A couple of years ago, I asked if anyone would like to share their most unusual, funny, or interesting performing experiences. There was a huge response that included some hilarious and highly entertaining events
(including the C&Fer who was hired to play at a Medieval Nudist event - my favourite!)
We have a lot of new people here now so new stories to share, and new people to share the old stories with. We need a few chuckles, so what say you…one of mine is:
Some years ago our band was hired to play a concert in a town about 2 hours from home. When we arrived, there were six people at the venue (a local church) setting up chairs and preparing. One of them had brought several huge platters of “dainties” for the intermission. When the time came for the concert to begin - nobody had shown up! The six organizers entered into a heated discussion to determine what was wrong. It turned out that everyone thought somebody else had done the advertising and nobody had actually done it at all! So we performed our full concert for the six of them, got paid ( they had some sort of grant to pay the artists) and we got to take the platters of goodies with us to eat in the car going home…strange but true.
Now your turn…
I’ve never ‘performed’ for anybody other than my family members, and every time I do play a song, I mess up 5,000 times, whereas when I’m by myself, I don’t mess up at all. Hoorah!
For the last couple of years I’ve played whistle in a local Christmas Revelry, decked out in 15th century garb. Believe me , walking and playing is hard enough without having to kick the skirts of a sideless surcoat( dubbed by the priest’s of the time as “the Gates of Hell” ) out in front of me so I don’t trip over it.
Oh yeah, I forgot , I’m also going to be playing whistle with the pipe band I play with, starting McPherson’s Lament with a whistle solo.
Many, many years back, when God and I were still on speaking terms, I was the worship leader for the local ‘happy-clappy’ church. This particular congregation obviously thought God was in a bit of a hurry, as the ‘quality’ of the worship was judged by how fast you ended up singing the various songs (kind of like the average session). Anyway, I was up there leading on my guitar once, and we were getting a good groove going, when I noticed that I was getting some strange looks. When we stopped everyone seemed very concerned. Turned out I had caught my thumb on the guitar, pulled off a bit of dry skin, and had spent the last song spraying blood over me and my guitar. I hadn’t even noticed, so I was happily revving up the tempo whilst distributing the blood further around. Its amazing how much can come out of a tiny cut, and it certainly looked impressive. My guitar (a beloved Lys) still has bloodstains inside the body.
Playing in an active band, I sometimes wonder at the myriad of sociological phenomena I observe in the different types of venues we play…
Just one outstanding moment comes to mind: Weddings are never our favorite musical activity, but they help to pay the bills…We pulled into the area for a wedding in the Main Line Philadelphia area, awhile back, and I suppose we should have known from the cars that surrounded us that this was not going to be normal. We mingled among Rolls Royce, Stutz, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and the like…The cars were, of course, parked in front of the servants’ quarters, and livery…
We played our background music for the crowd - and it was a crowd - and then packed up and got ready to leave. It had, despite the heat, been a truly pleasant afternoon. It was obvious that we were appreciated…
We had as yet, not been paid our standard fee. We were told to find this guy, who would pay us. It took awhile. He was enjoying himself, with a rather stout drink in his fist… When he was found, he asked us our fee. We told him. He paid us from a roll of bills…And then, he simply kept paying us…$100 bill after $100 bill kept coming our way. We told him he was too kind, but he simply kept the faucet on…He simply would not stop…
Truly an unbelievable spectacle. I will never forget the shock at seeing that much money in one man’s hands - and having so much of it come our way…
That wedding was truly worth the time and trouble to drive to Philadelphia…
Way back in '93 or so we had a gig at an outdoor festival of some kind in a small nearby down. The temperature soared into the upper 90’s with almost no breeze. We played in a beer tent that made the temp even worse.
During our fourth or fifth song I noticed the bass stopped playing. While the rest of us kept playing, I glanced over toward the bass player. There the strings of her stand up bass flopped wontonly about. The heat had distorted the instrument and allowed the bridge to pop off.
Another time when I was in high school, I was playing drums in a local bar for a band when one of my cymbols started sliding downward. I hadn’t tightened up the stand well enough. As I tried to follow it down without losing the beat, my cousin ran up and fixed it. A narrow escape.
I had an interesting time in Indianapolis about a month ago,
Aside from the standard road trip accidents, like a van breakdown on the way to a show, and almost getting arrested, we had a really weird time at the hotel.
Somehow we convinced the bars we were playing at to put us up in a Westin hotel, it was by far the nicest place I’ve stayed, big vaulted ceilings with all sorts of amenities. We got there at 8 AM and were promptly told that check in was at 3 PM. Too tired from the drive to do anything else we camped out in the lobby. Now there were six poorly dressed college student’s smelling of cigarettes and a 12 hour trip sleeping in the lobby of this really posh place. All day we were approached by security guards asking us our business who didn’t seem to believe us when we said we were staying there.
The next day we found out who else was staying at the hotel; That weekend was the NCAA Big 10 women’s basketball tournament, and every team was at the Westin. Then then next arrivals showed up, 10 teams of cheerleaders in town for a competition at the hotel.
Definately a trip to remember.
) out in front of me so I don’t trip over it.