Strangest place you ever gigged.

[Aardvark]

Player or Tech gig.

Something you were paid for...freebies do not count. Feel free to expand on the surrounding stories related to said location.


I will start with a FOH job in Bosnia, right after the Dayton accord. We were on a Canadian Military base doing the 'Bob Hope' thing and were flown over in the Prime Minister's Airbus...set up to seat fifty-four and the rest of it cargo hold.

In Zygon, our forward base of the 'pointy end of the stick', we set up outside for two shows that catered to all of the NATO troops in theatre. While running line checks, a massive Sea King helicopter decided to land in the unmarked but landmine freed farmer's field astride my perch. It seems that a number of the brass refused to make the long bus rides many of the troops took to the show and chose the quicker air route.

Large helicopters, dusty fields and mixing desks to not a good mixture make and I went nuts getting everything covered as the Sea King landed some twenty meters away. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

After surveying the damage to the stage tarps and mercifully discovering my kit was still working I went straight to the C.O. all fired up about another potential 'copter incident.

The C.O. was not much older than me and we had hit it off when he concluded the day prior that I was likely wired a smidge oddly. Upon arrival, I was introduced to the company go-kart, which was built by the transport maintenance guys out of a some kind of rooftop engine from a military vehicle. The thing went like snot and had Flintstone style footpads as brakes.

I hopped in it and went racing around the road that surrounded the camp, several times coming close to tipping it. The thing fucking rocked!!

On my second loop, I was figuring out what it could do when I zipped by the C.O. who was now observing my attempt at a new course record. I saluted him and he was laughing at me. By the third time around, I had nailed it and was blasting around the camp like mad in this very noisy rig.

When the 'Pit Crew' called me in the C.O was standing there along side a now appreciable crowd of soldiers, most of them recently disbanded Airborne boys. It was quickly explained to me that the traffic in the compound was one way only and I was going the wrong way. Next, I was told that there was a forty-kph limit on the base and I was probably doing 75 or 80. Finally, the lads told me that none of them had ever come close to lap times like mine because they knew there was no way that the brakes worked at those speeds going into those corners!

Hehehehe...

I sat with the C.O. at dinner that night; he had some good stories about Srebrenica just up the road.


So...I get permission from the C.O. to explain to the visiting brass that another 'copter landing or take-off from that field could ruin the show by wrecking the gear. They were good about it and made different landing area arrangements.

Our second last day at the camp had me in the mess along side a sapper. I asked him what his main gig was on this mission.

"Blowing up stuff."

We had a long chat about his gig. He told me they were going out in the morning to the munitions disposal area a few kilometers away.

"Can I come along while you blow stuff up?"

"Civilians are not allowed, unless the C.O. gives his blessing."

The next morning three of us tagged along as the boys drove out to the cordoned off mountainside used by NATO in the act of blowing up stuff that blows up. After getting to the security checkpoint, we hiked a kilometer up the road to find lots of nasty things awaiting their destruction. Every kind of landmine you could imagine, several types of bouncing betties, claymores…there were 105 mm shells, anti-tank mines and rockets…you name it…all laid out along the road, some under blast blankets, others just sitting there.

We had our helmets and flak jackets as is required and tramped across the meadow to watch the sappers wire up some c4 against some rocket shells. Then we went back to the roadside, a few hundred meters away, and got inside an APC. I had ear protection with me and aided it with some blast phones inside the APC.

The kick drum of all hell nearly knocked my heart off beat it was so powerful. I remember wondering how on earth soldiers in the field could survive the sheer terror of explosions like this…and I was safe from harm’s way…not laying on a trench fifty feet away!


There were some other interesting moments on that gig but perhaps another time. Next up I have a story about playing Ceausescu's Bosendorfer...in the Palace of Parliament...in this rather ostentatious setting!



Cheers,
Aardvark

[Swafford]

Gosh that would have been the wedding of the guy who puts out our records. It was a Baptist retreat in rural Tennessee. Seems his bride-to-be was raised by very strict god fearng Baptists. No liquor and supposedly no dancing. Her families one compromise to her husband-to-be was allowing music. We played acoustic in a corner of the hall surrounded on three sides by windows with a look over the Clinch River. The bride and groom broke ranks with the rules and danced a pretty waltz (to Jimmy Rodgers - Waiting For A Train) with horrified looks around the hall - then all hell broke loose when a bunch of elderly people got up and started dancing too. It was the most subversive thing I'd ever been a part of and I've done some pretty damn subversive things.

[blackieC]

It was the most subversive thing I'd ever been a part of and I've done some pretty damn subversive things.

