Ah! I see!
Presenting…Blue Steel!
I was at a Counting Crows concert in LA in 2002 where the drummer fainted about midway through the show and got taken to the hospital. Adam Duritz asked for a music stand and his songbook and spent a few minutes flipping through it and monologuing, while the band switched to acoustic instruments and they played some songs they could do without drums. It eventually turned out that the drummer from Cake was in the audience that night and agreed to play a couple songs with them, but before he could make it onstage the drummer from Toad the Wet Sprocket (the opening band) crept onstage and took over the drum kit. The finale turned out to be a grand hoopla with both drummers playing on one kit and the rest of TTWS playing rhythm on “Hangingaround”.
In 2011, I saw the Reduced Shakespeare Company perform at a historic theater in downtown Tacoma, on the same night that Frampton was performing on that tour in another historic theater across the street. Before the show started, the theater manager came onstage to welcome the crowd and said “By the way, if any of you were expecting anyone to come alive tonight, you’re in the wrong theater.”
OK, yet another weather story. We were in the upper deck of the Cotton Bowl in Dallas in 1981 watching the Rolling Stones (opening acts? ZZ Top and The Fabulous Thunderbirds! ) when a massive rainstorm swept through. Amazingly they kept playing, and that excited the crowd even more so we were all screaming and singing at the tops of our lungs. Quite the show.
The Cotton Bowl sits in a fairly low piece of land, and so when we got to the parking lot half of it was flooded out. Fortunately our friend drove a massive Impala (nicknamed, yes, The Whale) so we were able to float out of there.
Back in the late 90’s/early '00s, I went to a Radiohead concert in Chicago. It was blisteringly hot (90+) and, being general admission, many of us got there hours before the show started. The problem was, the water was not only really expensive, but you weren’t allowed to have the cap if you bought water. While the reason given, which may be partially true, was that they didn’t want to pick up thousands of caps, my theory is that you were more likely to spill the water (it was outdoors, on grass) if you set it down, requiring you to buy more.
Once the show started, either Radiohead or the opening act (Beta Band, IIRC) berated the people running the venue and somehow convinced them to spray the audience with water.
I have no idea if the park had hoses and a water supply capable of doing that or maybe they called in the fire department (or they were already there) but having water rain over the crowed was an overwhelmingly welcome relief from the heat.
That’s wild about TWO well-known drummers being in the audience! It reminded me in a way of this story.
Probably the craziest story I have was when I saw Asia (yes, the supergroup) in 1982. The band that was supposed to open had a gig at a bar in a nearby town, so they replaced them with a magician, as in the kind one might hire for an upscale kids’ birthday party. People started booing, until an attractive woman walked onstage and the men cheered and the women booed louder, only to have this reversed when she walked off, and since this was just a few months after Ozzy’s notorious bat incident in Des Moines, just 30 miles from this show in Ames, which was probably attended by a lot of the same people, when the magician brought out doves, the audience started chanting, “Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!”
I remember almost nothing else about that show, and I was straight as an arrow, but I’ll never forget that magician.
The Pantages and the Rialto?
I’d always heard that a bottle with a cap made for a more dangerous missile than one spilling as it was thrown, but I wouldn’t want to pick up the bottle caps either…
The stand-in drummers made me think of the funnest concert I’ve ever been to.
My kids asked me once: “Most fun you’ve had at a concert, ever?” They’d heard my stories of the Flaming Lips in hamster balls, a young Springsteen jumping up on sound equipment, Tull, Ramones, Doors, Wailers, Willie, oh, and George Carlin arrested for his “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television”…
But my answer was the Green Day show that was the kids’ first concert. The band just had a blast with all the middle schoolers at the show. They’d pull kids up on stage and give 'em monster super-soakers, did some crowd surfing while playing, lot of making fun of the audience…
And at one point the drummer says “Hey, Billy Joe, I’m gonna take a break, but don’t worry, I’ll get a replacement… HEY, WHO HERE CAN PLAY THE DRUMS?” And they surfed a pre-teen kid up onto the stage, and the drummer showed him the rhythm. Then the bass player did the same, and got this tiny girl holding a heavy bass and doing a great job.
