WIVES of my band mates. The drummers wife asks me if their husbands are inside. Uhhh yeah. Then asks, are they with someone? Uhhhhhh... (how do you answer that question?)... she says, "It's alright...we know... that's why we're here" and they went inside. I didn't follow because I didn't want to be in the middle of what I kinda figured was coming and I didn't want to be an eyewitness to a murder.

Here's what happened.... as recounted to me later by the guys in the band. The Wives stayed back in the shadows watching. When the girlfriends went to the bathroom, so did the wives. The drummer's wife says to the drummer's girl friend... Man that drummer sure is one hot,handsome guy, I think I'll pick him up and take him home with me tonight...to which the girl friend replies, sorry, he's my boyfriend and he's going home with me. To which the wife replies.... he's my husband you [*****], and hauls off and punches the girl friend in the face.... it escalated quickly from that point and spilled out of the bathroom into the club. The bouncers were on it quickly. The owner finds out what was happening, and calls the band members over to talk. He tells the band members that he's throwing someone out..... either the girlfriends or the wives....and the band members had to choose. (The wisdom of Salomon) They chose to have their wives thrown out... yep... I kid you not. Had their wives thrown out the club.... wow!

So we finished the night without any further incident. The girlfriends stayed and left with the guys, and I drove home to my house. When the bass player got home, his clothes were scattered on the front lawn and the door was locked and chained. The drummer found his house ransacked, the TV smashed, the bed sliced up and his wife gone. Same thing for the singer.... The drummer's wife was not heard from for over 2 months.

Eventually, everyone made up, and the incident was forgotten as life went on...and on.... and on.... this kind of thing tended to occur about every 6 months with those guys in various forms.

One more before I go to do what must be done......

The same band with the girlfriends vs wives.....

We had another gig booked just a few weekends later.... way out on Harker's Island. Think Outer Banks NC area.

So we get out there and set up.... show starts at 9pm. The singer/rhythm guitarist, isn't there at 8:55pm.... this was before cell phones. So the guys were scrambling... trying to call his house... no one answers. 9pm comes.... 9:15 comes and the manager is getting on our case... TIME TO START PLAYING BOYS!!!

Here was the problem. The singer sang 100% of the songs. No one else sang the leads... just a few harmonies here and there. I was still new and hadn't played the songs enough to know them well, and had mostly been hired to play leads and fills so I never, to that point, had played the rhythm parts.

Glen, the bass player said we can't NOT play this gig, we need the money.... Danny, the drummer knows the words since he sings along all the time, he can sing the leads. Herb, you follow me, I'll tell you about things before they happen.... chords, breaks, modulations... follow me....

So we played the night.... it was a long night since we were all out of our element....and we had to take up a lot of time.... it was actually good for us. It was where we started to develop our stage show.... In the song Kawliga, for example.... the song is a 2:30 song.... but Danny picked up his floor tom, jumped onto the dance floor and I grabbed a drum stick and we played that drum and banged on my guitar with the stick for 5 minutes... the audience loved it. We did similar off the wall impulse things that later became part of our unique stage show.... Danny could barely talk at the end of the night but that was the true beginning of our band.

As for Dail the singer..... earlier that week, he had gone around town to various musicians and asked to borrow guitar amps, bass amps, instruments, he went to another and borrowed a PA system and loaded them up in his car and took off to Ohio to join his brothers in a band they were putting together. He never came back to NC and no one ever got their gear back.

ahhh, yeah... that reminds me of the guy who borrowed my amp after I got married and wasn't playing anymore. Because I was involved in a whole new life, I forgot about it and never followed up. I later learned from a mutual friend that he sold my amp and kept the money.