Ouzo Man
06-02-2005, 04:37 PM
Anyone have any "stupidest-things-done-in-front-of-an-audience" story pertinent to the music board? I can include belly flopping my Line6 Spider in the middle of the first set at a gig on June 1.
The guys I play with say they never saw someone who doesn't drink wipe out like this on stage before. Normally - so they say - one or more forty-dogs have to come into play. But in the middle of a number, I managed to cause my guitar amplifier to fall three feet and land face-first on the ground (don't cry, it somehow came out unscathed).
Combine a guitar amplifier with a flimsy folding chair (to elevate it so that the cone of sound could hit somewhere near my ear) and a short cord (eight or twelve feet don't amount to so much in the real world). One step too many away from this precarious setup causes the cord to pull taut - and, if the jacks are snug, exert just enough pull, and the amp overbalances, and the ballet begins.
On its way down, it managed to bounce off my guitar, producing a set of effects. One, it messed up the amp settings. Two, it messed up my guitar settings (just by turning my tone pots on the way down). And three, it did something creative but not pleasant with my tuning. For the rest of the set I was fussing with hardware trying to get things marginally back to right, the same way you might try to go back to bed after a car crashes through your bedroom wall. Assuming I sounded decent at all prior to this debacle, I was a study in tin-ear tone-deaf affronts to the audience through the end of the set.
The best part, though, is I think one of my friends in the audience had a camera to catch this Buster Keaton stunt man act. I'd be annoyed at the pictures when I start seeing them except I come from a culture of turning stupid-stunts-in-public into a pretext for bragging (though I still won't rate compared to alcohol-fueled mayhem).
The guys I play with say they never saw someone who doesn't drink wipe out like this on stage before. Normally - so they say - one or more forty-dogs have to come into play. But in the middle of a number, I managed to cause my guitar amplifier to fall three feet and land face-first on the ground (don't cry, it somehow came out unscathed).
Combine a guitar amplifier with a flimsy folding chair (to elevate it so that the cone of sound could hit somewhere near my ear) and a short cord (eight or twelve feet don't amount to so much in the real world). One step too many away from this precarious setup causes the cord to pull taut - and, if the jacks are snug, exert just enough pull, and the amp overbalances, and the ballet begins.
On its way down, it managed to bounce off my guitar, producing a set of effects. One, it messed up the amp settings. Two, it messed up my guitar settings (just by turning my tone pots on the way down). And three, it did something creative but not pleasant with my tuning. For the rest of the set I was fussing with hardware trying to get things marginally back to right, the same way you might try to go back to bed after a car crashes through your bedroom wall. Assuming I sounded decent at all prior to this debacle, I was a study in tin-ear tone-deaf affronts to the audience through the end of the set.
The best part, though, is I think one of my friends in the audience had a camera to catch this Buster Keaton stunt man act. I'd be annoyed at the pictures when I start seeing them except I come from a culture of turning stupid-stunts-in-public into a pretext for bragging (though I still won't rate compared to alcohol-fueled mayhem).