Playing a gig/good show story? Post here!

Cafe Society
1

So I played a wedding tonight. I don’t usually do this, but my friend phoned me up a few months ago and asked me if I wanted to play his friend’s brother’s brother-in-law’s (woo!) wedding. Not that this is without precedence, we played his friend’s brother’s wedding. My FOAF is a pretty incredible musician, so I find it flattered that he always want me to play with him. So I agreed. And promptly forgot about it for a few months.

So yesterday at 5 PM, he phones me to remind me that we are playing a gig. I somewhat freak. I play piano (reasonably) and can fake the jazz stuff with a bit of preparation. But this offered no preparation. For the FOAF’s brother’s wedding, we prepared 10 songs, played for around an hour, and sounded pretty good. This time, we had a few hours to prepare 6 or so songs to play for an hour. Urk.

I worked until 2 PM today, then we met at my house at 2:30 PM. My FOAF (the incredible musician) showed up with 2 fake books and no idea what to play. The bassist and my friend (a drummer) showed up about 30 minutes later. I quickly transposed “The Way You Look Tonight” into C for them (I have a good arrangement memorized that I learned years ago). We threw together a few songs – two of my FOAF’s originals, “Something” by the Beatles, “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure, a few others, and a couple of other little chord progressions that we could lounge up so we could play for our hour.

Luckily the PA was underpowered, luckily we pulled off most of the material OK (with exception to The Way You Look Tonight, totally boffed the bridge and that’s the one I’ve known for years), luckily most people were too preoccupied with eating to notice. All in all, it was fun, we got fed well, the four of us split a bottle of Hennesy before, during, and after our playing, and nobody cared about (hopefully) our multiple obvious screw ups. We played for an hour until the bride and groom cut the cake, and got great Vietnamese food for dinner.

As I say, I don’t do this that often. I’ve played in bands on a number of occasions (guitar, piano, sitar, ukelele, you name it I’ll play it), this was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. I felt horrible about the lack of preparation and refused to accept payment for the gig – my FOAF is really a good guy and it was basically money from his pocket – and we probably sounded like shit. He’s gonna take us out for steak later this week instead. But all in all, it was fun: we got free liquor and excellent food while dicking around on stage in front of people and having some fun, even though we sounded like ass.

Any other gig stories from this weekend? Any other good show stories you would like to share?

2

I got one for you.

I belong to a community orchestra wherein I play sorry violin (I sit in the back) & last summer about 75 of us traveled to England where we gave two concerts. The awesome one was at Royal Tumbridge Wells, where our conductor’s wife grew up.

At the time of the trip I was in my first trimester of pregnancy & didn’t know yet that I’m carrying twins - so I was one sick puppy. Totally nauseous, headaches, no energy, peeing all the time, etc. etc. A truly miserable wreck. I lost 5 pounds that week from not being able to eat.

Howsomeever… One Mr. Corky Siegel, a Chicago blues harmonica player, made the trip with our group and was a featured part of the concert. We played Street Music, his signature piece, to the sold-out audience, and it bowled them over! Siegel knows his blues, he rips them out and stretches them long - he’ll let you sit with some notes and a pause in between, let you contemplate them and consider their meaning, and then dash a whole bunch of razzle-dazzle to bring you back and make you laugh. He hangs it out there. It was heaven.

And for the length of that concert I felt fine. No - I felt oh-so good! Bliss! No nausea, no headache, just waves of music and the truth therein. Took me away.

At the reception afterwards we met a bunch of audience members who were incredibly kind and enthusiastic, full of praise. I told them, when Brother Corky comes to town and gives you the Word, you best listen!

3

Two stories:

This weekend we (4-piece band) played an acoustic gig at a local coffee house. Usually we play the typical rock thang–electric guitar & bass + drums, lead singer plays acoustic guitar/piano–but this time we just decided on-the-fly what to play, no rehersal of acoustic versions. It worked great! Everyone, audience and band, had a great time, and it’s possible that no one there had ever heard acoustic versions of Ain’t Nobody (Chaka Khan), Heartbreaker (Pat Benatar) with drummer/guitarist backup singer dancing, or Barracuda–with the traditional Ian Anderson-style flute solo at the end. It was great!

The evil flip-side is how I got the guitar gig (stop me if you’ve heard this one): The drummer & bass player had a 3-piece with a different guitarist. During a wedding reception they had played for a couple of hours, and were feeling the effect of the free booze, when the guitar player sucker-punched the father of the bride. That pretty much ended the party and they were happy to leave with their gear and their lives. He (the guitarist) played the next gig with his right hand in a cast, clutching the pick with the very ends of his fingers, and they started looking for a replacement.

fessie is your due date still in Feb? How are the twins coming along?

