Your Thoughts on throwing Sticks into the Audience?

People are litigious!
A while back, now, I went to OzzFest at Alpine Valley.
Going in, we were told "You can't bring that in".
We told the guy...It's just bottles of frozen water.
He told us "Not the water, the blanket".
We asked...
Apparently some folks were doing the "cutie-pie blanket toss" at an OzzFest and the girl went up, up, way over...crash.
And they sued OzzFest.

I can't see how (or if) a court could find the concert at fault in that instance, but they didn't want to take the risk.
We added our blanket to a "taller than me" mound and went in with our frozen water (potential) projectiles.

I could see a drum stick really hurting...possibly.
Oh sure they do! Never had something serious but back in 2011 when I a drum lesson, the teacher accidentally hit me with a 7A kind of stick on my lag and... it stung a lot. Now imagine that done to the head...
 
Never done it, I look at is as throwing tools for the job away plus I'd look like a real pretentious arse doing it at my gigs! Sticks are the only thing I have made for me on a bulk trade deal but I remember being a skint student and sticks were and still are too expensive from music shops on this side of the drink.

I mean who wouldn't want a Michael York signature stick! Available from Pellwood. Now that's DW levels of unashamed marketing!
🤣🤣
 
Went to a concert 2 weeks ago, first one since lock down. It was epic! At the end of the night the headliner band all came to the edge of the stage and were tossing setlists, etc. The drummer had a stack of used CLEAR with black dot heads which he proceeded to sail into the audience. Of course the house lights weren't up and no one got beaned but I thought "holy sh*t" How many people can't even see those? Unfortunately I wasn't in floor seating so I didn't get a chance to try to grab one. :(
 
I've never thrown sticks into a crowd...

But anytime I play in a place with a really high ceiling like at least 20 feet or so, or outdoor, what I do like to do is to toss a spinning stick as high as I can straight above my knee where I'm sitting, without hitting the ceiling. Or outdoor, just as high as I can. Right from the throne. Then catch it when it comes down, yeah.

Which doesn't always happen ha ha. I do that like one time a night maybe two at the most, between songs, in places with really high ceilings. Just to stay in practice. It's all about getting a dead straight spinning toss, perfectly vertical.

I'm not nearly good enough to do that while playing, but that would be badass looking if I could
 
I've never thrown sticks into a crowd...

But anytime I play in a place with a really high ceiling like at least 20 feet or so, or outdoor, what I do like to do is to toss a spinning stick as high as I can straight above my knee where I'm sitting, without hitting the ceiling. Or outdoor, just as high as I can. Right from the throne. Then catch it when it comes down, yeah.

Which doesn't always happen ha ha. I do that like one time a night maybe two at the most, between songs, in places with really high ceilings. Just to stay in practice. It's all about getting a dead straight spinning toss, perfectly vertical.

I'm not nearly good enough to do that while playing, but that would be badass looking if I could
This reminds me of the time I washed and leathered my much loved Tahiti Blue MGF.
Came out the house 20 mins later and a pair of wood pigeons in the tree had crapped all over it.
Grabbed an 18" offcut of stripwood with just enough heft to punch through the leaf canopy and teach them a lesson , hurled it vertically, boomerang style, with impressive accuracy. Pigeons departed at full throttle, then stick returned, end on - with equally impressive accuracy - into the middle of my bootlid, punching a perfect little dent. 😒
 
I've never thrown sticks into a crowd...

But anytime I play in a place with a really high ceiling like at least 20 feet or so, or outdoor, what I do like to do is to toss a spinning stick as high as I can straight above my knee where I'm sitting, without hitting the ceiling. Or outdoor, just as high as I can. Right from the throne. Then catch it when it comes down, yeah.

Which doesn't always happen ha ha. I do that like one time a night maybe two at the most, between songs, in places with really high ceilings. Just to stay in practice. It's all about getting a dead straight spinning toss, perfectly vertical.

I'm not nearly good enough to do that while playing, but that would be badass looking if I could
This reminds me of the time I washed and leathered my much loved Tahiti Blue MGF.
Came out the house 20 mins later and a pair of wood pigeons in the tree had crapped all over it.
Grabbed an 18" offcut of stripwood with just enough heft to punch through the leaf canopy and teach them a lesson and hurled it vertically, boomerang style, with impressive accuracy. Crash! Pigeons departed at full throttle, then stick returned, end on, with equally impressive accuracy - into the middle of my bootlid - punching a perfect little dent.
 
A band I was in back in the 1990s used to toss CDs out in the audience. One hit a little girl in the forehead. We all felt so terrible that we vowed never to throw anything in the audience except maybe t-shirts.

I've never thrown a stick in the audience. Don't ever plan to.
 
Guitar picks are fine, but drum sticks can actually hurt people.
 
Back
Top