Apr 12, 2006 02:11 pm don't even wanna talk about it...
Weirdest place you've ever played?
Posted on Apr 12, 2006 02:10 pm
Albertv05
Dub head
Member Since: May 03, 2004
I've played lot of gigs. Lots at your typical bar, teen/rec center, hunting lodge, Basement of a coffee shop, upstairs of a coffee shop, a street fair, and some other interesting places. But the one that takes the top weirdest place in my book is the alter of a church. A few years ago my band agreed to play a benifit show with a bunch of other bands which was held at a church. We assumed it would be in the basement of something; instead the stage was set up right on the alter. Very weird indeed. It just felt kinda wrong playing reggae/ska in front of the lit cross on the wall behind us. I'm sure there are some better stories out there than mine. Anybody?
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Apr 12, 2006 02:44 pm Dang, dB ! 'Must be some crazy stuff !
Everything that was ever 'strange' at any of our gigs was brought about by people in the band, not the location .
A christian altar is deffinately a strange place to set-up .
Oh, once we played an outdoor gig with the stage set up within a horse-corral... my drummer, who was a way inner-city kind'a guy, called it a 'horse-rink' . I got a laugh out'a that .
Apr 12, 2006 02:47 pm I have two places... in no perticular order...
1. Pizza Hut
2. A Wiccan Solstice Festival... but we were a christian band....
... it's typical for christian bands to setup on the alter area when playing at churches...
Apr 12, 2006 02:59 pm "... it's typical for christian bands to setup on the alter area when playing at churches..."
Interesting enough we weren't a christian band nor were the other bands, I think. That whole gig felt wrong. So very wrong. Atleast it was for charity.
Apr 12, 2006 03:45 pm My band played at a college radio station, the room was maybe 10' by 10' with my full band plus like 40-50 people, it was packed beyond belief.
Apr 12, 2006 03:50 pm down here we have barn parties! yupyup hay, cow s*&t, and a stage made outta plywood and cinder blocks....yeeee hawwww! it's always fun cleaning the fuzzy amps....
Apr 12, 2006 04:06 pm Barn parties? Man, that actually sounds like a really good time. The closest I've ever come was the few times I played in a sorority house's basement party. I say this because there were a few cows present. Those always were a good time though, as you could imagine.
Apr 12, 2006 04:57 pm yeah, we're REAL big on outdoor field parties too....the last one we threw we counted about 500 people (not including staff, friends, bands, and family, 12 bands, live music until 4am, Dominoes Pizza set up a booth along with other 'berger stands'....MTV taped some footage (to this day i'm not sure if it ever aired, prolly not)...and we only had two fights.....very cool time, this year will be bigger...
ROCK
www.undergroundfest.com/
Apr 12, 2006 05:03 pm What ?! No Waffle House stand ???
Apr 12, 2006 05:10 pm nah, we move all the cows to the next field over....lol
Apr 12, 2006 06:32 pm ya, we have fieldstock, usually played on a hay wagon, powered by generators (the band, not the wagon).
I've played in a barn before, for a grad party.
Played a 4th-o-july thing in a funeral home parking lot. Gladly, not inside =).
C'mon dB, kick out a few. I'm thinking Noize's played in a few wierd places as well.
Apr 12, 2006 06:32 pm Played at the church altar many times (it was a Christian band), played at funerals, we performed (over a couple years) once per month at a state prison, played at a TV station the size of a small garage, played at radio stations several times, played in a radio station parking lot when Skylab was falling. We had a #1 on Dr. Demento... "Don't Let Skylab Fall on Me"...
Apr 12, 2006 08:03 pm Sitting on the kitchen sink of a Sorority house (er, apartment), my senior year of college. A friend forced his old nylon string into my hands. Nobody even knew I played guitar but I'd been quietly practicing in my dorm room every day since I'd been in school. I knew almost all of Bowie's 70's repotoire and proceeded to lay it all out, solo in the kitchen during a party. Eventually the whole party was in the kitchen listening and singing what they knew. It was awesome, but probably the most unconventional place I've played.
Apr 12, 2006 11:08 pm Quote:
We had a #1 on Dr. Demento... "Don't Let Skylab Fall on Me"...
Haha, have you got a recording of it dungbeatle?
Apr 12, 2006 11:13 pm My old band played at a fashion show. We were all wearing flourescent shirts. Mine was yellow, drummers was orange, bassist green, 2nd guitarist blue and saxaphone pink haha. Not really wierd, but we had a good time. When we weren't playing we were situated back stage right in front of the swinging double doors that lead to the girls changing rooms.
Apr 12, 2006 11:19 pm I have it on a cassette, but no cassette deck right now! Nice shirts... Nice location...
Apr 12, 2006 11:37 pm Mine was in the parking lot of a strip bar for a Tattoo and Bike fest. It doesnt sound as strange as it actually was. While we played there was a "performance art" type of guy next to us hanging and swinging from hoops stuck in his back. The whole event was just strange.
