Strange gigs.....

N

New Tricks

Platinum Member
I will soon be driving across town to play a 5 PM gig at........a car dealership?

What the hell?

I've played my share of dive bars and empty venues but there was always alcohol being consumed and at least a handful of people dancing. This kind of thing is very foreign to me.

Wish me luck because, I don't "get it".
 
New Tricks said:
I will soon be driving across town to play a 5 PM gig at........a car dealership?

What the hell?

I've played my share of dive bars and empty venues but there was always alcohol being consumed and at least a handful of people dancing. This kind of thing is very foreign to me.

Wish me luck because, I don't "get it".
Click to expand...

Who knows could be the best gig ever.
 
Yeah, could be interesting. 5pm on Wednesday ????
Maybe a few people will be listening, maybe nobody will be listening.

Oh wait it could be a company party, in which case it could, be a great gig !

If it is not a company party, the bottom line is, you will be there to "drum" up business and sell cars.

( I'm playing a car and motorcycle show in a couple of weeks. Wish me luck.......... )

.
 
I've got a lunch-time gig at a local convalescent home tomorrow. I get paid, I get lunch, it's a short gig, it's guys I love playing with, and it's only 1 mi from the house.

Hmmm, that doesn't sound so strange after all!

Bermuda
 
I'm the drummer in a heavy metal ukulele band called Mötley Uke. We played last year at a self-storage place. They were having some sort of occasional open house/party with entertainment and food and so forth.

The self-storage mascot, whom we had seen in their tv commercials, danced during a couple of our songs (Iron Man and The Trooper, if I remember correctly). So we had a guy dressed as a giant safe leaping and wiggling around while we played heavy metal on ukuleles.

That was probably our most unusual gig in the three years we've been together.
 
I came away with mixed emotions after this one.

Good. After our half a song sound check, we were offered another gig (in Oct)

Bad. Only (the same) two people danced to three different songs.

Good. 100 people were just milling around, talking, eating and seemingly enjoying themselves.

Bad. 90% of the songs got zero applause

Good. We started at 5:30, played a couple sets and were packed up by 8:00 with a $500 checque , which aint great but it's about all a band full of of clowns is gonna get around here. We usually have to work twice as hard to earn it.

Bad. There was no stage where I could hide in the back, behind my drums. It was a well lit new car showroom and I felt oddly exposed.

Good. The mix sounded good from my seat, which is something I've been working hard to achieve.

So, I guess the good slightly outweighed the bad.
 
New Tricks said:
We started at 5:30, played a couple sets and were packed up by 8:00 with a $500 checque, which aint great but it's about all a band full of of clowns is gonna get around here.
Click to expand...

So now it's "checque," instead of "cheque"??

Aaaaauuuugh!
 
I'm glad it was mostly good! I wonder if the lack of audience participation was to a large extent because of the unusualness (for want of a better word) of the gig in the first place? Presumably people knew that there was going to be a band there, but may not have been quite certain of the etiquette expected at a gig at a car dealership, and so felt somewhat inhibited.

Whatever - you did your job, you liked your sound, and you came away with another gig and a cheque. What's not to like?
 
Played a CIU working men's club in Ashington, a large pit village in North Northumberland, back in the early 70s.

We were an originals band desperate for gigs and agreed to do this one. The audience were all pitmen and wives out for a good time on a Saturday night, average age about 40 plus. This was bandit country with a really bad reputation so we were nervous to say the least.

Just before we went on he club chairman warned us that we had to play what the audience wanted to hear, top 20 stuff etc. Eeek we only did originals. We kicked off with our usual up tempo self penned starter and after it a woman came up and said "Play something by Wizard". So we followed up with our next original that I announced to the crowd as "The latest new song by Roy Woods Wizard" It went down a storm, so we maintained the illusion of "This is a new one by" for the whole set, and left without getting lynched. Oh, we also got £75 and back in the day that was the best pay day we ever had.

The following week a Police officer was stabbed in the club car park. He recovered, but that was one tough gig in a very tough area.
 
Also, I don't think I could have played this room with acoustic drums. The whole room was about 8X larger than the picture with hard surfaces EVERYWHERE. It was pretty much the worst case scenario for sound.

This band runs everything thru a Bose L1 system and in this situation, it worked perfectly.

20140813_170042_zps98e85ccb.jpg


Another plus....load in was from the pick up right by the door!
 
mikel said:
Played a CIU working men's club in Ashington, a large pit village in North Northumberland, back in the early 70s.

We were an originals band desperate for gigs and agreed to do this one. The audience were all pitmen and wives out for a good time on a Saturday night, average age about 40 plus. This was bandit country with a really bad reputation so we were nervous to say the least.

Just before we went on he club chairman warned us that we had to play what the audience wanted to hear, top 20 stuff etc. Eeek we only did originals. We kicked off with our usual up tempo self penned starter and after it a woman came up and said "Play something by Wizard". So we followed up with our next original that I announced to the crowd as "The latest new song by Roy Woods Wizard" It went down a storm, so we maintained the illusion of "This is a new one by" for the whole set, and left without getting lynched. Oh, we also got £75 and back in the day that was the best pay day we ever had.

The following week a Police officer was stabbed in the club car park. He recovered, but that was one tough gig in a very tough area.
Click to expand...

I'm imagining the scene at the local woolworths when the miners went in to buy tge latest wizard 7inch they had heard that band play down the CIU Saturday.
 
New Tricks, at least the auto dealership looks nice and spacious. Although I understand it not being most suitable sound-wise.

Below are pix from a couple of my weird gigs. This first one is my band squeezed into a corner at a....bank of all places! Actually, we played at that bank a few times. You can't see me behind the singer but gives you a pretty good idea.

The second is a gig at a farm on a trailer as the stage.

Another weird gig was one on a sidewalk on a busy street in front of a smoke shop for their grand opening.

One more I can think of is playing outside of a major festival to entertain the people in ticket lines or lined up to enter the festival. We played on a couple of big stages at the festival too, but when you are one of the bottom of the totem pole bands like us, they make you do the "welcome duty" as well.
 

Attachments

  • Picture 37-1.jpg
    Picture 37-1.jpg
    187.3 KB · Views: 94
  • Jewell Benefit1.jpg
    Jewell Benefit1.jpg
    145.4 KB · Views: 98
The farm gig seems awesome but the bank gig was even more strange than my auto dealership. The guy working in the cubicle is priceless!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top