Well good on ya'

Getting Baptists to dance is a grand acheivement indeed.


Why do you always take two Baptists fishing?





Because if you only take one they'll drink all your beer.





And...


Player or Tech gig.

Yada-yada, blah-blah-blee...




Does anybody else feel like they have just entered a dick measuring contest with John Holmes?

[QweziRider]

Player gig - one of those churches in eastern Kentucky where they break out the rattle snakes. 'Nuff said.

[jerryskid]

Well good on ya'

Getting Baptists to dance is a grand acheivement indeed.


Why do you always take two Baptists fishing?





Because if you only take one they'll drink all your beer.





And...







Does anybody else feel like they have just entered a dick measuring contest with John Holmes?












A Baptist minister and his choir director are having an affair....
Every day they meet in the church basement for their trist....
"Hey honey," said the choir director, "lets do it standing up. "
"No way !!!" said the minister.


























"If someone walks in they'll think we're dancing !!!!"

[omikl]

Well, the place wasn't that weird, but the atmosphere and overall experience was bizzare.

I was playing guitar with my buddy Mark's "Whoever shows up & plays" blues band in a Vodka bar called "Absolut Chemistry" for fifteen bucks a head and free beer. However this was about four years ago and the World Cup was on, Japan were playing, oh God alone know who, they had a projection TV screen set up behind us with the sound off while we were playing and the audience consisted almost entirely of Japanese students who were applauding politey at the end of each song, even for some of the solos, and cheering louder at the game.

Very, very strange experience.

Afterthe first set we took an hour's break so the game could finish.

[pounce]

i actually ran sound at a large baptist church last friday. for me, that is the most unexpected place i could have been.

i was very surprised that the band was very good. and since it was the first event at in this room with a new sound system installed that morning they wanted an experienced sound guy to help them out in their first go around with the system. everyone was super nice to me, and the college aged kids near the foh were overheard saying that i did more in 30 seconds with that system than they heard other sound guys do with the other systems ever. i left feeling real good about the gig because it went especially well and the band was happy. everyone left with smiles. it was actually my favorite gig last week. otherwise, at the other theatres, i've been doing more business theatre and other more boring gigs that don't challenge me as much as a proper band.

anyhow, me in a baptist church is a very funny fit.


ps: their previous soundguy, who i recommended to them, is a jewish guy who left when they were pressuring him to become a member of thier flock. so they have went from a jew to an atheist at the soundboard. ironic i guess, but they wisely didn't pressure me to join their church.

[jerryskid]

I bet as soon as you left ...someone went in with a wax pencil and marked where everything was, so it will sound good the next time.....I've seen it done....:lol:

[bunnerabb]

I bet as soon as you left ...someone went in with a wax pencil and marked where everything was, so it will sound good the next time.....I've seen it done....:lol:

Actual convo:

"Where do you usually set the monitor levels on the channels?"

"Um.. wherever the artist is comfortable with that level and they don't feed back?"

[imagineaudio]

Hmm....

I played a gig at a rehab center. The singers father had pretty much been locked up all his life for crack and whatnot. Well, he finally got out of jail and we all got to meet him, he was a little off, but seemed like a nice enough guy. Well, about 3 months later he was in trouble again and assigned to a drug rehab facility.

He pulls some strings and gets us the gig. It was strange, we played in the cafeteria. We didn't really have much to play, as we were in an original band, so we goofed around jamming, playing some covers and telling jokes. Sometime into the set a meth-head comes up, ya know the look I'm talking about, and asks if she could sing a song. What the hell, right, so we go into some Jewel song. She sang it perfectly and had such a crazy good voice... We were all in shock. How could that voice come from that skinny, looking death in the face body?


Well a few tunes later and we are really running out of things to play but we're having a good time. So, not even thinking of it, I start into the riff from Cream's Cocaine. Brilliant. At a rehab facility. And the rest of the band followed me right into a 15 minute version of it.

[Swafford]

That reminds me of the time I played a festival in Worcester Ma. 15 or so years ago. Turns out it was sponsored by AA and NA. It was a three day affair, and the first night we were playing guitars around the campfire, swopping songs and taking requests. Someone turned to me and asked me where I went to meeting. I replied "Don't go to meeting, I'm neither an alcoholic nor a drug addict". She look sincere and replied, "That's to bad". Uh, I thought, I'll need to turn that one around in my head a bunch.

[Spock]

Hard to come up with something good, Aardy had and real good one as well everyone else.

