Have you ever had to play when you were sick or hurting?

[Jackie Walters]

Two weeks ago, I had to play with an incredible toothache, on a Friday night. The next morning I had a root canal scheduled. Holy cow, didn't think I was gonna make it but I did thanks to vicodin! Have any of you ever had to play when you were sicker than a 50 cent chicken or anything like that? Just wondered if there were any stories out there to share.

[Andy Miller]

I got food poisoning on tour once. Got a bad sandwich from a truck stop after a gig at 2am, woke up sick at 6am. Had to travel by car all day to the next gig and then play the gig that night with salmonella and all its glorious symptoms. Getting sick in the car, getting sick between songs, it was the worst gig ever.

[Jim]

Cut the tip off my lt Index finger, working on a car, several years ago while playing guitar in a 3 piece blues band. Used superglue to first glue the old callous back on and later to fill the hole. Hurt quite a bit but also taught me to use my other fingers.

[sunburst]

I've never had to "play through" anything worse than simply feeling bad, bad cold, that sort of thing.
I was at the Woodsongs taping of Chris Thile and Mike Marshal a few years ago, the one that has been broadcast (is that the right word?) on the internet and has become pretty well known. After the show, I spoke with Chris but Mike wasn't around to "shake and howdy". I asked Chris about it and he said "he has the flu". Apparently, Mike got up from bed, played the show to the high standard you can see and hear on the video, then went right back to bed after the show.
I saw Mike a few months later at another show and he said "I was so sick!... and it was on the internet!...". Seems he had a fever of 103 or 104 when he was out there playing.

[allenhopkins]

Well, I played a gig with Love & Knishes at the Memorial Art Gallery here in ROC a couple years ago, felt a little off, went home, woke up feverish and delirious at 3 a.m., went for a chest X-ray and found I had pneumonia. However, the symptoms didn't hit me 'til after the performance; I just felt a bit light-headed and "adrenalized" while playing.

If I'm really sick I pull the plug and don't try "heroics." Figure I'd be less than entertaining, were I to exhibit death's-door symptoms onstage. (Well, maybe the Goths in the audience would enjoy it...)

[aphillips]

Last summer I was in a bad motorcycle accident (hit a shovel someone dropped on the highway at 70 mph). I snapped my collar bone, and fractured my scapula, 4 ribs, and a vertebrae, and had a partially collapsed lung. A week and a half after the accident (about 5 days after I got out of the hospital I was supposed to sing and play guitar for a wedding with a cellist friend of mine. I was obviously still really broken and in A LOT of pain but I didn't have the heart to tell the couple I couldn't do it ( I had spent a lot of time planning the ceremony with them). I couldn't get my arm around a guitar yet but I could still hold my mandolin so I got another friend to play guitar and I still sang and played mandolin. Somehow I made it through the ceremony and playing the reception afterward.
So does that count?

[Mark Robertson-Tessi]

Had an outpatient operation once. Played 4 hr gig that night, no pain meds were necessary until after. Music is the best medicine.

Cheers
Mark R-T

[JeffD]

So does that count?

Tell ya what. I am not going to attempt to beat it.

I trust you have fully recovered.


The worst I ever had to endure was playing through a hangover.

Once I was home recovering from an operation and took the mandolin out whenever I had energy, to get me through.

A friend of mine and fellow mandolinner pulled a tractor on herself. I brought her a mandolin to play in the hospital to help with her recovery.

Very theraputic little instrument.

[Bill Van Liere]

Being a lifelong Landscape Horticulturist I have a had a few pruning accidents through the years one of which was cutting the tip of my index finger right before a gig. Could not get the thing to stop bleeding so I just tapped it up and used my remaining three fingers to get through the night. It really helped that I had already played octave mandolin few a few years and have a strong pinkie finger. That and double stops got me through the night. Bloody mess.

[jim simpson]

We were playing an outdoor gig that we regularly played. I could feel my throat choking up a bit and I thought it might have been sinus drainage. I had some hot coffee thinking that might help. As soon as I sang up the scale, my voice would catch and just sound horrible. I had taped our performance hoping to collect enough good material for a recording. The instrumentals were fine but couldn't use any vocal stuff.
It turns out that I was suffering from reflux and my vocal chords were irritated. About 15 years since that incident and have not had to go through that again (thanks to modern medicine).

[mandopete]

Hey, it's like the coach always said, "just rub some dirt on it!"

[Steve Ostrander]

Well, I once played a gig when I had mono, but I was young and stupid and didn't know any better. Kinda pales in comparison to a serious motorcycle accident, though.

[Dan Margolis]

Played a jazz guitar trio gig with a bad flu once. That was the night that the bartender gave me a snifter of very, very good cognac to help me. It didn't, and I couldn't appreciate the quality, either. Another time I had the (ahem) runs really bad. I had to flee the bandstand for awhile. Ah, the glamour of the music business!

[UsuallyPickin]

Yeah the more you play the older you get the more it will happen. No funny story just nights when "playing" became "working" ....... Hot tea w/ whiskey and lemon.... caffine sugar alcohol ....

[Ole Joe Clark]

Well, I have a torn rotator cuff and I have put off surgery until after the Fiddler's convention. Does that count?


Joe

[Kevin K]

I've played with sinus allergy problems where I just didn't feel like it but stuck with it. The worse was a kidney stone movement, was at a contest/festival and had been having problems days before, about 30 min before band contest started had one of those pains that would put you in the floor. Took a light pain pill and focused on playing thru the pain. Band ended up winning the contest.
Thankfully I didn't have to put up with that kidney stone much longer, just the dr bills afterwards........

[Geordie]

Last week I burned the tips of my thumb and first two fingers of my fretting hand and had a gig later that night. I tried to practice and it was incredibly painful. Luckily the guitar player wanted to cancel the acoustic part of the show so I was OK just playing drums all night.

[Willie Poole]

Don`t know how to spell them but one day after I had hemmroids surgery we had to play a gig that I had booked and didn`t know any band that could fill in for us, never sat down all night except to drive home sitting on a "donut" cushion....."Oh The Pain That I Went Through"....The show must go on.....

Willie

[David Rambo]

I played through a gall blader attack this spring. The pain was so bad that I was sitting, bent over the instrument, and was letting it hold me up. Ten minutes before we were to end, the other player looked at me and said, "Are you alright"? I said, "No, but don't stop. There's only 10 minutes left!" I was so stupid, I even drove part way home before I had to quit. My wife and son met me and took me straight to the hospital. Man, they have some neat pain killers there! A short time later, out it came.