Odd places I've played

Fred Shannon · Post by **Fred Shannon** » 1 Feb 2011 8:34 am

Just thought of another: Gulfport Mississippi on a 4th of July festival of some sort---on a 40 foot low boy trailer, temperature in mid 90's and humidity about the same. Some cat named Harold Jenkins hired the band for a Jim Owen's mobile home show for an hour at 2 PM in the afternoon. What a mess, the PA went sour and he had to use a hand held speaker/amplifier plus at the end of the show I fell through a hole in the trailer floor and fractured my Knee. All for $18. You're right Mama I'll get a real job tomorrow.

Phred

Bob Hickish · Post by **Bob Hickish** » 1 Feb 2011 10:41 am

Cal said
“And then there was the Huntsville (TX) Prison Rodeo”

That reminded me -- for a minute I that you guys had all the fun --

we did play the Boise State prison back in the 70’s -- the fellow that set it up
died a few months latter from job related bullet wounds

Ken Pippus · Post by **Ken Pippus** » 1 Feb 2011 11:44 am

A shopping center grand opening "Pyjama Party" in a coal mining town. The founding moms and pops roaming around in their night apparel, while the considerably pharmaceutically disoriented guitar player butchered "Stormy Monday." Maybe you had to be there?

Same town, five years later. Coal Miner Days Dance in the ice rink. Stage six feet off the ground, iron rail and chicken wire around it. Six security personnel, four "service" dogs. They apparently disliked the band the year before, but we were a hit. Perhaps my coal-mining ancestors protecting me.

KP

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 1 Feb 2011 12:30 pm

We were hired for a 4 day gig at a new club .. It had been a strip club previously and the Stage was right in the middle of the club with a bar surrounding it.In the center there was a long pole up to the cieling...The stage was 4ft.high and round and barely had room for all our equipment.(5 piece band).The Drummer sat just inches from the edge and on the second night during an uptempo song he took the "plunge" falling off the back..He was almost 280 lbs and he took half of a section of whiskey bottles with him..Broke his hip and ankle and recieved several stitches..Needless to say he did not play for sometime and I'm not sure he ever did again since I was told he had passed on a few years later..That was our last night also as we packed it in..

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 1 Feb 2011 1:34 pm

The stage was 4ft.high and round and barely had room for all our equipment.

Heh, sounds like that place in Printers' Alley where Jim Vest used to play, where the "stage" was behind the bar. Western Room?

Matthew Prouty · Post by **Matthew Prouty** » 1 Feb 2011 1:44 pm

My top two are:

Hell's Angels' Halloween Party

and

An Entertainment Establishment in the red light district.

Both were very distracting.

Chris Bauer · Post by **Chris Bauer** » 1 Feb 2011 3:47 pm

I played the Western Room. Yep - tiny stage up behind the bar. It made me long for my nights across the alley at Barbara's which, otherwise, were hardly anything to long for...

As for the rest - seems like I've played pretty much all of them too as well as on a wobbly flatbed trailer in a bone-chilling parade with battery-run amps and - tada! - the waiting room in an S/M 'massage parlor' in the old river-bottom district outside Tempe. We played from 2:00 - 5:00 am in shifts with a juggler and a magician. Ah, the good life. $:\$

Cliff Kane · Post by **Cliff Kane** » 1 Feb 2011 5:59 pm

Roual Ranes wrote:Dallas Deaf Club.
They danced up a storm.

Man, it brings back happy memories to hear you say that, Roual. There was a Deaf Club in San Francisco that I used to play at back in the late 70's/early 80's when I was in punk bands. It was in the Mission District on Valencia St. by 16th St., up a flight of stairs across the street from fabulous Taqueria La Cumbre. They would party hard and dance up a storm there too, there was a bar with $1 cans of Bud. Those were great crazy gigs.

Steve Spitz · Post by **Steve Spitz** » 1 Feb 2011 6:18 pm

halftime at the all female roller derby. Mostly female crowd,a fun non-hetero group.

On a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans, several times.

In a soybean field in Mer Rouge Louisiana. When it was time to get paid, it was pitch dark, nobody knew where/who was to pay the band, and the entire audience had taken LSD.

Gospel gigs in small african-american churches.No stage, you`re maybe two feet from the parishoners. They loved it. They showed it. Possibly the most enthusiastic audiences I`ve ever played for.

The "Dudfest" at Snake and Jakes Christmas club lounge. Featuring bands that never drew well, and played mostly "Dud" gigs. Anthony Bordain described this bar as"a terminal alcoholics cesspool" and said he really felt at home.

a 10k race, but instead of putting the band at the finish line party, they put us on the route, so we played for 10,000 people, but each for 30 seconds.

