Kevin's Watch

Mr. Broken wrote:I watched a lead singer from another band yank the cable out of my brand new Sure Beta 87 mic without disconnecting it , and drop it into a box full of mic's so that he could use the mic he was used to working with, what he wasnt considering was that my mic is phantom powered, his Sm58 was not , and as soon as his mouth touched it he got nailed. Ive tried at times to see if I could make it happen again, never successfully but the one time I needed it to happen it did.

Poetic justice indeed.

I've been the opening act probably close to half the times we've performed. Being the opening act sucks because the crew/sound engineer doesn't take you as seriously so you often get a halfhearted attempt at a setup. Then there's the "No! Don't touch that! The guy from the real band has to have that set just so, leave it alone. Deal with it." Yeah, that's going to be a good show.

Whats the most F'd up thing youve ever had happen during a show, I had an over enthusiastic Megadeth fan punch me in the mouth during Symphony of Destruction.

I've had a lot of weird things happen on a gig:

1. A guy with a djembe walked in while we were playing once, and started playing with us...except he wasn't playing to out song at all.

2. My lead singer passed out, fell down, grabbed my pants and almost took them down with him.

3. A female lead singer yelled at me "it's in C!" while I was playing a C.

4). A friend of my brother-in-laws begged to come to a gig where we were opening for some signed acts; he showed up hours before us, then, when we got there, started yelling at us because we weren't wearing enough black. As the night wore on, we found out he told the other bands several lies, the biggest one being he was our manager.

5. Both Tom and I got into an accident on the way to a gig. Me, with a car I bought off him, and he, with a car he bought off me!

6. Some guy tried to walk off with Tom's guitar after a gig.

7. An opening act was sucking bad and losing our crowd. We asked them to finish their set, and they agreed to play one last song and get off the stage. They did as promised, sort of, by performing a horrible, fifteen minute long version of Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel'.

8. I did a Christmas party for my boss Rick who got several bands to volunteer, and even got a security guard, though we didn't think that would be neccessary. During our set, a drunk idiot took my wife's mic and started slurring obscenities into the crowd; the only thing I could make out was he was calling my band 'f@#*%ing christians". We called for security, but the guy never showed. Finally, Rick hauled the ass off. Later, we asked him where the security guard was. He told us the drunk was the sacurity guard.

9. We showed up for a youth group gig at a church in Lakeland that was a converted mall and was still onder the rebuild process. It was intended to be outdoors, but there were some rain clouds and we expressed our concern about them. The church guy actually questioned my faith and chastised me, saying "I have faith that it will NOT rain". So, guess what. It rained. Heh. Anyway, they decided to move things indoors, and we ended up carrying the stage pieces all around the mall, looking for outlets that were still hooked up. We literally went all through the mall before finding live outlets in the rear of the place, whan all they needed to do is bring the stages indoors and have one guy walk around and check the outlets.

10. We were booked to do 3 or 4 gigs over a 3 month period at a club, and when we showed up to do the 3rd one, we got informed they changed their minds about having live music.

Anyone do requests during a show?

dANdeLION wrote:I've had a lot of weird things happen on a gig:

1. A guy with a djembe walked in while we were playing once, and started playing with us...except he wasn't playing to out song at all.

2. My lead singer passed out, fell down, grabbed my pants and almost took them down with him.

3. A female lead singer yelled at me "it's in C!" while I was playing a C.

4). A friend of my brother-in-laws begged to come to a gig where we were opening for some signed acts; he showed up hours before us, then, when we got there, started yelling at us because we weren't wearing enough black. As the night wore on, we found out he told the other bands several lies, the biggest one being he was our manager.

5. Both Tom and I got into an accident on the way to a gig. Me, with a car I bought off him, and he, with a car he bought off me!

6. Some guy tried to walk off with Tom's guitar after a gig.

7. An opening act was sucking bad and losing our crowd. We asked them to finish their set, and they agreed to play one last song and get off the stage. They did as promised, sort of, by performing a horrible, fifteen minute long version of Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel'.

8. I did a Christmas party for my boss Rick who got several bands to volunteer, and even got a security guard, though we didn't think that would be neccessary. During our set, a drunk idiot took my wife's mic and started slurring obscenities into the crowd; the only thing I could make out was he was calling my band 'f@#*%ing christians". We called for security, but the guy never showed. Finally, Rick hauled the ass off. Later, we asked him where the security guard was. He told us the drunk was the sacurity guard.

9. We showed up for a youth group gig at a church in Lakeland that was a converted mall and was still onder the rebuild process. It was intended to be outdoors, but there were some rain clouds and we expressed our concern about them. The church guy actually questioned my faith and chastised me, saying "I have faith that it will NOT rain". So, guess what. It rained. Heh. Anyway, they decided to move things indoors, and we ended up carrying the stage pieces all around the mall, looking for outlets that were still hooked up. We literally went all through the mall before finding live outlets in the rear of the place, whan all they needed to do is bring the stages indoors and have one guy walk around and check the outlets.

