I was watching Conan the other night and Old 97s were the musical guests. I’ve been a big Old 97s fan for several years. The same four guys have been playing together for 20+ years, but apparently their drummer has had some back problems lately, so they had a new guy on drums and I assume he is also currently touring with them.
Which got me to wondering about a few things. Do bands have alternates at the ready in case they need someone to fill in? If not, how do they go about finding a sub? How hard is it for a musician to fill in? I assume they would need to be familiar with the band’s setlist, or be able to get up to speed quickly. Which band members are hardest or easiest to replace? I realize a lot of this depends on the band - some would probably cancel or postpone rather than having someone fill in.
A classic move is to have the various Instrument Tech roadies know how to play the songs. They know the gear, know the set list and typically are players since they do maintenance and set up. And, obviously, you’re paying them to be right there with you on tour anyway.
It also depends on how complex your music is. A standard set of chord forms and blues lead fills is a whole lot easier than some other artist’s prog-complex material. Oh, and whether you can afford roadies
I don’t have a lot of experience to draw on here, but I have seen that musicians know other musicians and there are a lot of very skilled studio musicians available to fill in when needed. Matching personalities for extended work like a tour is probably more difficult to deal with.
When Ramsey Lewis Trio came to town, their drummer was sick and didn’t make the tour. They picked up a drummer from the local musician’s union.
The percussionist performed flawlessly. He sight read the charts of the entire play list!
I thought it was incredible. He viewed the music annotations from the sheet music and instantly turned them into seamless action. His eyes never left the page.
It’s usually drums or bass. If it were the guitarist or vocalist, they’d cancel the show. But since drummers and bassists are basically human metronomes, they can hire a ringer with little consequence.
A few years ago, Kim Simmons of Savoy Brown wrote some articles for “Relix” magazine about various funny episodes that happened to the group. One of them was while on tour, the bass player suddenly got sick on the day of a show. So they check at a local guitar shop who put them in contact with a bass player. They hired him for the night. Turned out to be a disaster: he argued with them, wouldn’t play what they wanted, etc. Yet when the reviews came out the next day in the local paper it was “Savoy Brown never sounded better, band was incredibly tight, a great evening of music”.
Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings were life long friends.
Johnny was flying to Canada and needed a guitarist. He called Waylon in Nashville to check around for somebody available that he’d recommend. Johnny called back. “Did you find somebody?”, “Yep”, “Who?”
In 1995, R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry collapsed onstage with what was thought to be a migraine, and turned out to be a brain aneurysm. :eek: The opening act’s drummer walked out onstage and the band was able to complete their set.
Bill had brain surgery the next day, and the tour resumed about 3 months later. He retired from the band two years after that.
My guess in this case is that the opening act’s drummer had been practicing R.E.M. songs in case Bill couldn’t perform, because he’d been having increasingly severe and frequent headaches in the months leading up to this.
He retired from the band two years after that.