Funniest thing to happen at your gig

koneguitarist

Exactly what I say, what's happened at your gig that has literally had the band or audience laughing so much That it's stuck in your memory for life?

Cirrus

Once did a non stop 2 1/2 hour set which was a bit gruelling. Towards the end we did "Another Brick in the Wall", and as we played the intro our singer disappeared, only to emerge back on stage wearing my 2x12 cab's soft cover - head out the top handle hole, arms out the side holes.

He wanted to look more like a brick.

viz

Our bassist was so drunk he had to sit down on the floor, but accidentally sat down on the drumkit.

EricTheWeary

There are two that come to mind, both of which I've shared before I'm sure:

- quite a long time ago now playing a biker gig thing where there were also exotic dancers on the bill. One of them flashed me from the side of the stage whilst we were playing and ( not really sure why) I developed a fit of hysterics for what would have been for no apparent reason to the audience or rest of the band.

- playing a pub that had a stage but quite a low ceiling. So, in effect the ceiling was about a foot above our heads. No great problem until our singer decided to leap off the stage.He banged his head on the ceiling, knocking himself unconscious.Mixture of confusion follwed by laughter. Fairly sure the audience thought our singer lying prostrate in the middle of the dance floor during Too Much Too Young was somehow part of the act.He recovered quite quickly BTW! 
X_X

ElectroDan

Played a gig at a club where this 80 odd year old lady was notorious for getting up and shaking maracas (that is not a euphemism in any way).

This one day she's standing there shaking away happily, but the old elastic in her bloomers is letting them gradually slip further down her legs. She was the last to notice of course and rather than stop and pull her huge granny pants back up, she tries using one hand to do that while still shaking the maracas in the other.

All the audience and my band mates were pissing themselves, but I nearly laughed myself inside out.

not_the_dj

Gig on the back of a lorry in a pub car park (Sunday afternoon family enterainment event).

Playing Robbie Williams "Let Me Entertain You" (I have no shame) and the guy singing (not our regular singer but a mate who played in another band that day and knew the lyrics) decides to jump in the air do the splits...all  very rock and roll.

His ankle healed OK and we laugh about it now.

 

RocknRollDave

Probably not that funny in the retelling but:


Played a gig where the food was downstairs from the room we were playing in, which meant leaving the gear unattended for a few minutes...never good, but when you have travelled to a beautiful coastal town only to find the entire wedding party is from Chelmsley Wood (in Birmingham..and, dare I say it, a shithole), you fear the worst.
We dash back up to the room when we hear our drummer's kit being pummeled for all it's worth and some idiot hollering away into the (thankfully muted) mics and banging Stu's tambourine.
So of course, you pysche yourself up to deliver a bollocking.....only to find THE BRIDE sat at the drumkit, pissed off her head.
Lovely.


Whilst waiting to go on for our second set, we witnessed a couple having a full on "i think they're splitting up in front of our eyes" argument, just a little bit too close to us so that we caught every word.
Our singer repeated one of the phrases from the argument verbatim during our set - A totally inocuous sentence that would have meant nothing to anyone in the crowd (save for the arguing couple) but as a band we just dissolved into a mess of hysterics.


Our most oft- repeated story though is when we were stopping over in Cumbria after a gig and our dep singer got very drunk after the show on free booze, encouraging our young and impressionable bassist at the time to do the same.
We all shared a cheapo motel room, two of us in the bed (I took a sleeping bag, I swear!) and two on the sofa bed and floor.
I was awoken in the night by the sound of what I thought was running water, but was in fact our very drunk bassist, stood at the foot of the bed, urinating on myself and our drummer, having mistaken it for the bathroom.
Having twigged what was going on a split second before myself, our drummer unleashed the full fury of the Queen's English, and thinking that was that, I tried my best to get back to sleep....Only to spend half the night listening to our drummer chasing him up and down corridors trying to get him to come back into the room, as he was sleepwalking around in his sodden underpants.
Poor chap didn't even know what he'd done the next morning, and only believed we weren't winding him up when he felt the front of his wet pants and saw the wet patch on the bed....

How we laughed................eventually.

EricTheWeary

yes, the 'Wood is a shit hole.

It was (I think still is) the largest council estate in Europe. There is a book somewhere about the history of the estate and the idealised vision the planners and architects had for it. The history of council planning being rife with mistakes that seem obvious in hindsight (the tower blocks of Glasgow built to enable chic Italian style city life, for example. Or, as I sit here in West Brom pretty much anything within walking distance).