4

Ha! Not from this weekend, but last week Wednesday I played a 45 minute set with a bass player friend of mine as part of a fundraiser/benefit silent auction.

We got just about no prep time in; I had my copy of the Real Book, and that’s it.

We ended up doing a few ‘interpretive’ Christmas tunes in slow-mo (think a Peanuts-esque O Christmas Tree with a Fender Rhodes sound and a lot of rambling chromatic movement. It was great).

5

Hey NoCoolUserName! Things are still going great & the 37-week mark is only 9 weeks away - I figure anything beyond that is gravy. Thanks so much for asking! I hope your family and little one are doing awesome!

That’s cool about your gig - those improvised moments are so sweet!

6

Wow, great stories. Congrats on the successful faking it. I ad libbed a 40-minute Sunday School lesson when I had no advance notice that I would be teaching, but at lest in those 3 minutes I could think of what I know and had Middle Schoolers who I could get some conversation going with. (And, of course, heop from above :slight_smile: But, having no musical talent, I can still appreciate how much trouble that must be to get everyone on the same page. It’s probably a lot better when you can be a soloist.

7

Well there was the time I put my Telecaster though the ceiling at Woolwich Poly’…I’ll skip that one.

In a later life a friend and I ran a PA business (bands/raves etc.) One day we turned up to do a normal band gig, booked by phone. Function room at the back of a pub (in Sydenham, South London). 7:30ish all our gear’s up, have done a sort of sound-check with an awful (long haired - no clues yet) support band. Eventually the organiser (pleasant chap in a light-brown shirt) turns up, OK looks like there will be a gig. Punters are arriving out in the pub. Insignia and armbands appear on light-brown shirt. Another armbanded chap puts up a flag/drape that covers an entire wall. It is a Nazi flag (you know the red one with a swastika).

Uh oh.

It is apparently Adolf Hitlers’s birthday and these guys are here to celebrate. They were selling Hitler postcards amongst other things. We weren’t really in a position to back out at this point. It was not the most relaxed evening I’ve ever had, being surrounded by Nazis is doesn’t feel good. Luckily the skinheads stuck to fighting each other. It wasn’t our gear that caught fire, we got paid and got out intact, but whoa, real uglyness.

8

My band once was asked to play a benefit concert for abused women and children living in a halfway house. I’m the singer/guitar player, and it wasn’t until about halfway through our set that I realized our lyrics contained such gems as “she knocked me off the ground” and “felt like a fist across my face”.

A little embarrassing, that.

9

This was a while ago and may be funny only to me, but I’ll try. My college concert band was playing a piece where there was a long flute solo and my friend was playing the solo. She had a piece of white T-Shirt on her lap for wiping her flute off. When she picked up her flute to play the solo, the rag apparently got caught on one of her keys at the end of her flute.

She played the solo beautifully, moving and emoting while oblivious to the white rag hanging and waving from the end of her flute. I & my stand partner, of course, were tee-heeing behind our stand the whole time, and it took me forever to explain it to her after the concert.

10

Senior year, my high school orchestra went on a tour of the Northeast (New York, Philly, D.C.). The director liked my sound (I’m an oboist) and invited me along. He even arranged a piece just for me, a very haunting and beautiful work based on the hymn, “Cross of Sorrow.” Not to boast, but the melody line carried by an oboe’s voice over a full string orchestra… it rocked the house. My favorite gig was when we did a church in Harlem, they were so welcoming and I had a great time… even though I had left all my music on top of the television in the damn hotel. It all worked out. One of my favorite performance moments.

11

A little while ago, our band was doing a CD release show in a venue called Privat Klub in Berlin. I play keyboards and the occasional guitar, and our band tunes the guitars down a half-step. Now, I just cheat and use the transpose function on my keyboard rather than transposing myself. I just get lazy sometimes.

Anyhow, there’s one song in our set that’s in concert pitch. So we’re in front of about 200 young Deutchlanders and the song starts with a piano chord rhythm, no other other instruments. I play my part and the singer comes in with the first notes. So far so good. In the second hand of the first verse, the bass comes in. Our bassist, Oscar, plays the first notes and shoots this frightened look across the stage at me. And it hits me: I’m in the wrong fucking key. Oscar drops down a half step, but our guitarist who is going to come in with the really loud and big chords for the chorus is shoegazing and has no idea what is happening on stage. So as we head into the chorus, I’m thinking of creative ways of getting out of this mess, and, unfortunately, there’s no sneaky way of transposing up a half step mid song. Our only hope is if the guitarist notices.

