Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

[davewerden]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

That's a very nice photo! (Good haircuts, too)

[uieuph]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

I played in the Burlington (Iowa) Municipal Band for a while. The city sits on the Mississippi, and the bandshell overlooked the river. Because of this, I swallowed a lot of bugs including mosquitos, gnats, mayflies, and others while taking in breaths between phrases. One time, though, I inhaled and brought in a June bug which is fairly large and prickly. I struggled through the piece, which had solos, playing and trying to clear my throat. Unfortunately and understandably, he kept kicking. Needless to say, it made things difficult. Finally, I ended up swallowing him because he wasn't coming up.

[Blatherings]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

Well...a percussion story and not a brass story. Was a band concert though, just a couple years ago; I was playing timpani. For some reason they had put the timpani way out front on the side, practically in the lap of the audience. I had a fold-up stand (learned THAT lesson) and in the middle of the piece the music folder comes sliding off the stand right onto the timpani. So I'm trying to see the music, play the part, put the folder back up on the stand, and frankly I'm making some pretty funny sounds because I'm literally playing "the music" since the folder was sitting on top of the timpani. I finally gave up, stopped playing and struggled to get the folder back on the stand, which it did not want to do. I probably missed a third of the piece fiddling with that thing.But I'm sure I provided a lot of "visual interest" to the audience. MA

[RobertD]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

OK, this story is a bit morbid but it's a true story.

During the '70s I was playing in an R&B band in bars and clubs in and around Newark, NJ. We were playing the last day of a weekend gig on a Sunday afternoon in the small back room of a club called "Whitey's Lounge" on West Runyon Street in Newark, just about half a block off Clinton Place. The room was packed and there was only one exit up by the bar on the opposite side of the room from the stage. During a set I heard a popping sound so I turned to check the settings on the Fender Pro-Reverb amp the singer was miked through. I figured it was the culprit because the singer always set the reverb too high and it would sometimes pop. Next thing I knew the guitar player grabbed me by the arm and was pulling me down to the stage floor. I hit the floor and when I looked around I noticed everyone in the room was on the floor, behind tables, anywhere they could find cover. The room had become eerily quiet.

The popping sound wasn't the Fender amp, it was a .45 the bartender had unloaded all around the room.

It seems the bartender had an argument with a patron and, unfortunately, the poor guy sitting next to that patron had chosen that moment to reach into the breast pocket of his jacket for a cigarette. The bartender apparently mistook this as the guy going for a gun, so he pulled the .45 out from under the bar and promptly shot the poor guy in the chest at very close range, likely killing him instantly. The bartender then proceeded to empty the .45 around the room, grazing another patron in the head and shooting a second in the hand. Another ricocheting .45 slug took two strings off of the guitar player's guitar and left a nice dent in the headstock. The guitar player was much taller than me. The stage was small and the headstock of his guitar was just a few inches above my head. I guess it's true what they say, a few inches can make all the difference. They certainly did in this case.

When the shooting stopped several patrons "subdued" the bartender and the police were called. We had other gigs booked and we were worried the police might shut the place down for the length of their investigation with our equipment locked inside, so we had to break down our equipment and get it out of there fast through the one exit which was now blocked by a corpse. So we very carefully carried our equipment out over the body of the poor guy whose only mistake had been to reach for a smoke at the wrong time, trying our best not to step in the puddle of blood surrounding him, doing our best not to look into his still open eyes at that final shocked expression on his face.

That's about the most bizarre gig story I have, and I hope it will always remains so.

[Euphoniumprincess]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

My first time ever playing in concert, I was about 12 years old. I didn't realize that when I had my baritone in my lap that I was pressing on my water keys. My entire skirt was soaked and we had to stand up at the end of the concert.

[PatRyan44]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

And of course there's the apocryphal story of the high school bass drummer who got four measures behind in a concert, and tried to catch up...

[RickF]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the church,
A few people were stirring,
For seats they did search.
Ok, so much for my attempt at poetry... This past Christmas Eve we had a brass quintet for the two services (7 PM and 9 PM). I also had a solo to play, "O Come, O Come Emanuel". My solo at 7 PM went pretty well, but because I couldn't hear the piano real well, I decided for the 9 o'clock service to just stand in place (from within the quintet) and play. The pianist/organist had played about 10 mins of prelude before the 7 PM service so I expected him to do the same for the 9 PM. Not so. All of a sudden he looked at me and mouthed, 'Ready?'. So I stood up, without changing to my music glasses, raised my stand and thought I was ready to play. After the 4 meas. intro, I started to play -- which was to be a bit of a fanfare before the hymn actually started. Well, I forgot that my lap cushion was still stuck in my bell. What a sound!! Or should I say NO SOUND!! Sheesh!! I was about 2 meas late for any sound to be heard. I really wanted to start over, but couldn't make eye contact with the accompanist. As there were several congregants not yet in their seats, I hope not everyone noticed.

Sure hope I don't ever do that again.

