View Full Version : have you ever had a distraction
Just curious if anyone has any stories about fighting to get through a song while playing outdoors due to some sort of distraction. A bug landing on your arm, the booming sound of a car stereo an attractive member of the opposite sex walking by...
My buddy and I were playing on my front porch to an appreciative audience of two of our neighbors (nearly a sell-out in my front yard) and suddenly he fouled up up a couple of easy chords and skipped a couple of lyrics...we finished the song, but it turns out a bug flew up his nose and (understandably) he got distracted...
Jackie Walters
Jun-06-2005, 8:41pm
Well..this ain't exactly outside..but it's a comical story if you want to read it...Our group was playing at a nursing home..and we had a pretty good crowd. An elderly lady had some kind of contraption built around her walker made of PVC pipe. Well we were right in the midst of a pretty good song..and we were singing high harmony..I saw her coming...down the middle isle..I noticed she began to get her speed up, and I believe I saw her square things right up with my microphone...sure enough..here she come...
I didn't know whether to stop the song to stop her or what..anyway..it was like an EF Hutton commercial..no one did anything..we kept on playing..everyone just watched it all happen..She banged into my microphone stand..and down the mic went...and she had a look on her face of achievement..the crowd roared with laughter..and she laughed too...Then one of the nurses took her back to her room..and the night went on.
jim simpson
Jun-06-2005, 10:17pm
I used to play in a group that had a repeat gig playing for a black powder rendezvous. They would camp out for the weekend in frontier clothing that seemed pretty authentic. We were usually offered a little homemade wine as well. One year a group of buxom young ladies in dresses rushed our stage area and seemed to take great pleasure in distracting us with their dancing and looking so cute. I never had to concentrate so hard to not just breakup in laughter. They made me think of the sirens in O Brother. There was even an invite for skinny-dipping after our show by the girls. Being the faithful married type, I had to decline but I think a couple of our members took part. That had to be one of the funniest experiences I've had performing - I wish someone could have filmed it for us!
grant_eversoll
Jun-07-2005, 9:01am
I played an outside gig that set up under a gezebo with one 100watt white light bulb hanging in the center about a foot over my head...Do you know how hard it is to play a solo gig and swat bugs at the same time? this went on for three hours.
And fun was had by most...
acousticphd
Jun-07-2005, 11:51am
I used to play in a group that had a repeat gig playing for a black powder rendezvous.
My picking buddies and I played for a similar period reenactment/rendezvous/dance this weekend in so. KY. The two most significant distractions were sweat (playing outside, high 80s temp), and an episode BOOMING cannon fire out in a nearby field that made you blink and flinch each time.
Oh yeah, and some KY moonshine - but I only tried a very little of that.
Nolan
Jun-07-2005, 12:48pm
I had a big ol' mosquito sucking on my arm while I was taking a break once. I couldn't stop to swat him, I just had to watch him big bigger and bigger.....
grant_eversoll
Jun-07-2005, 2:29pm
I guess I am jaded, I have played so many biker bars and ski day events that naked women do not distract me as much as the bugs in the gazebo...is that sad or what
straight-a
Jun-07-2005, 2:47pm
Nolan said:
"I had a big ol' mosquito sucking on my arm while I was taking a break once. I couldn't stop to swat him, I just had to watch him big bigger and bigger....."
I've had that happen too. Also, Greg H. and I were playing at (of all places) a tractor pull and while we were in the middle of the show, the tractors (parked about 50 feet behind us) start warming up their engines! Sounded really nice through the ear monitors!
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif
Ken Sager
Jun-07-2005, 2:51pm
Here's the ultimate gig distraction. I played a bachelor party about a year ago. Got top dollar to play for about 20 drunk 20-somethings. Yes, it was outside. The first distraction was the dog that decided to take a dump right at our feet during Gold Rush. There was no shooing it away, and the dog owner got a good laugh out of it. The second distraction began when the strippers showed up. Sorta changed the whole gig, if you know what I mean. Also changed how we refer to Gold Rush.