He doesn’t. In comes the chorus with a loud, distorted F major chord from the guitar clashing spectacularly with the E major on the keys. The singer looks back at me, and we break out in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. All the instruments drop out (save for the drums), I continue playing my chordal phrase and then, in an admission of guilt, conspicuously modulate into the right key. The crowd laughed and clapped and, to tell you the truth, that monumental fuck-up ended up being one of the best moments during that tour.

12

Well, this is a little bit too “yay me” but it is a good story:

I’ve been in a ton of bands but not lately - travel 4 days a week for the job, two kids, you get the idea. Also, I play and love guitar a lot, but at one point in college, when friends’ bands in CA were getting shipped to Tokyo to play in clubs there (in the '80’s when the Japanese economy was booming, Tokyo became to Calif bands what Hamburg was to UK bands in the 60’s - a place to go, play clubs and earn some money, but the work was incredibly grueling), I chose not to in order to take an internship position - so I chose the corporate path and always wondered if I could’ve made it in music. (like I said I have played in tons of bands, but mostly with other…hobbyists? like me)…

So, I meet this drummer in town - toured professionally for 15 years, played with Billy Idol, Chuck Berry, at Carnegie Hall - the whole bit. Talked him into playing with me - no bass player - in his basement. He bitched about no bass the entire time, but complimented me at the end when he said “so how long did you make money doing this?” I was sky-high.

But he didn’t want to form a band - too many problems, not fun anymore, harder than its worth - you get the idea. And who could blame him - he did it 200 nights a year for 15 years and now has a very successful business, two kids the whole bit. However, he did want to play at least once in town so the community could see that he wasn’t just telling stories about being a drummer.

There was charity ball in the spring and he arranged for a band of his session friends to play there, with him on drums. And they made a fatal mistake - the band leader assumed that because it was black tie, the people would want smooth jazz Girl-From-Ipanema music. No one danced. For 2 1/2 hours. And there was nothing the drummer could do - the band leader had rehearsed the other players on those songs. Finally, at 11:30, I approached the drummer and said “c’mon, lemme sit in - tell your guy to let me” - so he did and the leader reluctantly agreed. Their guitarist was completely condescending “can you play? show me some chords” “do you know how to use a tuner?”. Simply because it has never failed me in the past, I called out “What I Like About You” by the Romantics (E-A-D-A how tough can it be?), and we kick it off.

The dance floor got packed - we sold it hard and rocked the joint. Afterwards, the drummer - “okay, let’s do something”. And we ended up forming a band…very cool.

13

I have a guitar in my classroom at all times even though I teach English. Every year, the general music teacher is stuck teaching a guitar unit, and she knows next to nothing about guitars, so she usually asks me to come in and show the students that it is possible to play one of these things. I have played guitar since I was in high school, and I know my way around the neck. I’ve come into this class several years in a row, and it’s always gone really well; the kids are shocked to hear a lame teacher play cool music.

This year however, something went wrong.

I guess I was complacent. I suppose I figured that I can play well enough to fake it if need be; but I wasn’t taking into account that I haven’t been playing much lately.

My own kids are at an age where I’m helping them with homework every night, and then there’s that whole, fix dinner, clean up after dinner, chores around the house stuff…you know the drill. As a result, my chops are rusty to say the least…

So I walked in to take her class, having done no planning in advance, and guess what?

I sucked.

I broke most of the rules of a gig, maybe the biggest of which is, “have a good opening tune to shut them up with.” You know how most good records open with a killer tune? There’s a reason for that. It’s an important rule with any audience, but with middle school kids–it’s the only rule. If you get their attention right away, you’ve got 'em. If you don’t get their attention right away–they’ll get you. Well, I didn’t, and they did.

Well, the strings on the damn guitar were still new, and so it wasn’t staying in tune, so I spent too much time trying, unsuccessfully, to get my instrument listenable.

Then a kid requested a tune, and I fumbled through a bad version of it, trying to come up with an arrangement and remember the words at the same time. When I am up to speed, this kind of thing is do-able, but really not advisable. With my guitar chops at their present low point, it was a glimpse into hell.

At this point I could feel the sweat starting to drip down the inside of my arms, and I was realizing that the whole thing was headed south, but I am stubborn, and didn’t want to dump the class back in the lap of the teacher, who, knowing I was coming, probably didn’t have a back-up plan. The kids were talking among themselves and generally throwing invisible tomatoes while I died in front of them.

At about this point, the music teacher breaks in and begins to berate the kids for their poor behavior/attitude/respect/blah blah blah…all of which was directly my fault, because I hadn’t prepared a flipping thing for this class.

I pulled a blues shuffle out of my hat and tried desperately to think of what I should play next, while trying not to botch the tune I was actually playing.

This agony continued. I won’t go into further detail.

The hour finally ended, and I leaned a lesson. Unless one is a pro, and doing it really often, one must prepare for a gig, or suffer the consequences.