OK, tech gig. Supllied the sound and setup for a wedding reception. Outside, under a tent, right next to 2400 foot grass runway. A friend of the Groom was a radio guy from FL, so he did and the DJ work.

The highlight of the day was when Julie C., a 747 captian and flies airshows on the weekend, came screaming down runway about 10 feet off the ground. She couldn't make it to the wedding, so she put on a little show for us. If you know anything about airshows, this should have never happened, rules and all that. However, the FAA people that were part of the wedding party didn't complain.

[subvocal]

a barmitvah.(sp?)
The little ones smiled and flipped us off through the whole performance.

[clicktrack]

On tour in France & Germany with a Ukranian dance group.

It was a tour where, I was told that everything in every town we went was fully arranged. Gear was to be there, they just needed someone to help the band and mix them from town to town.

Being young and naive and happy to be asked to join the group, I didn't ask too many questions.

Ya know...questions like "just exactly what gear did you ask for?"

We hit 16 cities in three weeks.

Only 2 of them had any semblance of an audio system.

Oh, don't get me wrong...all of them had speakers...
some even had a mic or two...and in a couple towns...well lets just say power must've been a new invention by the way people stared at me when I asked....and then getting flack from the band leader who played his MIDI accordion through a Korg 01 workstation keyboard.

The worst was rolling into Negerville (yep...that IS the name...lucky me) and seeing the locals climb the lamp posts in the town...they were removing the speakers that served as announcement speakers in the square. THESE were going to be my "mains". Oh yea, baby...we be rocking tonight. *sigh*.

That "tour" certainly gave me some insight on the usefulness of riders.

[dnafe]

I guess there's some logic to hauling aroung 4 tons of PA and lighting...I just haven't figured it out yet...

:D

[dikledoux]

Swine Festival. Basile, Louisiana USA(?), 1984. They had a race riot in the middle of the dance the night before, and they had piglet-dressing races on stage during the breaks. Pigs poop. a Lot.

A LOT.


<shudder>


dik

[ggunn]

NYE party for the local Gay and Lesbian Association (NTTAWWT). Those people PAR-TAY. We kept to ourselves during the breaks, though.

[graveleye]

I played a balloon festival once, one where they have those mass ascentions where hundreds take off at the same time. We were actually playing when they all started to lift off and we couldnt help but gaze up at them, and the audience, like monkeys saw us looking up and turned around to look too. We lost our whole audience in just a few seconds - upstaged by a bunch of hot-air balloons!

Played for a Holiday Inn kitchen staff banquet once.. they asked us to play Purple Rain again... just one more time... so they could slow dance. Hey I was only 16 and they paid us $100.

A few weeks ago I played a solo acoustic set at a caver convention up on a mountaintop in North Georgia...that was pretty cool actually.

[Comte de St Germain]

Valdosta.

[graveleye]

Valdosta.
as in Valdosta Georgia?

I believe you got us all beat my poor friend.

[Comte de St Germain]

as in Valdosta Georgia?

I believe you got us all beat my poor friend.


So you know.

I knew one of you would.

I could share stories but I'm afraid there are too many.

[dnafe]

Just about every little town between North Bay and Sault Ste Marie in Ontario...don't know whether it's the water or the inbreeding but there are some strange gigs in that neck of the woods.

:Confused:

[Fulcrum]

I could share stories but I'm afraid there are too many.

Fulcrum pulls up a chair, sets his foo foo umbrella drink down in the arm rest drink cozy, and declaims

Prithee, I entreat you to continue;
indeed, for why else do we entertain
this thread of conversation on such matters?
Yea, and furthermore most verily,
pray dish thy dirt.

[graveleye]

So you know.

I knew one of you would.

I could share stories but I'm afraid there are too many.

Lets just say that...things are different there.

That is all.

[Tim Halligan]

Are we accepting EFP/ENG type gigs in here...or is this strictly music only?


Cheers,
Tim

[Comte de St Germain]

Fulcrum pulls up a chair, sets his foo foo umbrella drink down in the arm rest drink cozy, and declaims

Prithee, I entreat you to continue;
indeed, for why else do we entertain
this thread of conversation on such matters?
Yea, and furthermore most verily,
pray dish thy dirt.



Since you asked.

I will start with experience number one and follow with the most recent since weeding thine memory for the best is impossible.

Experience 1:

Private gig organsised to be a 'freak out party" of some sort since the band I was in was a heavy psychadelic Bsurfers/stooges/pinkfloyd and no venues were into having us.

