Post some fun/cool gig stories here...

[Greg_L]

I pretty much tell her that if she touches my power again I'm going to dump her chowder over her head and I'm going to beat her with a guitar.

[vomitHatSteve]

Gotta keep that chowdah warm.

I'm just picturing the audience getting all upset that the band stopped playing, but then being ok with when they realized it was just Karen warming her soup.

[Bill L]

So another sound guy/power story:

Last September I get setup under a tent at this semi high end beach club. I've done gigs here before so I know the drill. We have a couple of circuits but they're outside the tent. I get everything setup, line check everything, power up the monitors and then the mains. Everything is working so I put on some house music. As I'm wandering around saying hi to people and making sure I'll be throwing the sound correctly I notice that one side of the stage is no longer powered. I immediately think that I blew a fuse on my power conditioner. So I go back outside the tent to double check the outlet in it's GFI is tripped. I come around the corner and there's a guy sitting next to the outlet. He's on his phone, which is plugged into the same outlet I'm using. So I look closer notice that my line is unplugged and he's plugged in where I was. I ask him why he unplugged my shit. He gives me a dirty look and says he hasn't touched it. I proceed to pull his charger out of the outlet, plug my stuff in and threaten him with bodily harm (this is very unlike my normal behavior, btw). He starts giving me some lip. Thankfully, one of the band members happened to be near by and prevented what was sure to be an unpleasant experience for this clown. Mercifully, I didn't see him around the rest of the night because I would have busted this guys balls until he cried for his mother.

And another short sound guy story from one of my first gigs as a sound guy:
Just met the band, a Beatles tribute and everything is going pretty well. All of a sudden, the wife of one the singers comes up to me and says she can't hear her husband singing. I start paying attention. A few minutes later, I go up to her ask if it's any better. She says sometimes it's fine but not all the time. So I tell her to watch him sing. When he sings into the mic, you can hear him. When he's reading his lyrics from a songbook, he's not singing into his mic so you won't hear him. She proceeded to be bitchy about the whole thing but I just walked away. Well, she starts paying attention. And at the set break proceeds to yell at her husband to sing into the mic and then came over to apologize to me. I found the whole thing hysterical as both she and her husband were the most difficult thing to deal with when working with this particular band.

[Armistice]

LOL - nice stories @Bill L.

I was always amazed at the number of people who'd turn up at songwriter night gigs and need lyric sheets. Fuck sake, you're playing 5 or 6 songs, which you wrote yourself... learn them.

(And don't start me on people sitting down to play... acoustic guitars just aren't that heavy.)

[rayc]

Plug n play, unplug and pay!

[vomitHatSteve]

LOL - nice stories @Bill L.

I was always amazed at the number of people who'd turn up at songwriter night gigs and need lyric sheets. Fuck sake, you're playing 5 or 6 songs, which you wrote yourself... learn them.

I get it when it's an open mic, and they're trying out new material. Don't bother memorizing your song until you've tested it in front of a small crowd to see if it's worth keeping around.
I don't really endorse such behavior, but I understand it.

[Bill L]

So not really my gig but last Friday I saw my buddy that plays drums for a touring blues player based in Florida. This band recorded an album/CD in New Orleans back in October. Last week it was #1 on the Billboard contemporary blues chart (this week it's 12). His name is Albert Castigila and he's touring with a guy named Mike Zito as "Blood Brothers". The bass player in Albert's band band is leaving soon so she can start a family and my bass player is going to be filling in. So anyway, last night (April 15) I drove to see them on Cape Cod (about a 90 min drive). In the back stage area they have a piano that was Brad Delp's (singer from the band Boston) and they also have Sib Hashian's drum kit that was used for the first 3 Boston albums. I thought it was pretty cool so I took a couple of pics.

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Both bands jamming some Allman Brothers

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I should also mention that the keyboard player was an original member of Freddie King's band. I love Albert and BB King but Freddie is my favorite of the Kings. Tonight was their last gig on the tour and they played about 20 mins from my house but I had a gig and couldn't go.

And on another note, I drove to NYC on Tuesday to see my favorite band, Little Feat, play at The Beacon Theater. They had some guests and one of them was Tommy Emmanuel. All I can say is, holy cow is that guy awesome. Just a monster guitar player.

[Bill L]

Last night I had a sound gig at a movie theater in Mystic CT

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Today I'm a photographer at the International Portuguese Music Awards at The Providence Performing Arts Center.

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[Bill L]

A very cool old vaudeville era theater.

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[Greg_L]

wow that is nice.

[Lt. Bob]

man ..... that looks like a fun gig!

[Armistice]

Tommy Emmanuel. All I can say is, holy cow is that guy awesome. Just a monster guitar player.

He's sort of next level on acoustic isn't he? No-one else does the stuff he does...

[Bill L]

Not really from my gig, but I went to see some friends play. A bunch of musicians were hanging out including a guy that regularly plays gigs with me. We bust each other's balls all the time, including on Facebook. And some people actually think we don't like each other. Anyway, here's a pic of us. Pay attention to his shirt. I thought it was hilarious.

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[Tadpui]

@Bill L that's awesome

[Greg_L]

[vomitHatSteve]

Hah! That rules

[Bill L]

Today's gig. Private graduation party at someone's house. A beautiful area of Rhode Island that I hadn't been to (at least that I can recall). Doing sound for a band and enjoying the view.

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[Bill L]

And today's gig:

Load in (and later, out) for Robert Cray. The guitar tech was pissed because there were only 3 of us, not 4 as usual. So he decided to bust our balls while unloading the truck. For instance, we try to get everything out of the truck and onto the sidewalk so we can bring it into the venue quickly. He wouldn't unload anything until the previous stuff was already up on stage. Anything small we usually put on top of the bigger stuff so we don't have to make as many trips. Well, he was having non of that. And we still managed to unload a lot of gear in about 30. And we had stuff unpacked and the stage cleared in very quick order. We usually have a 2 hour window to do this and that includes lots of down time. We sent 1 guy home after about an hour. I left before the 2 hour window. Regardless, I've never seen Robert Cray so I'm going back after dinner to catch the show.

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[Bill L]

And they're off!

[JD01]

Oh, I quite like Robert Cray. Was he good?