Post Your Funny Band/gig Stories Here

[flyinguitars]

i made a post here last week and it got me thinking about some of the funny and crazy things that i saw, did, experienced while playing in a band.
Not sure how it was/is in other parts of the country or world, but the music scene in my area was massive. Hundreds/thousands of players and bands and clubs and venues everywhere. I started in clubs while still in high school but really went several nights per week in my early 20s and went solid into my early 40s probably did 3500 gigs or more in the span of my gigging run. I’ve played about 10 steady bands over that period and played with a lot of people on our local circuit here. I saw some crazy things...funny things, wild parties, fights, fought, and usually laughed a lot. I thought it would be cool to get a “this one time” kinda story thread going.

So here’s my first that still makes me chuckle because this guy was just too funny. This story involves a singer that i played in multiple bands over the years. This guy was amazing....sounded like Paul Rogers, had perfect pitch, never ever forgot a word or line, never sang out of key and i don’t remember him ever making a mistake. The guy was/is amazing and could have made it big if he really wanted it...he was one tough dude and fought like he lived in a Chuck Norris movie. Also his parents were rich and used to buy him new cars every 6 months. Good stuff too.....mustangs, vettes, trans am, etc. He had a had a streak of wrecking them so his dad “punished “ him and gave him a Lincoln town car to slow him down.

So one night we were at a club in Allentown pa and had split the night with the band Fuel. Fun gig and all and we stopped at a diner, had breakfast and then all left for our hour drive home to the phila area. There were 5 of us and we all drove separately and we all got on the pa turnpike together about 3:30 am. So we were all flying down the empty turnpike in a line and we started throwing shit at each other’s cars. Everyone would get in the right lane and one would speed by the pack throwing shit and get up front and so on and so on. So after a couple minutes we ran out of things to throw, so we started our other favorite retarded game of all shutting our lights out and playing chicken and driving in complete darkness as long as we could.
So after a few minutes of almost killing ourselves, the singer comes from the back of the pack, lights off, speeding by our line of cars at probably over 100mph throwing his last garbage out at us and rips off into the darkness over a big hill. We crest the hill just in Time to see him turn his lights and hit a big deer at 100mph. The deer exploded and he fishtailed all over the road and pulled to the shoulder. We all jumped out a we’re laughing so hard that we were crying. He got out and was crying too. Poor deer was dead instantly but it got stuck under his car and would not come loose. It was big too...like the size of a dairy cow. That fucker was wedged into the undercarriage of the back of the car and would not come loose. As he drove back and forth it just dragged and he even got stuck on it a few times. This was the funniest fucking thing that we ever saw...lol. His front end was smashed to shit and the deer was stuck under the car.
After about 10 minutes we were like “dude its getting late” ....so he decided to just go for it and drive the remaining 50ish miles and let it fall off on the way. We all took off and made sure he was ok at 60mph and then i stepped on the gas and got myself home ASAP.
So, the next night we played a club in Delaware about 40 miles south of our area. We get there for load in and get our gear set up and ready for sound check. The singer wasn’t there yet so we were hanging out at the stage door that opened to the parking lot. Here comes the singer doing like 50mph across the parking lot and powerslides the Lincoln to a screeching stop sideways about 3 feet away from us and the deer comes swinging out from under the back of the car.....lol. That fucking idiot drove close to a hundred miles from the time he hit the deer and didn’t even get up that day to remove it...lol...we were crying. I couldn’t stop laughing...haha. I couldn’t look at him the rest of the night and while we were playing that night i kept getting the giggles thinking about it. To top it off, he hooked up with some girl and took her out to his wrecked town car with a dead dear hanging from the back and banged her in the parking lot...lol...the dude was a funny MFer!

 

[Barfly]

hahahah awesome!!! LMAO. I'm sitting here laughing and my wife is like "wtf?" hehe.. I am trying to think of something.. I have a couple of sex with fan things. A fight or 2.. maybe 3. Let me think on it.

 

[saxon68]

I remember one night as I’m settling up with the bar owner and the door girl starts yelling that there’s a fight out in the lot. Owner looks at me and says “I hope it’s not any of your guys”. I look outside and see my lead guy putting the boots to some guys noggin and said “nope”.

One other time we had an awesome show, bar packed, everyone having a blast and we meet this couple and the guy is supposed to be manager for John cafferty & beaver Brown band. They loved us and want us to tour a bit with them, we’re all excited. Night ends, we’re heading out and this car backs into my bass players GF’s car, so she get out screeching and yelling about the driver sucks and they’re assholes and she’s gonna kick their asses... out of the other car steps the management couple. Yup that dream fizzled right there.

