Unusual events at concerts?

Cafe Society
61

One of my favorite musicians is an indie singer-songwriter named Toby Lightman. She had a couple of hits in the early 2000s, when she was on a big record label, and though she’s no longer on a big label, she’s still recording music. (Also, as it’s relevant to the story, I have a major crush on her.)

A few years ago, she announced that she would be playing at City Winery here in Chicago, and I got tickets the moment they went on sale, getting seats in the front row, center stage. It’s a small venue (maybe 200 seats or so), and when she came out to start her show, I realized that I was sitting about 5 feet away from her when she was at the microphone.

It was just her performing (no backup band), and in between songs, she was telling stories about her music. At one point, she was talking about when she was starting out, and writing her first album, and she had some stage fright. Her manager told her that, when performing live, she needed to make eye contact with people in the audience, to which she replied, “But what if I look at some guy for too long, and he starts thinking that I’m really into him?” She told us that that idea turned out to be how she wrote one of the songs on her first album, called “Front Row,” and then she started playing that song.

The first lines in the song are:

And, as she’s singing those lyrics, she is looking straight at me. I must have turned bright red, because she stopped singing, and laughed. “Oh, my god, this poor guy in the front row,” she said, gesturing towards me. That just made me blush even more, and then she gave me an amazing smile before she resumed the song.

I got to meet her after the show, and she apologized for it, but, y’know, if your celebrity crush singles you out at a concert, it’s all good. :smiley:

62

I saw a monkey act open for the Grateful Dead. I don’t suppose PETA allows that kind of thing nowadays.

63

Dave Grohl is the coolest guy in rock.

He still does this.

64

The funny thing is I don’t know a whole lot about the Foo Fighters. I can name maybe two or three of their big songs and that’s about it. But I adore Dave. I’ve watched a ton of interviews with him, saw Sound City when it came out, I may have seen Back and Forth (or maybe not, I don’t remember). I can watch him talk all day. Of all the rockers out there, he seems like the most humble, down to earth one. I remember in one interview he said that as him and his peers made it big, he watched them buy sports cars and expensive TVs and huge houses and he was just happy to buy a new grill.

65

That’s no way to talk about Country Joe and the Fish.

66

This reminds me of another unusual occurrence I experienced. In 2010, I saw an indie band called the Protomen at a very small venue in Portland (there were exactly 87 tickets available for purchase with no seating and the audience was literally just gathered around the band with no barricade) in what had previously been a single-screen arthouse theater. At the time, they were a ten-person group with three guitarists, bass, drums, trumpet and four keyboard players, and near the end of the first song their instruments tripped the circuit breaker for the room, turning off the instruments and all the lights aside from the emergency exits. The group finished the song with drum and trumpet, with the audience singing along.

After the power got turned back on, they started their next song - and the circuit tripped again. There was a brief pause while they talked to the manager about how to keep the show going, and they ultimately decided with the crowd’s approval to turn off the air conditioner (in July, mind you) and almost all of the lights. Before they started up again, the singer said to the crowd; “We can play just fine in total darkness. The question is… can you ROCK in total darkness?”

Turned out we could and the rest of the show went off without a hitch.

67

Two from different sides:

Drive-By Truckers show. Snowing, as usual. Opening band didn’t make it over the pass. Show was to start at 7:30. A woman comes on stage and says the opening band didn’t make it. Truckers come out and play for maybe 3 hours, solid. Not a break, not a hesitation, nothing. Just Rock The Fucking Room all night. Awesome.

Saw Shawn Colvin (same room as the Trucker show) and she was fixated on Brittney Spears. She would play a song, then go on to slag her for a few minutes before launching into the next song. Over and over. And this wasn’t long after Colvin won the Song of the year or whatever for Sonny Came Home. What the fuck was her problem with some teeny-bopper singer?? I came to the conclusion she was seriously Cray-Cray.

That was great. I’ve never seen it either.

68

When I saw P&T, there were a piano and stand-up bass playing as the crowd was coming in and getting seated. And I think there was a card displayed on the stage inviting people to come up and examine some of the props for the show. I recognized Penn playing the bass, but I don’t know if anyone else did. He was wearing a long wig, as I recall. And I don’t remember if he segued straight into the magic show, or if he went offstage to change.

I can only think of two odd concert occurrences.

Not long after I moved to Boston, I went to a Moxy Früvous concert at the Paradise. (A few years later, Moby would be assaulted outside that very club.) I was on the second floor, right at the rail. It was a great concert, but during the whole show there was a woman down on the main floor, stage right, that I could not take my eyes off of. I would have loved to have talked to her, but I just couldn’t think of anything to say. I was mentally kicking myself the whole way home. I made a promise to myself that if a situation like that ever came up again, I would say something, anything.