But, I am certainly put off the idea of a wedding band for life now by the anecdotes, thanks Dave!    
|)

not_the_dj

EricTheWeary said:

But, I am certainly put off the idea of a wedding band for life now by the anecdotes, thanks Dave!    
|)

The key is not to offer the band a free bar.

viz

Told this before but many years ago I was playing in a duo called Double Whammy, with Mike_Strat formerly of these parts; once during a gig we were playing some Van Halen and Steve Vai ditties, and a guy at the front pulled out a gun and shouted "Stop playing that effing sh*t or I'll kill you", so Mike leant forward called out "Do you like UB40?" to which he said yes, so we played five UB40 numbers in a row. How we roared as we hurriedly drive away from the gig, our legs shaking. Oh, this was in South Africa btw.

RocknRollDave

not_the_dj said:

EricTheWeary said:

But, I am certainly put off the idea of a wedding band for life now by the anecdotes, thanks Dave!    
|)

The key is not to offer the band a free bar.

Indeed. Feed them, and give them soft drinks and you'll have them eating out of your hand.

Although I would emphasise the fact that the two folks who got drunk (not I, said the wolf - I had to drive to the accomodation!) did so AFTER we had finished the set and packed up - they didn't play whilst drunk, as we would never tolerate that.

RocknRollDave

Oh and don't share a room with anyone who thinks you look like a toilet.

Jalapeno

Happened twice now .....

Women pole-dancing with Marquee tent-poles - both times we were definitely 2nd fiddle to the floorshow - could have put on an iPod until the ladies in question fell over/passed out/threw up ....

koneguitarist

I have been flashed onstage loads of times, but mainly whenever I have played in Bridport on south coast

Not sure why, never get flashed at local gigs?.

mudslide73

Had a few "drummer falling off stool" episodes with the school band. Very much like Tommy Cooper falling into the curtains.

A few bands ago I had some pissed old woman feeling my arse while playing the solo to All Right Now.. managed not to ruin it completely. She couldn't understand why I was so annoyed... everyone else in the band of course found this hilarious.

On friday our singer missed the 3rd verse on the Buzzcocks'"Ever fallen in love" and headbutted his microphone in the rush to turn back around... more the look on his face than anything.

More bizarre than funny.. we had an Elvis impersonator open for us at a posh wedding a few years ago.. he was the most nervous I've ever seen anyone prior to going on. Petrified he was... he literally had to have his hand held before he'd perform.

viz

We used to play every Sunday night in a lesbian bar in South Africa, and it used to get quite fruity. Once a couple of the bar ladies got onto the bar and started acting out some simulated sex, then one of them lowered herself onto a candle. Unfortunately, the candle was lit, initially anyway.

John_BlackWolf

5 people in full body/head furry pig and wolf costumes walk into the room and start moshing out.

flatout

I've collected a few ridiculous gig - gems over the years. A particular favourite was 20 years ago, when a band I was in landed a village fete. (it was about as good as it got at the time…..) You can imagine the combination of enthusiastic young soul covers band and the mostly elderly and bemused attendees (couldn't really call them an audience). Launched into 'I Can't Stand The Rain' just as an old dear led a donkey across the 'stage'. Our rock n roll dream died…..

Monkeybone

koneguitarist;213583" said:

I have been flashed onstage loads of times, but mainly whenever I have played in Bridport on south coastNot sure why, never get flashed at local gigs?.

Whereabouts in Bridport? Just so we can *ahem* "avoid" there...

:P

Rocker

It was around 1978, my guitar was a 1970s Fender Strat [just about the worst pile of firewood ever cut into a guitar shape] and one that never stayed in tune for more than half a song.  Anyway an oldish man [he was always asked to sing a song or two especially when the Guinness kicked in] was holding the mike and waiting for us to start.  As usual I was struggling to tune the Strat and played the F major chord to check the tuning.  The man took that sound as his key - it was a fair few notes too high for him!!!!  Even writing this the memory makes me laugh.  He manfully tried to keep going but the veins stood out on his neck with the effort.  I was afraid that he was going to drop dead so we finished the song after a verse and chorus or thereabouts, then got him going on another song in a key more suited to him.  I apologized to him after the gig but he did not mind.  We had a good laugh afterwards.  It made me determined to get a better guitar, which I did.  Never had much time for '70s Strats......

koneguitarist

Monkeybone said:

koneguitarist;213583" said:

I have been flashed onstage loads of times, but mainly whenever I have played in Bridport on south coastNot sure why, never get flashed at local gigs?.

Whereabouts in Bridport? Just so we can *ahem* "avoid" there...

:P

It was almost always in the Ropemakers, but also been flashed in the royal oak opposite, plus the Hope and anchor, but you don't really want to be flashed in there !