 

[Vinsanitizer]

3,000 seat theater. During a guitar solo I stepped out in front of the house speakers on the stage and made like I was banging my head against them. It looked cool. But the moment I turned back toward the stage I tripped over a pile of audio cables and for a split second I almost went down hard. I looked like I was free-falling out of an airplane.

Everyone who's spent some time gigging has seen their share of pitfalls.

 

[JimiRules]

We played an outdoor festival 4 or 5 years ago. This dude who looked homeless came up to the stage and was lurking around with the rest of the crowd. He looked like he hadn't taken a bath in weeks. He was up there for a few songs catching the show. We were just getting ready to start a song and suddenly he yells "I WANNA HAVE SEX WITH YOUR DRUMMER!!!!" Every eye in the place turned to our drummer who had the most horrified look imaginable on his face. We still kid him about it.

Another time we were playing in a bar when suddenly I hear the bass player hitting all kinds of bum notes. I look over and see this chick is kissing him all over his face while he is trying to get away. Our singer goes over and pulls her off of him. I start to chuckle and continue playing when all of a sudden I feel somebody jump on my back. Its the girl. We weren't on any stage. The only thing seperating us from the crowd was our floor monitors. So I take off running towards the crowd as fast as I could and she came flying off my back onto the floor. By that time bar management saw what was going on and tossed her.
Another time we were playing in a different bar we made it to our last song of the night (Free Bird) when these two ladies got into a fight. One of them had to be pushing 300lbs. It started out as a shoving and yelling match. By the time I started the lead at the end it turned into the big lady pounding the hell out of the other one. All of a sudden the cops barge in. One of them went for the bigger lady and was trying to cuff her from behind. When we saw this we stopped playing. Just as we stopped she fell backwards onto the cop. When she fell we heard a loud SNAP and the cop starts screaming. When she fell back on him she snapped his leg. One of the other cops got her cuffed while the first cop is rolling around on the ground screaming. We were tearing our equipment down as an ambulance came and took the cop out on a stretcher.

 

[FutureProf88]

When my band was a 5 piece (we are now a 3 piece), we had a short stint with a hired manager to get us into more places. We told him we were a hard rock band. We were, in the sense of stuff like Foo Fighters (which was probably who we sounded most like). So this guy books us a show on Nov 1. Tells us that we are going to headline a show at an original hard rock club. It was the closest thing I've ever been in to the scene in the Blues Brothers where they play the country bunker, except that this place isn't a rock club. It's a metal club. Like chug-chug death metal. Cookie monster singing. The whole shebang. It's also a Halloween show, so the place is decked out and everybody (except us) is in costume. So the first band gets up and Barney the purple dinosaur starts in on his "whuppa-whup-whup" rhythm part on a downtuned 7 string through a 6505 stack. The Joker runs onstage holding a microphone and goes "WHHHHAAAAAOOOOOOOO......"

It's also a smoking club so in about 10 minutes you can't see the other side of the room. The singer, other guitarist and I go outside and sit on the curb (it's 40 degrees outside). We stay there for a couple hours listening to the bass from the club before our drummer comes out and tells us that we are going on. As we are setting up (I have my own stack) a clown taps me on the shoulder and is like "Hey man you don't have to be a dick. We mic everything." He's referring to my superlead. Turns out this was the sound man / club manager (more on this later). I was like "what?" And he's like "you gotta roll in here with your Marshall stack being all big and loud and you don't have a clue how hard it is to get these in the mix..." Never mind that every. other. band. had been running 6505's or Triple Recs. I was like, "Look it's my stuff, it's my set, and I know how to use my equipment. I'll do my job and how bout you do yours?" Long story short the mic inputs on my side of the stage shorted out and it ended up being a good thing that I had my stuff. Most of the people there reacted similarly to the Country Bunker fans, except for one guy in the front row who sang every single one of our songs. We have no idea who he was.

As we are leaving I realize that I can't find my guitar stand. It's a Hercules and I definitely wasn't leaving without it. I ask all my bandmates if one of them had picked it up. I knew there were some house stands so I hoped that one of the club workers hadn't taken it. Then the clown comes up and taps me on the shoulder again and says "Hey I'm looking for a Hercules guitar stand have you seen it?" And I said "do you know where it is?" He said "No man I'm looking for it." He was kind of drunk and by this point I'd had enough so I told him that it was mine and one of his guys had better not have picked it up as they swept us offstage after our set. We ended up in a shouting match and our bass player stepped in. One of the guys in another band had taken it. I sent out a facebook message to all the other bands and said "I lost a 60 dollar guitar stand the other night. Could I get it back?" Crickets. Follow up message "I'm sure it was a mistake so I'd hate to get the cops involved." Five minutes later one of them emails me back and says "Hey we found it in our stuff I guess we accidentally picked it up when we left." (We were the last band to go on. Sure you did.) I ended up getting it back from the guy a few days later. What's really odd is that I spent about 10 min searching that club for the stand. On my way home I passed a pileup with a couple of overturned cars. One guy had been thrown out through his windshield and I came on this thing before the cops got there. My tearing the club apart looking for my stand put me just behind where this happened.