Apr 13, 2006 12:08 am Great topic.#1 was a VFW hall in Boardman, Ohio. We were playing 2/3 covers and 1/3 original material. Our keyboard player's dad was runner up for the town drunk, not unlike his son, who tricked us into the gig. The audinece would have settled for George Jones & Johnny Cash, rather we supplied very loud hard rock. Unbeknownst to us all, they were having a girl auction in between our 2nd and 3rd set. Thats right !, 12 healthy heffers auctioned and 5 of them were dealt to the boyz in the band. After escaping angry nascar fans, we managed to level a privacy fence while being chewed out and bottles thrown at our cars. Later we went back and lifted (rescued) a 155lb. cement lawn buddah that was being used as a door stop. I later painted Buddah chrome and used it as our band mascot !!
Apr 13, 2006 12:18 am #2 - Played in another primarily cover band that landed this "Mouse To The Moon" party where the University Of Toledo Frat boys stuff a mouse into a model rocket and ignite at 12:00 A.M. while evenyone chants some satanic greek alum vernac. It was a banging show. Every sorority and frat turned up in the Greek Village for a Beer fest Royal. 2500 people in all. We had about 10 bras and 3 panties thrown up on stage and later drown in titties and beer at the after party. Miss those days !
Apr 13, 2006 12:11 pm My band is actually playing a venue this weekend, we played before twice. Its called teh chicken coop.. and lo and behold its literally a chicken coop, in the middle of nowhere, sand floors surrounded with chicken wire... its relaly sad actually.
My band is notorious for playing ANYWHERE we held gigs in our school broom closet when were kids, coz we had no where else to go. i also played a HUGE national fashion show once, but in a nother band, funny story about that was that they wnated us to finish our set when the last model exited, and we only got one run through, so an hour later on the real event, it was up to me, to start doin the classic pull down the tempo and putting in my end the song fills, it was actually really fun.
The list goes on and on actually... Thailand is a weird place to try to rock. name anything.. and ive probably played at it, in it, on it.
Apr 13, 2006 12:13 pm A MENTAL HOSPITAL, with severe cases!This place was just like One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.It was organised by the staff who sold tickets to relatives who dont bother to come.So it was full of patients and nurses with loads of booze.A Christopher Loyd type bloke kept rocking back and forth until he got right up against me.After the first spot I asked if he was dangerous? they said he bit someones ear off once but he's ok now cause he had his teeth out!AARRGGHH.
Apr 13, 2006 09:48 pm Hujambo, that sound like someplace I would have loved to play in the 70's.
Crux, yep done the chicken coop thing, probly more than once for biker parties. During the break between touring bands I played in 2 differant bands that catered to the biker bar/party set. Straight ahead rock and roll.
One of the stranger places, was a frat house for pharmacists. At the time it was the most modern frat house on the U 0f M campus. It was a holloween party which made it even more strange. We were surrounded by larger then life drugs of all sorts, and they were all moving about, getting drunk and what have you. Have you ever seen a giant qualude kissing a giant benny? I have, and it was just not a good sight. They payed well, and wanted us to dress up like doctors to play. Of course all the booze was being despensed from large IV bags.
For the strangest, I think it would have to be playing on a barge sitting in the lock at the Ford lock and dam in St. Paul on the Mississippi river. Very erie place, and the smell of dead carp made it kind of gross.
Apr 14, 2006 04:45 pm A few years ago my and a friend guitarist went to this open jam session night in our town, it was in a big rehearsel space/studio building. There was an ad a few days before in the local newspaper saying it was always crouded etc. and since we never played with other musicians or a band we thought we'd check it out. We where searching for bandmembers but never found a drummer/bassist who likes blues hardrock in our town and surrending towns.
So we get there with our guitars, turns out we're the only two people who stopped by hehe.
There was a drummer, guitarist who picked up the bass, three keyboard players and a guitarist/leader kind of guy. They where all in their fourties and we where 17/19.
The guitarist/bandleader was a dictator, when my friend had a few notes ringing thru right after he started talking in the mic he got irritated.. lol.
We ended up playing Joe Cocker songs while we both had never heard any of his stuff! There was a chord board that we had to follow, it was just instrumental verses of songs being repeated over and over again. Was really weird.. only fun thing was a blues jam. He said let's play a blues in shuffle D7 or something like that and me and my friend can't read music and have no idea what he's talking about! We just improvised. About an hour an a half later we packed our things and left. That was the only time ever we both played with other musicians and in a band setting.
Apr 20, 2006 10:08 am Can't beleive I forgot this one...
"Starwood" . A festival held in Brushwood, NY every July that was started some 30+ years ago by a bunch of hippies... Tim Leary being one of them . Basically a 1500+ crowd of hippies, metaphysicians, musicians, and high-ons gathered together for a week to party, have sex, and beat drums . They gave us a 2 hour spot which was broadcast on their radio station, so the peeps were able to dial in from their camp-sites, as well as see us at the broadcast area, which was a tent in the center of the festival . There were several oddities about this place... not least of which was the fact that it was a 'clothing-optoinal' event . There were bars, restorants, stores where you could buy everything from bongs to bongos... a regular 'lil city in the woods . Comunal showers made me glad that I brought my own . There was more than enough culture-shock both entering the festival, and re-entering society after 10 days of living in complete debauchery .
I guess it's really no wonder that I almost forgot that one . : p
Apr 20, 2006 11:48 am hmm.
once we played in a warehouse out in the middle of the desert.
like on the one road that goes out to this smaller type warehouse.
i think there were two kids.
i mean playing in a warehouse is not weird in and of itself
but usually when you are. its usually adjacent to a city
or settlement of some variety.
i felt like a pioneer for sure.
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