About a month later, was checking the website of a folk singer I liked, John Wesley Harding, and saw that he was giving a concert in Wellesley. It was on the Wellesley College campus, in fact. I got there, and it turned out it was in the front room of a sorority house. They’d moved the furniture out of the front room and set up an amp and mic stand at one end, and folks were just sitting on the floor. The opener was Ellis Paul, who just stood in the middle of the room singing and playing his acoustic guitar. Between sets, I was chatting with some of the people I was sitting near, and got to talking about other concerts we’d been to. I mentioned the concert at the Paradise and someone I hadn’t noticed before said “I was at that show.” It was the same woman.

Of course, the most amazing thing I ever saw at a concert was when I went to see Barenaked Ladies. The show started on time. I found out later that it was simulcast on pay-per-view.

69

I recognized Penn as the bass player when I saw them at the Rio in 2014, though I’m not sure whether or not I’d read about it beforehand.

After the show, the two of them were hanging out in the exit hallway and I got to take a selfie with Teller, who insisted on taking the picture because he claimed he was “the world champion of selfies”. Hearing him actually talk was a little surreal.

70

Shit, too many to relate. Here are two:

Waren Zevon, werewolves of london album had just come out. At CU Boulder circa 1978. He was so drunk and/or high. Couldn’t stand up. Great show. People in the audience were making fun of guitar great Waddy Watchel for being a long haired hippy. Waren stands up, swaying like in the middle of an earthquake. “Shit, I though Colorado people were mellow. Smoke a joint. Have some quaaludes. Here have some of mine” and tossed a handful of pills in the the audience.

Dead Kennedy’s 1982? 1984? Happened more than once. At the Elite Club (the old Filmore West), frontman Jello Biafra gets stripped in front of the crowd. It happens at a few of their shows. He keeps performing and singing. He also typically stage dives into the crowd, who push him up with their hands, while he continues to sing and the roadies kinda reel him in like a fish with the mic chord. Of course, he’s doing this buck naked more than once during the end of the show.

71

One of those things that most people don’t know but it’s not any big secret (I guess you’d call it trivia) is that Teller talks all the time. It’s only his on stage persona that’s silent. You can go watch any interview with P&T and hear him talk. He even had a recurring role, as Amy’s [not silent] dad, on Big Bang Theory.

72

And then what happened? Don’t leave us hanging, man!

73

We talked a bit and I asked for her phone number. Went on a few dates, but then she ended it. So, not the perfect end to the story.

74

Well, you kept your promise to yourself. I am content. :wink:

75

I went to see a (locally, maybe nationally also) well known comedian who is a friend of a friend. My friend got a group of 15-20 people together, got us tickets and a big table. We met the comedian before the show and chatted with him. At one point he asked me to “help him out” with his act. He told me the start of a story, and asked me to send him a rum&coke via our waitress when he started that story.

So, I did. He’s going along with this story and the waitress brings him the drink. He acts very confused, asks the waitress “who?”, looks out into the crowd, eventually asks the light guy to put a light on our table. Then he goes apeshit on me. Tells everyone I tried to buy him a drink earlier and said I was a pervert and a chubby chaser to boot (part of his act is he’s fat). Used language that even way back then was beginning to be frowned on, calling me a f#gg*t, etc.

Eventually he acts like he might just leave the stage, he’s so pissed off. Then he gets a waitress’s attention and buys drinks for our whole table, saying he’ll only feel safe if we’re all drunk. For the rest of his act he occasionally comes back to our “pervert table”, heckles us, and buys another round.

After the show, an older guy in a suit comes up and he gets in my face! He says he knows what we were up to and he should call the cops. Turns out long story made short, he owns the venue. The comedian was paid a percentage of sales, but thought the room held many more. The owner made a judgement call and set it up in a configuration holding far fewer people so the room would look full. Turns out tickets sold out and the comedian felt cheated, so he was “stealing” drinks (he never paid his tab, was actually out the door as soon as he left the stage).

76

What a bizarre story. What did the owner think you guys were “up to”, exactly? Giving the comedian an excuse to order several rounds of drinks?

And how did it play out when the comedian went ‘apeshit’ on you-- did the crowd think it was a joke, or that the comedian was actually angry, and it wasn’t part of the act? Did you feel blindsided by it?

Since you were a friend of a friend to this comedian, was there any followup later, like the comedian apologizing through your mutual friend to have set you up?

77

The only thing I can think of is that the owner figured out (or assumed) that the act knew Kayaker and his friends and, being angry about the less than full house, put Kayaker’s drinks on his tab with the intention of Jake and Elwooding out of there as soon as the show was over.

But part of me also wonders if the owner knew this would happen ahead of time. Like if the comedian had a reputation for doing it or the owner and the comedian had previous issues. But then the question is, why let him book the venue in the first place?

78

Yes, he thought we all knew that we were going to drink free.

I felt totally blindsided, because I was. The audience cracked up. The things he was saying were funny, plus I was sitting there mouth agape, totally embarrassed. Then, he kept coming back to us. If a joke didn’t get the response he expected, he’d blame it on the pervert table throwing off his timing, and start up on us again.

Nope, but he died a short time later. He wasn’t old.

79

I like the subtle implication here that kayaker is not to be fucked with.

80

It was a tragic kayaking accident.