Originally Posted By: Kemmrich
I might do the three songs twice.


Reminded me of a band I was in once upon a time. We were new.... like seriously new. But, we heard about a battle of the bands and decided "what the heck".... lets get in. The winner got to open the show for Whispering Bill Anderson when he was actually still getting airplay.

So we went to the BOTBS and played 3 songs. A brand new one called Lukenbach Texas... it was still climbing the charts at that time... and 2 other country tunes.

Imagine our surprise when they announced the winners.... US!!! So we were told to come back the next day and we would be playing 5 songs to open for Bill. That was perfect because we only knew 5 songs....like I said we were a brand new band. One of those tunes was an original I had written with the other guitar player just a few nights previous.

So... we showed up and they put us on to open the show.... the place was freaking ..... empty. There might have been a hundred people in a place that could easily hold 2000. Bill's bus was parked behind the stage where he could see the arena seating area. We played all 5 songs and thanked the folks and left the stage..... Bill's manager tells us, Bill wasn't ready yet and we should play some more songs... Bill wanted to let more people get there. We were looking at the gates... no lines there of people coming to the show.....and we had already played everything we knew.... we told him so... he told us, go play and repeat the songs if you have to. So we did.... I think we played everything 2 times and stretched the heck out of the solo's and jammed a bit, added repeated verses and choruses..... finally, in desperation, we told the guy, we didn't know any thing else and were not going to repeat the songs again.

Bill came out seriously late.... I think he was drinking a bit and that's the real reason he was late. He had a killer back up band that could sing harmony like the angels in heaven. I'll never forget their version of The door is always open and that band bailed us out.... they played a good 45 minute set before Bill came on.

A club manager was at that show and booked us for a weekend gig the following weekend. We busted butt to learn enough music to do the 3 hrs of music at the club.....yeah, we somehow managed to pull it off.


Oh yeah.... one more thing.... neither the battle of the bands nor the show opener paid any money at all.... good exposure they said.

Anyway, good memories.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 01/20/16 03:32 PM.
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