 

[SonVolt]

No band stories per se, but that lead guy in Fuel gave my ex-girlfriend some private, uh, licks, on his tour bus after a show. He even signed the autograph "Thanks for taking the licks last night". She told me the story like I would be impressed because I played in a band. I said "that makes you a groupie, yuck". We lasted 2 years.

 

[chiliphil1]

I don't have anything very good but there was a girl fight at one show we did, a friend of the singer's wife was hammered and brought a glass of water to the drummer, the drummers girlfriend didn't like it. The water girl got really drunk and lost some clothes throughout the show, by the end the drummer girl got tired of it and started some crap. We finished that show to the bar staff alone because everyone else left.

The guitar stand story also made me remember when I played a local club once and was unloading gear by myself, I walked inside to ask where it needed to go and when I came out 2 of our PRS guitars were missing. I went all over that place and found them in a stack of cases that one of the other bands had. They were at the back, I doubt it was accidental.

 

[EddievanDamon#2]

I was on stage one night i was playing in an 80s glam rock style band (Wigs, Spandex) and invited some hot chicks to come up on stage and dance during a few songs. Right in the middle of one song this chick walks up behind me and slips her hand into the front of my spandex and starts stroking Mr Happy. My guitar was covering everything so nobody in the crowd could tell what was up. It was right before my solo and i'm crapping my pants. The whole time shes whispering in my ear telling me what she wants to do after the show. I told her "Hold on we are taking a break after this song". Ended up finishing the song and took her in the bathroom and gave her what she wanted. Good times!

 

[liontato]

Drunk guy pulled a knife on me while I’m playing my gibson les Paul custom during a song. He requested David Allan Coe. We didn’t do Coe. I was 17 at the time. He said we ain’t blankety blank and ran the knife across my strings on the neck. I was rather scared. Keep in mind I’m playing a song while this is going on and I was a kid. The bass player who was older didn’t find out until later. He was ticked. Next night he brings a 44 magnum and lays it on his bass amp covered by his coat. He gave me strict orders to not go out and talk to anyone and stay behind him. He wore a shirt that night that said, “I don’t call 911” with a gun in hand as the picture.

I’ve hated Coe ever since then.
Les Paul is long gone. I hate that even worse. One of my deepest regrets.

 

[JLBIII]

Got hired to play a local bar. First time we've been there. There's a guy at the door collecting the cover charge. We figure he's with the bar. Go to get paid at the end of the night and they told us they thought our guy as collecting at the door. WTF? Never made that mistake again.

Get done after a 3 night gig at a club. Load my gear into my Vega station wagon and throw a blanket over it. Go to help load the rest of the gear in the band van parked next to my car. I head home and about 5 minutes down the road, someone taps me on my shoulder. Some drunk chick had climbed into my Vega and hid under the blanket. Said she just wanted to meet someone in the band. I was faithful to my then fiancee and dropped the drunk chick off in front of an apartment where she said she lived.

Go to play a Battle of the Bands at an outdoor band shell in the park. All hard rock/heavy metal bands. We start playing and have 5 cop cars and a paddy wagon show up to shut us down because we were too loud. I often wondered if they had gotten the proper permits or the town didn't know what to expect when they agreed to it.

Played at an outdoor party where they had an airplane make a low pass and drop peanuts on the crowd.???????????

We auditioned and got hired to play at a club. We told the owner we were an original band. He said that was ok as a lot of people had come out to see us on an off night. We go to play on there on a Friday night. We had a lot of followers at that time and friends came to see us play, party and have a good time. Went to get paid after the show. The owner paid us the agreed amount and gave us a big bonus on top of it. He said he made a ton of money that night, more than he had in a long time but he couldn't have us back again as we scared off his regular customers. Oh well

Our sound man was married but had a groupie girlfriend. Our bass player was doing the groupie gf and the sound man went out on the roof of the 2nd floor of the band house and took polaroid pictures thru the window of the two of them. Probably would've gone viral today.