[mmo457]

Odd or Funny Things that Happened During a Gig

i was performing fantasy by philip spark for my senior solo with my highschools top band last year, and as i was playing my second vaulve slide must have been greasd too well, becuase i played a note and it shot out across the stage. We then had to stop, i had to walk over and pick up my slide ( which was magicly un dented and perfectly fine!) and then resume..very embarrasing

[handm24]

I had played trombone for the past five years but my freshman year during a marching band practice I took too many steps forward and ended up getting my horn slammed into my mouth by a flag. After we finished the movement, I ran off the field. Upon reaching the mirror in the bathroom I had found that my front tooth had about 1 cm totally knocked off and that my mouth was full of blood. To make things worse, during this time i had been wearing braces. So when i went to the orthodontist, the doctor told me that I was going to have to wear the braces for another 6 months. Fortunately I chose to switch to euph. One of the best decisions I have made so far!

[Eupher6]

Wow, hadn't seen this thread until now.

Karnival or Fasching in Germany is essentially the merrymaking before Lent hits. Lots of parades, lots of drinking, lots of tomfoolery.

I'm playing in an Army band in a small town in Germany (Bad Hersfeld, IIRC) and I'm marching in the front rank in the right file -- real close to the spectators.

One particularly well-oiled clown decided to drop an ear of corn down my bell while I was playing. Needless to say I was NOT happy about that, but no damage was done to me or the instrument. The ear of corn sustained permanent damage, I'm afraid.

[Davidus1]

Wow, hadn't seen this thread until now.

Karnival or Fasching in Germany is essentially the merrymaking before Lent hits. Lots of parades, lots of drinking, lots of tomfoolery.

I'm playing in an Army band in a small town in Germany (Bad Hersfeld, IIRC) and I'm marching in the front rank in the right file -- real close to the spectators.

One particularly well-oiled clown decided to drop an ear of corn down my bell while I was playing. Needless to say I was NOT happy about that, but no damage was done to me or the instrument. The ear of corn sustained permanent damage, I'm afraid.

I don't blame you there. I don't think I'd be happy either. What an awkward situation!

[MarChant]

I remember one performance where we did a marching show outside. Unfortunately, it was raining very hard. During our performance, all the Euphs flooded and we couldn't play a single note anymore. As we marched with shoulderbands attached, we couldn't tilt the instruments to empty the water. After the show, all our colleagues where astonished by the amount of water we poured out of our instruments.

[MarChant]

Back in High School, me and some friends went to go see another friend's High School Musical performance. It was not my school, but I knew some students that performed in the pit 'orchestra' (it was Les Miserables arranged for a small group). We went a little early, to chat a bit with our friends. So there was a short rehearsal before the actual performance. But...their trombone player didn't show up and turned out to be ill. I was the only other brass player present. At the time, I played trumpet and tuba, but had only basic knowledge of trombone positions, so I jokingly volunteered. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in the pit with a trombone (the trombone player had left his horn after the previous day's rehearsal), sight reading Les Mis...I like to tell myself I did a good job faking my way through that performance.

[dsurkin]

[snip]their trombone player didn't show up and turned out to be ill. I was the only other brass player present. At the time, I played trumpet and tuba, but had only basic knowledge of trombone positions, so I jokingly volunteered. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in the pit with a trombone (the trombone player had left his horn after the previous day's rehearsal), sight reading Les Mis...I like to tell myself I did a good job faking my way through that performance.

I have a similar story. 1972, during college. I went to see Jaki Byard. My friend Ken's band was opening the show. His band took the stage and his piano player didn't show. Ken saw me sitting in the audience and brought me to the stage. Luckily I was familiar enough with Ken's playing and he called songs that I knew that I was able to get through the set. As I was leaving the stage to go back to my seat, Mr. Byard very graciously complimented me on my playing. My date was impressed.

[ghmerrill]

... All the other players in the line followed me, which was fine until we ran head-long into another line of players who had turned the correct way and were not supposed to encounter anyone. ...

I've done the same thing, except ... In my high school (Oneonta, NY) we were extremely lucky to have a super band director for about four years. This was Bob (Robert T.) LeBlanc, who had just got his Master's degree from Eastman and taken this high school teaching gig. If you want to find out more about him, google for an interview that was done by the TUBA organization some years ago. After the high school gig he went on to become a faculty member at Ohio State, involved in marching band there, and head of low brass. We did all of our marching with fully memorized music and (on the football field) pretty complex patterns.

In my senior year, I was the drum major. Bob made that decision because (a) the guy who should have done it was the #1 baritone player and too valuable to lose from that position, and (b) I was a tenor saxophone player, and hardly essential in that role. So I got the white suit, the funny hat, and the baton.

At the end of our marching/playing half-time routine we would always turn, holding the formation we were in, and march down the field to form a "funnel" beginning at the goal posts for the returning players to run out of onto the field. For some reason on one occasion, I must have been counting wrong and managed to give the signal to form the funnel and halt at the 20 yd line instead of the goal posts. Being a highly trained marching machine at that point, everyone executed the manuever perfectly, without missing a step. And there we stood part way up the field. Realizing at that point my faux pax, I pretended that nothing was amiss, gave the appropriate instructions and signals to turn downfield in formation, and have the drums march us to the goal posts. I'm pretty sure it all looked like just another band pattern to most of the audience, but it was pretty embarrassing at the time and something I'll never forget. LeBlanc, of course, just laughed. At least we did manage not to crash into one another.