A wedding where a fight broke out, enough bloodshed requiring 2 ambulances, and multiple arrests.Got paid cash, and when one relative saw the size of the Daddy`s cash roll, it rekindled the memory of an old outstanding debt. Add a lot of booze, and down goes Frazier.

In New Orleans, All the gigs are wierd. I could go on and on...

Bo Borland · Post by **Bo Borland** » 1 Feb 2011 7:47 pm

Revolving stages, even a revolving room.. Adams Mark in Phila. (only the elevator and bathrooms don't move)

Outdoors on a lowboy covered with straw and no shade. I found stink bugs in my gear for 2 months

Car dealer showrooms and shops, gay biker bars,

Steve Gorman · Post by **Steve Gorman** » 1 Feb 2011 8:40 pm

We were hired once to play for a Special Olympics Prom. There were about 150 attendees, holy smokes, they LOVED us! Dance floor was packed from the very first song, hootin and hollerin, at one point they made a train about 30-40 long and wound their way around the dance floor to the music. We were all wishing that ALL our audiences were that enthusiastic about us. They hated it when the evening was over, many of them hung around just to talk with us. Really made me wonder, just who is really "disabled..."

Bob Farlow · Post by **Bob Farlow** » 2 Feb 2011 4:19 am

Played one gig only one time at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. I know how Cal felt about just being inside a place like that. It was a mind-opening experience. Made me want to "straighten up".

Steve Spitz · Post by **Steve Spitz** » 2 Feb 2011 7:00 pm

We actually play a fair amount of Kid shows. Every year at the New Orleans Jazz and heritage fest we play the kids tent. One year it was an unusually hard rain, and anyone in a tent was getting popular. The parents really enjoyed it, wholesome western swing really has a broad appeal.
My favorite is Childrens Hospital. These kids are confined to the hospital, and to give them and their parents a break from what they must endure is priceless. After the show, we pose for photos with each kid, and to see the joy on the faces of the parents is beyond description. I am so fortunate to be part of this.

Dave A. Burley · Post by **Dave A. Burley** » 2 Feb 2011 9:12 pm

I could go on and on here but will name just two. One in Ebor City (s) in Tampa, Florida. We played on a stage about six feet off the floor inside a cage. We went in and locked the door behind us. That Sunday a man got stabbed to death right in front of us. I guess the cage was there for a reason. One time and out at that place.......Another in the late sixties at a place called Snow's in Kalamazoo, Mich. Middle of the winter in a showstorm playing in a black and tan club. Don't you know that the colored community decided to riot one night. My new Hemi Plymoth sat right in front of the place. I'll never forget watching the little bumps collect on the inside of the double thickness metal door facing the band right across the dance floor as the rioters were shooting through the door. Bad place for them to start a riot. Bunch of hillbillies inside. When they came in the door, they started a brawl at the pool table. Snow got the doors locked and I recall these southern boys grabbing one of those guys, putting a big butcher knife to his neck and put his back up to the door the outside rioters were trying to shoot through. I can still remember that guy screaming 'Don't shoot Leo, Don't shoot Leo. We left that night with a police escort with only one window left intact in my beautiful new Plymoth. Wayne, the singer who had a pretty good size nose, got into his station wagon and turned the windshield wiper on because he couldn't see. He stuck his nose up to the windshield to see better and abruptly got hit with the wiper as there was a hole right in the windshield where he had stuck his nose. Picture that.
Dave A. Burley

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 2 Feb 2011 9:57 pm

Burning Man Opera and some of the people had clothes on, or at least costumes...

Bobby D. Jones · Post by **Bobby D. Jones** » 2 Feb 2011 10:47 pm

Played a Community Building one night. The stage had been built for Bingo Announcer, Had a rail and fence all the way round with just 2 openings with steps. My amp was up on a shelf off stage. My back was against fence, The left end of my steel was an inch from the wall, The base player was about 3 inches from the right end of my steel. One of the drummers symbals was out over my steel. We joked after the gig. Draw straws if we come here again, Who buys the deodorant for the band. The first song we play will be TOGETHER AGAIN.

Larry Tracy · Post by **Larry Tracy** » 2 Feb 2011 11:08 pm

Played at an all woman festival called Friends Fest in Austin Texas. It was about 100 women and me the only guy there. They got mad at the trio I was in but decided to let us play. Only I had to stay backstage and then leave when we were done. After about the 3rd song one of the women in the audience stood up on her chair, pulled down her pants and stuck her butt at us. She had big red letters on her underwear that said 'YEAH'. Also did the playing along the route of a marathon. Played after a race along the piers in San Francisco on Halloween called the Monster Dash. Lot of imaginative costumes as you could imagine.