Before we had a manager, whoever got the job for the band would be the contact person to get paid. We had been playing a club on a regular rotation that I had set up. I don't know if was one of the band member's wives or some of the band members idea but they asked if someone else could collect the money when we were finished that weekend. No problem. I agreed to it. So we finish up about 1 a.m. on a Sunday night and one of the other band member's goes into the manager's office to get paid. Comes out with a sealed envelope of cash and says "Ok, let's go". Shortly after we cross the bridge back into Pa, the band van pulls over to a sudden stop. They just opened the envelope and found it was short by a good amount of cash. WTF I always counted the money first before leaving the club office. Everyone's giving me that "deer in the head light" look and then told me the club manager and not the owner, had handed them the envelope. I was always paid by the owner. Too late to go back now so I take the envelope and money with me. I returned to the club 2 days later when it was open and the owner there. I explained to the owner what had happened. The owner paid me the missing money and casually mentioned this isn't the first time this had happened with that manger. We continued to play there, never saw that manger again and never did anyone in the band ever ask me about collecting our fees again.

 

[Barfly]

We did a gig at a place called "Woody's" (Ron Wood's club) in Manhattan. My girl, my drummer's girl, my drummer and myself are chatting with some people from our management at the end of the gig when our roadie/ friend Richie comes up to us giggling weirdly and blurts out "some chick's getting naked in the alley!"

Me and my drummer (a bigger perve than even I am) look at each other and all you can see is the dust fly as we take off running.. right for the door to the alley. Sure enough, there is a stunning/ under the influence brunette stripped down to her panties standing in a puddle yelling "I love rock and roll!! I'd do anything for rock and roll!!!!"

The road crew egged her on as she danced to the sound of our breathing... lol. She turned to me and asked "are you in the band?" I grinned like a fookin' idiot and said "yes".. with that she peeled off her panties and started doing cartwheels in the rain puddles while yelling the same things over and over. Impressive!

All of our girlfriends were there at this point.. the chick stopped and said "if anyone in the band wants to come home with me they can!!!!" No one took her up on her offer. hehehe. No big daredevil's in this group. We'd all grown to like living plus as good looking as she was, our girl's were better..

Right around the end of this now people are yelling out windows: Shut the fuck up!!! Go Home!!! etc. I turned to my girl and my drummer's girl and said something real believable like "How disgusting! Right?" hahahah

My girl said something like uh-huh (meaning "ok, you dick") as she rolled her eyes at me. Ah, to be young.

 

[John BNY]

I have a gig tonight. I suspect something ridiculous will happen, as two of the four band members have a cold, including me. I'll post something tomorrow.

 

[Australian]

lol good stories. I've thought about starting a thread like this before.
Mine are coming-stay tuned.

 

[Rich_S]

My girl-fronted '80s new wave/rock band, which usually played frat parties and college bars in the city, once inadvertently got booked into a biker bar in Chester County, PA. There was a obvious mismatch between the listening tastes of the clientele and our setlist. They wanted Steppenwolf, which we of course couldn't provide. When they grew restless, we hastily re-arranged our setlist to emphasize the Journey, Joan Jett, and Pat Benetar, ditching the Police and Missing Persons.

At one point, an enormous, hairy gentleman at the back - identified as "Main Spoke" by the magic-marker monogramming on the back of his denim vest - yelled out, "Play sumpin' slow so I can dance with mah woman!!!" We were somewhat taken aback and didn't really have any slow-dance numbers, but we dredged one up and played it slow enough to suit him.

We got through the night and actually got some positive comments, having partially won them over. The keyboard player was totally freaked out to find the loser of a fist fight lying on the hood of his car, bleeding, when he went to load out his gear, but he politely asked him to move, and the nice bleeding man obliged.

The highlight of the evening came while we were tearing down, as our new best friend Main Spoke left the building. We watched from the stage as he grabbed his woman, slung her caveman-style over his shoulder and headed for the door. Gentleman that he was, he stopped on the way out, so that the lady (still hanging upside-down) could insert change and pull the plastic knob to purchased cigarettes from the vending machine by the door. Chivalry was not yet dead.

 

[Barfly]

Thanks a lot, Mike! LMAO.. a ton of shite is flooding back to me.

 

[zachman]

 

[zachman]

 

[Vinsanitizer]

Haha! I love these stories, I'm gonna read 'em all again.

Here's another one from me:

Another theater gig, maybe 2,500 teens and adults (it was a charity gig to raise money for underprivileged teens/ foster kids and stuff, who were bussed in from all around). It was advertised on local radio for several weeks (my song got airplay), and maybe a news caster or somebody with a camera. Anyway, we needed a guy at the last minute to cover the smoke machines: there was one on each side of the drum riser. The lights go down, the music intro starts, then the lights suddenly go up and we walk out on the stage front & center... only we couldn't see where the hell we were going because the smoke machine guy blew so much smoke out there you couldn't cut it with a chainsaw!

I really HATE that kind of shet.

 

[Tatzmann]

Was that the day you decided to do the
smokin' yourself and stuck the smokemachine
in you're Paul after pulling it out of the ass of
the smokemachine roadie?