time for the backstage pass

[pounce]

they say a gentleman never tells tales, but that hasn't stopped us yet. this is especially true backstage, where there sometimes is a better show than whatever the hell was happening on stage. some of these stories have been known to involve chemicals, questionable women, bunk sock, catering mishaps, and spinal tap moments. the best of these stories are told first hand by the folks who were there. this is the place for those stories.

so we now all have a backstage pass to see the fun in action, via this forum. gentleman, start your bullshit. it's time for the best of backstage stories.

[QweziRider]

What the hell, may as well throw out my first post as a back stage story.

I played with a band for several years headed by a lesbian. Neither here nor there in the scheme of life, but it did make for some interesting show locations from time to time. Being one of three other members who were relatively boring middle of the road hetero white guys in their 30's made us stick out like sore thumbs on some dates. Especially the several Gay Pride events we played over the years. Again, it all means little to me more than just another good excuse to play real loud through lots of speakers on a really big stage and play "rock star" for a little while.

A few years back at a Pride show, we whipped out one tune called "Naked Underneath My Clothes". Pretty innocent tune about baring one's soul and having nothing to do with nudity. During a middle section where we three vamped and the singer did her little crowd interaction thingy, some very tall and lovely blonde gal down front started some kind of dance thing that involved teasing the singer and starting to slowly strip. Now, I usually play without my glasses on (so as to not be dorky) and I hate contacts, so I see little more than a sexy shape doing her thing. Besides, I gotta keep playing and be professional, right?

She shimmies and grinds all the way (over the course of a couple minutes) to having removed her shirt (no bra....and quite well put together might I add) and dropped her pants to reveal a wonderfully shaped tush in a thong. Can't say I ever expected this to happen, but I'll take it, smile, and pocket another rock and roll war story. Song continues, she re-dreses, show goes on.

Now we get back stage.

The two other guys and I were just hanging while the singer worked whoever had gathered backstage. Completely out of surprise and coming out of nowhere was our lovely-well-over-6-foot-tall dancer from earlier, walking straight to us guys like she had a mission. Walks straight up to me before I can assess the situation, plants a big sloppy open mouth kiss on my cheek, rubbing me raw with 5 o'clock shadow, and enthusiatically states (in a nice baritone voice), "You guys were great!"

NTTAWWT, but damn, warn me before doing that, dammit! Twisted

[Mixerpuppet]

I had to read that twice....

at first I thought you said she had the 5'O clock shadow...

I reached for my glasses and realized I'd rather be a dork...

Thanks for sharing...

I always wanted to join a lesbian band but Im too hairy in a dress...

[QweziRider]

I think I'll stick to wearing the glasses too.

[ggunn]

I had to read that twice....

at first I thought you said she had the 5'O clock shadow...



Read it again; that's what he said. She was a "she".

[dwoz]

Well...this is probably more of a brag than a story...



...but I've played lucille.


dwoz

[dnafe]

and you're wife didn't say anything

:D

[bunnerabb]

I was on site crew for Us festival, '83 for Showlites, Inc. in '83.

(hint: All of Bowie's showchanger bars that worked, I wired.)

anyhoo, i was scheduled for site crew for heavy metal day.

Van Halen arrives in three limos.

the first one, Eddie and Mike got out, happy and bouncy.

the second one, Alex gets out.. he seems to be feelin' good.

The third one pulls up, two of the nastiest, leather clad road Ednas you ever saw get out, and then a couple of roadies come up to retrieve Dave from his limo and carry him up the ramp, shitfaced and hollering, for a gig that was paying 1,000,000.00.

Dave showed up shitfaced for a gig that payed 1,000,000.00.

If you watch the video, he goes off, S/R, into the VIP seats where I was monitoring the rig, on the third tune, and returns 10 sec later.

He harfed up major all over the ground between the stage and the VIP seats, ran back, and never missed a note.

That rocked.

[Senap]

American band. Almost sold out show. After the show they start partying. All is good.

1 AM we tell them that we have to clean up and we want them to leave the dressing rooms and continue the bruhaha elsewhere.

Turns out they don't have a hotel room and is staying in the bus.

So the band and a couple of local skanks head for the bus.

We wrap things up and are ready to leave.

Suddenly the doorbell rings. The guitar player and the singer asks if they can borrow the shower really fast.

Our angry Irish barman says "why"

"eehh... well.. I... ehh... shat myself..." says singer.

Irish barman: "What? That's gonna take like 20 minutes! No way!"

"Please... you never shat yourself? Come on..."

Irish barman: "I have, when I was 5"

Then he just closed the door and we went home.

I felt really bad for the guy. Imagine the romantic vibe in the bus that night. I always wondered if the skanks stayed.....

Poor guy.

[graymc]

Well...this is probably more of a brag than a story...



...but I've played lucille.


dwoz

Dude, I've gotta hear details on that one. BB is one of my favs. Is that thing as hard to play as it looks with those heavy strings and high action?

[dwoz]

Dude, I've gotta hear details on that one. BB is one of my favs. Is that thing as hard to play as it looks with those heavy strings and high action?

Well...its been awhile, but as I recall the action and setup were fairly "normal". Nothing that stood out as being whacked or weird, anyway, or I'd have remembered it. If memory serves, the one I handled was actually "lucille #5", due to numbers 1 through 4 having been stolen at various times.

Essentially, I was working a stage where BB was playing, and he was set up right on the lip of the proscenium. When he left the stage and the band was playing an outro shuffle, the front row got a little funky, and several guys started to come up on stage. I ran out and retrieved the guitar and the U87, The mic went in my pocket, but there really was no place to safely put down the guitar for a bit, so I just held on to it. When the encore finished and the house lights came up, I was able to put it back down...in the interim, I just noodled around with it for a bit.

dwoz

[Comte de St Germain]

Famous songwriter, recently lost a battle with cancer.

At one point he had given up drinking and drugging and decided that middle age women giving him blow jobs was a nice replacement. I stumbled into the dressing room, witnessed it, got the full explanation and proceeded to let the women in line know it was OK for second best. erm.


80s pop band with a coupla hits plays town.

I'm getting drunk with the crew on the bus and there's a rap on the door. The driver insists that i handle it since it one of our local sheriffs (BTW we were in city limits not in the county). So i open the door from the top of the steps, he asks me if I had seen his daughter; I plainly say no and as i close the door I look at the rear view mirror and see the back of the bus and his daughter getting a workout. Needless to say, I kept my mouth shut, got the hell out of there and watched from the sidelines as he stormed his way in to find his daughter playing hot dog and buns with the guitarist.


That's enough sex talk.


Foghat has the heaviest equipment of all bands. They also tip in fattys.

Then there was that time I climbed through the ceiling of the managers office to get paid. He was very surprised when i dropped onto his desk from above as he was doing a couple rails and planning how to rip us off.