Then Billy Joe (Armstrong, I think) says “Who wants my job? How bout YOU?!” And points at a kid in the balcony. His dad grabs him by the wrists and dangles him out into space, while a tall dad below puts his kid on his shoulders so he can reach Balcony Kid’s ankles, and he makes it down. And proceeded to rock out, it was hilarious.
The band all left the stage for a couple of minutes while the 12-14 year olds jammed (they were decent), then came back out, thanked the kids, gave 'em super-soakers… and the guitar kid got to keep the guitar.
My kids (and half the neighbor kids, I was once again the Designated Dad) were screaming themselves hoarse, and that was a huge part of the fun.
Aye. I forget which one the RSC was at and which one Frampton was at.
The concert was in Hollywood, so it probably would’ve been more surprising if there wasn’t a well-known drummer in the audience. I saw the Who at the Hollywood Bowl the same year and my girlfriend at the time and I were looking through binoculars at the front row searching for famous people, and managed to spot Ray Manzarek and Eddie Vedder in attendence.
You can’t mention something like this without bringing up Kiss Guy. This is just fun to watch every single time.
Haven’t been there in a long time. I’m pretty sure the Pantages was a movie theater back in the '70s. I think I saw Star Wars there.
Another weather story. At an outdoor reggae concert in Tokyo, it started pouring. They kept on going and at first we tried using out plastic picnic sheets for cover but eventually realized we were going to get soaked anyway so we just got wet. Eventually the rain got to bad and it was stopped to the disappointment of everyone.
Almost everyone went by subway so the trains were filled with drenched audience member. That’s ok, a spirit of shared camaraderie. We had a couple of transfers and on the second train there were only a handful of other soaked people.
As luck happened, my wife (now ex) and I were the only ones dripping wet in the entire train. As a foreigner, I’m used to strange looks but we were definitely getting stared at that day. The water was still making puddles by our feet as as the train went up and down the small hills, the water would go up and down the isles.
Well, I saw Pete Townshend hit Abbie Hoffman with his guitar. That’s something you don’t see every day.
I’d never seen this before, and my day is now measurably improved.
I saw Brian Wilson stop a Beach Boys show until a threatening beach ball was successfully murdered by a member of the audience.
You don’t even have to like the Foo Fighters (or Kiss for that matter), it’s just a good video to watch once a year or so. Here’s a short interview from Kiss Guy (Yayo). I always find it interesting that, while it wasn’t any kind of pre planned stunt, he had practiced the song beforehand in case he got pulled up on stage. While it is common for Dave to invite audience members on stage to play (usually guitar or drums) during the shows, this is like someone at a baseball game bringing a glove AND catching a ball.
And, 1000% unrelated to anything at all and I’m posting this with the known risk of completely derailing the thread, if you want another video to improve your day and that you’ll want to rewatch from time to time, I give you this one.
I was at a Barenaked Ladies show when a beach ball was being tossed around. The ball started to get pretty saggy and Ed Robertson asked “Does anyone have one of those inflator needles so that we can pump it back up?” Then he started rapping “Inflator” to the tune of Snow’s “Informer”.
Nothing too unusual, but I’m thinking of a couple incidents.
Saw the Rolling Stones at the old Pontiac Silverdome in '81. They had two opening acts-- Iggy Pop and Santana. Iggy was first and it turned out the audience to see the Stones were NOT also Iggy Pop fans. You’d think since James Osterberg Jr. was from the general area the crowd would be a little kinder than they were, but he was constantly booed and people were throwing trash on stage during his set. After a 1/2 hour or less he sarcastically said “thanks for being such a wonderful audience” and left. A janitor then had to come out with a big push broom to sweep all the trash off the stage.
Saw Stevie Ray Vaughn at a small venue in Detroit not long after he left David Bowie’s band. It was about the time his song “Pride and Joy” was getting airplay. We were able to get right up to the stage. Stevie had around a dozen guitars on stands that he took turns playing. He had just started playing what looked like a 50s Telecaster when some idiot shook up a bottle of beer with his thumb on top and then sprayed it all over the stage, hitting Stevie and getting it on his Telecaster. He never missed a note, and a roadie came out from the back, jumped off the stage into the audience and started chasing the guy. Didn’t want to miss any of the concert so I don’t know if he got caught and got a beat-down or he got away. Kinda hope the roadie caught him.