10. We were booked to do 3 or 4 gigs over a 3 month period at a club, and when we showed up to do the 3rd one, we got informed they changed their minds about having live music.

I can attest to much of what dAN has mentioned here.

We played a gig once near downtown Tampa in Ybor City. The drummer decided to ignore a "no parking" sign and parked his car near the gig to make it easier to load and unload his kit. Naturally during one of our songs the drummer watched in horror as his car drove by on the back of a tow truck.

As far as requests I try to do an all original set, always have.
THE best answer to the request question came from the leader of a local semi gothic alternative band. One night someone asked them to play Freebird (or some such completely inappropriate song) the singer replied " Oh we could play it for you but you wouldn't recognize it."
I thought that was priceless.

Best response I ever heard to the shout of, "Freebird!" (which happens at every show I see and every one I've played), was my singer saying, "This is like 'Freebird'", and I started playing, "Reptile" by The Church.

The funniest one was a few years ago at Pier 6 in Baltimore. There was a guy playing acoustic guitar (no band, just one guy) opening for Hootie and the Blowfish. He wasn't that good, but he had a decent voice. From the second he walked onstage, the crowd began with the "Freebird!" shouts. He laughed about it a couple of times (oh yeah, the guy was black too) and commented that he wasn't used to hearing that as far north as he was. Finally, after getting nothing more than polite applause for his stuff, he started doing "Freebird", and just f*cking nailed it. The crowd absolutely erupted, started singing along with him, and gave him what seemed like a 10 minute standing ovation. The guy was obviously not happy.

The oddest was the time my mother took me to see the BSO (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) back in the '80s and someone shouted it out there.....

We broke it out one night too, just because. I was playing in an 80's-90's cover band (think Collective Soul, Tom Petty, 3 Doors Down) and we just said f*-it. We'd never practiced it, but nailed it anyway.

The other extreme was when this same band (4 white guys in their 40's) got requests for hip-hop from the girls who wanted to dance. In a pool hall.

And... Reptile. I love Starfish, what a great album.

As I have said before my band does play cover's, but if someone requests something we dont like we destroy it, some times even if we do like it we destroy it, Skynrd though if someone requests that we try to give them one they dont expect, not Freebird, not 3 steps, not simple man, and not that smell, we do however play a pretty good "version" of Gimme Back My Bullets, and it never fails to please.

Ive got a gig this weekend, nothing special in itself, but somehow we lucked into some free radio advertisement time (*BONUS*) which in most cases is a good thing, but the last time we got announced on the radio I had to call the station and correct them as to the location of our gig. You see its very important that people get sent to the right place (obviously). I dont forsee the same problems this time, but this nothing special gig could turn out to be a monster. The Bar we are playing is out in the middle of no where, but it happens to be a popular spot for those who wish to avoid law enforcement officials, and the last place we played like this ran out of beer about 3/4's of the way through. Believe me there are times when its not so bad to have some cops around.

See, MB. This is why I don't play clubs anymore.

I know but I'll never consider myself a Rock Star until some girl shows me her boobs.

Mr. Broken wrote:I know but I'll never consider myself a Rock Star until some girl shows me her boobs.

An admirable objective indeed! Why didn't you say so?

LOL.

Have a great gig!

Mr. Broken wrote:I know but I'll never consider myself a Rock Star until some girl shows me her boobs.

I had a waitress flash me her boobs once.
Does that make me a Rock Star?
...I wasn't performing at the time...

Absolutely! Can I have your Autograph?

You'd be surprised to see how fast "fan showing you her boobs" tuns into "unemployed and late paying child support for five kids"!

You must mean when my wife divorces me?

My band has just been asked to play a Cancer benefit, all local bands, all original material, and for a good cause. The best part, we were asked specificaly because of our originals , theres some of that recognition stuff we never got to experience before.

Mr. Broken wrote:My band has just been asked to play a Cancer benefit, all local bands, all original material, and for a good cause. The best part, we were asked specificaly because of our originals , theres some of that recognition stuff we never got to experience before.

Well done, MB. Good that your band is recognized for having a musical identity. That's exactly what I've been on about.

Its too bad that identity is based on the simple fact that we perform originals, and not on the virtue of the songs themselves. We just happen to be one of the few bands in this area that even do them. Although I have been told before that our originals outshine our covers, thats no news to me. As a songwriter I know that it will always be easier to do my own thing, than attempt to cover established works. The reason being that covers have already set a certain level of expectation for you to try to live up to. Originals good, or bad, strike out into the grey area of "Something New". Im not bitchin though, grey is good as far as Im concerned.