Posted this story once before, in the "Biggest Gaffes" thread- but I think it can belong here as well..
Playing on an old '60s Ludwig throne (the traditional type with one main leg and two wing legs) at an outdoor gig with a cover band in about 1975. Had the main leg of that damned old throne punch right through the drum riser, dropping my ample butt on the riser right in the middle of of the crunchy part of "Free Bird" (don't kill me- it was relatively new at the time, and none of us had gotten sick of it yet!). Wham. Then silence. Then hilarity.
That initial plunge, and then trying to pull the remains back up out of the riser, mangled up the wing legs badly enough that the throne was trash... Ended up playing the rest of the set on a folding metal chair turned kinda 45 degrees sideways (to bridge over that gaping hole) with a couple of jackets folded up on top of it to get a little extra height, and had one *seriously* pissed-off coccyx for several weeks after. Went out and bought one of those newfangled modern Rogers tripod thrones right afterwards: the first piece of anything I ever owned with a memory lock. Still have that throne, actually, welded up several times, and with a Roc-n-Soc bicycle seat substituted for the old thin round biscuit. I think of that gig everytime I sit on that throne.
It's like the old story of the carpenter who has the best hammer in the world: he's replaced the handle 4 times and the head twice, but it is still the best hammer ever. And to this day (and for the rest of my career) I will always check any drum riser to make sure that the top surface is something significantly stouter than 1/2" particle board! And yes, I do carry a spare throne as well...
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