It was a huge Antebellum Mansion with a private chapel in the back yard and also a large ballroom which enclosed a perfectly manicured English style garden where the guests for the party staged before the gig. The sweet scent of Tea Olives and Confederate Jasmine filled the air.
After soundcheck we were allowed to tour the house, hang in the living room and drink tea with the caretaker and some of the organisers. It was a wonderful scene, an indie band being treated like kings, not unlike the opening sequence of 200 maniacs.
We began our first set, it went well, there were girls undressing, people covered in costumes, food and most of them exchanging long passionate kissses in a fashion that would make Eyes Wide Shut look like a kids show on Noggin.
I was drinking bourbon and eating chocolate covered strawberries with aplomb; after all this was what one does at a mansion in south Georgia.
Nothing odd to see so far, just the usual group love sort of thing that goes on whilst copious amounts of love drugs are incorporated into a private party where "everyone shares" the love...
After a wonderful set break, a visit to the fragrant garden and a peek into some strange love games in the Chapel, i found myself back on stage, rolling into the first riff of the set my guitar began to feel like rubber, the strings as taught as a 20 year Amsterdam veteran of the the district and the whole scene began to turn as vivid as anything found in my collection of baubles. The effects of Ergot, Pscybin and other otherworldly things are familiar to me but this was much more, much more potent and poingnant.
At some points of the evening i witnessed many acts of love, blank stares, slow head turns and glorious bursts of color, i was also visited by two representatives from the Earth Coincidence Control Office (ECCO-see scientist John Lilly) who informed me of the man who helped synthesize the mixture that brought them to me.
It was a chemist, who was also a part time caretaker and made a wonderful cup of tea. I enjoyed the tea so much, I drank more than i should have, my memory painting a picture of how his eyebrows raised when i asked for another cup after enjoying my second.
After the ceiling of the grand ballroom closed up (undissolved) i came back to what was one of the most bizzarre sets I've ever played in my life, all of us were in total mind meld mode and the crowd was now writhing in unison with our music. No, I just wasn't imagining this, it was part of the plan, the precursor of what would come later, most of which i have flashbulb memories of and of such nature that a gentleman would not share even around a poker table.
Much of the post show evening was spent exploring the garden, the nymphs within and discussing the connection of everything. This was a glorious initiation into a seedy and dark town, filled with the enlightened and with rednecks. A place that I will always refer to as "the broken window." This night was the last innocent night we were to spend there, a consolation for the pain that was to come on subsequent visits and a primer for the job we were set up to do within those visits; open the minds of the Valdostans who were not a part of ECCO.


The most recent visit:

An evening at a rock club, one where the crowd was rowdy, drunk, redneck to a fault and run by one of the coolest guys in town. He was there the first night but did not stay; I have a feeling that he would be in a different space if he had.
We played our normal two set freakout to the mixed crowd like every other time we came to town, wrapping u the night with a tribute to Syd Barrett, I was a bit drunk on muscadine wine and so was the rest of the crew so we opted to stay at Dale Cooper's residence (yes real name for you Twin Peaks fans). As Dale drove off we finished the loading of the van in the parking lot. As the lights went down inside, our friendly bar owner came out to say goodnight followed by his stunning fiance, actually breathtaking fiance. They began to talk, then yell, then get angry in such a way that we became very uncomfortable being there. He had just showed us his newly restored muscle car and we were now sitting in the van, hoping for a peaceful exit when she ran up to his car, yelled something we could not understand and threw a match into the gas tank. I've never thought about the odds of how things like this work but she had the worst of luck one could imagine, the car immediately burst into flames, burning her to a crisp, maiming her for life and sending all of us into rescue mode. This shit was going on right there, right in front of our eyes and now we were going to have to put back together whatever energy we had left and move on.
The scene was ugly, we gave depositions, we regret not stepping in, we realize that somehow we were invited to be there, to possibly do some good but had somehow failed and therefore we never went back there again. The pain was too great, the expectations were too much and we knew that there was never a visit to Valdosta without drama and freakishness and that we used up all of the good times on the first visit, we were now in the black lodge and the void was only getting darker, except for those pancakes. The last meal there was divine.


Have a wonderful post-breakfast, pre-lunch,

[graveleye]

hell all I remember from my gigs there is that I never knew before that girls sometimes chewed Redman.

[clicktrack]

Since you asked.

...

<lots of stuff shite that you only hear of in a David Cronenburg flick>

...


Have a wonderful post-breakfast, pre-lunch,



I have one word.





Just One word.





WOW.

[ggunn]

I have one word.





Just One word.





WOW.

I have two words:

Dear Penthouse... ;^)