Sonny Jenkins · Post by **Sonny Jenkins** » 3 Feb 2011 6:17 am

One of the funniest storys I've ever heard was about Reece and Teresa's nudist camp gig,,,as only they can tell it,,,hilarious!!!!!

Terry Wood · Post by **Terry Wood** » 3 Feb 2011 7:45 am

My brother and I played for the dedication for a newly built dairy barn once years ago. We set up and played in the loading part of it. It was cold and my hands about froze.

The strangest request I think I had, was playing a funeral service back in the mid 1980s. This man had died and my brother and my niece and I were asked to play for the service. This guy was really popular and must have been 4,000 to 5,000 at his funeral. They just kept filing through to view the body. Well, after about 45 minutes of playing the same song, which is one of my favorites "Amazing Grace," I was going to stop and take a breather or change songs. Just then the funeral director pops his head, literally sticking through all these hundreds of flowers and says, "Give em' alittle more!" I just about lost it, when I thought how funny all that was. I will never forget that experience. We played well over an hour for that filing through group of viewers. And yes, "Amazing Grace," is still one of my all time favorite Gospel songs on steel. I love to hear Lloyd Green and Julian Tharpe's versions.

From Milk Barn dedications to funerals, to cow dung filled Rodeo arenas, plush night clubs and head thumpin' Honky Tonks and to the best Revivals and Church services, we played em all.

These days, I prefer playing for The Lord!

May GOD bless!

Terry

Bill Rowlett · Post by **Bill Rowlett** » 7 Feb 2011 11:39 am

I’ve played a few at each end of the spectrum, from a biker bar where girls were dancing naked to a backwoods church that had a healing service. A big black woman passed out when the preacher anointed her and she fell backwards and broke the leg off my steel. One other night at a legion hut the stage was too small, so I set up and played on the floor. A group of square dancers came in late wearing their outfits. One lady had no underwear on and she twirled by me several times with that skirt flying.

I kind of miss the old days; I feel like a dog that chased a bunch of cars but never caught one

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 7 Feb 2011 1:04 pm

Here are a few of mine....

All our gear strapped down on a flat rail car going across Long Island during morning rush hour, stopping at each station and playing a couple of tunes with Dolly Parton promoting a new record release..talk about some confused commuters...

Playing in a boxcar on the Denver Post Cheyenne Frontier Days train--3 hours up and 3 hours back (Red Kilby was the train engineer)

Playing several shows in St. Petersburg, Russia in the auditorium of a former KGB Youth Indoctrination Center

Taking all our gear up on chair lifts to play a wedding ceremony at the top of a ski slope (in winter)

Several gigs at horse and dog tracks, a couple of gay cowboy bars, the gay rodeo (loved the steer decorating contest)...a gig for Dick Cheney at the VP Mansion, gigs for both Presidents Carter and the elder Bush...World Youth Day for the Pope (250K people)....the dairy barn circuit back in Maine...frat house running porno films in reverse behind us....a pajama party for about 30 women in a mansion...many other crazy one I have eliminated from memory,,,,

John Cadeau · Post by **John Cadeau** » 7 Feb 2011 2:14 pm

A mountain top, A harley Davidson store, On a haywagon towed by a pickup truck with a generator in the box in a rodeo parade, and the scariest, the courtyard of an all woman's prison. I felt okay at the prison until an inmate looked out a barred door, then she turned around and yelled "hey all you bi***es there's four big hunks of meat out in the courtyard". I was a little bit on edge, but at the same time hopeful.
John

Josh Yenne · Post by **Josh Yenne** » 8 Feb 2011 11:17 pm

I played in Napa County Mental Hospital for the Criminally Insane...

We were in the maximum security portion of the hospital... and it was directly after lunch (and meds)

Great paying gig but STRANGE vibe... no one made a sound while playing (acoustic duo) and then ERUPTED after each tune... but we had a list of song subjects we couldn't sing about... so there was some axing of songs, some changing of lyrics, and some mumbling to get through some of them tune....

Jake L · Post by **Jake L** » 10 Feb 2011 7:09 am

I played at the Women's prison in Bryan, TX once. We had to be locked in a room off to the side of the stage between sets "for our own safety". I also played a nudist colony dance not long after that.

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 10 Feb 2011 2:58 pm

Some of these stories remind me of Wendy Bagwell and the rattlesnake worshiping church.

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