I was playing at a brewery a few months ago when we were interupted by a very loud bellow. It turns out a *freight train* had stopped on the tracks next to the building and was listening and checking out the crowd.
In my limited gigging I've experienced the joy of trying to play through flies and mosquitoes, and playing on unshaded concrete in the sun to the point that the instruments won't stay in tune from the beginning of the tune to the end. Probably the most memorable, though, was playing for a seniors' condo community celebration of some sort.
They had a big buffet table set up just to our left, and as typically happens with food outdoors the bees, wasps, and flies moved in for the feast. The organizers immediately broke out the RAID aerosol bug killer and started spraying the table with no regard to how much they sprayed into the food! We were exchanging looks and trying to keep from laughing during our set, but the really awkward moment was when they insisted that we get something to eat during our break! They were so nice and insistent that it was hard to decline, but we managed to convince them we had already eaten.
Luckily there were no unappreciative dogs and none of the residents started stripping! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
fatt-dad
Jun-07-2005, 3:42pm
Something about playing at the beach. . . . . . .
f-d
Michael H Geimer
Jun-07-2005, 5:24pm
Back in my days of amplification, our bassist played wireless. During a Top40 gig, he wandered out onto the dance floor, where he was approached by a rather attractive woman.
Now ... Ed's wife was sitting at a table, so he took a few steps back. She took a few forward. Ed kept stepping back until he was against the wall.
Well, she pinned him! All we could hear from Ed's amp was a muffled, muted semblence of his bass part!
Of course, we kept extending the guitar solo ... just to prolong Ed's uncomfortable conflict of interests! LOL
- Benig
... somehow that sort of stuff never happens to the keyboardist. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif
We played at a place (inside)that was about 20ft from a RR crossing. Not too many trains, only freight. As we were playing Greenville Tressel "The whistle dont' sound like it used to..." The train came roaring by blowing it's horn right on queue. Everyone just kind of looked at each other in astonishment but didn't miss a beat.
Flowerpot
Jun-07-2005, 5:43pm
I wasn't there, but a banjo-playing friend of mine related the following:
He was playing an outdoor gig, in the summer time heat, on a low stage. Two young women came up and sat right in front of him, no chairs, just cross legged on the grass, wearing loose granny dresses. In the middle of a song, one of the gals decides to wipe the sweat of her face - by lifting her dress up over her head. Revealing, of course, that she was wearing no undergarments of any kind. Sitting in a most un-ladylike manner. I think my friend said he stopped singing in mid-verse and it was all they could do to finish the song.
Fatt-Dad mentioned the beach...when I was doing the dreaded laundry, I brought my mando and since I live on a Spit the beach is everywhere, so I decided to sit outside on the beach while my laundry was going. It was going well, until the (as it shall be know in History)GREAT BITING FLY ATTACK OF 2005...I tired to finished the peice I was playing, but those things felt like they were taking chunks outta me...I finished my Bach in the parking lot after patching myself up...not quite the beautiful scene I had imagined...
distractions... ahh yes.... one of the best distractions... beautiful women....... but id be damned if i ever missed a beat while rubberneckin.. ha!
motorcycles and trains and espresso milk steamers are BAD! i think ive had them all in one gig even...
oldwave maker
Jun-08-2005, 11:16pm
The Pheremones were playing an afternoon blues gig at the marina patio at elephant butte lake 2 yrs ago when most of the UNM womens basketball team showed up to dance in running shorts and bikini tops. Closest I'll ever come to standing at the base of Mt Everest......
Our family band the Vegematics were doing our regular weekly nursing home dinnertime performance back when the boys were 8 and 11, right in the middle of moms banjo break on theme time the elderly lady sitting nearest us turned toward us and puked her guts out. the boys had a look of sheer terror on their faces for a moment, then spent the next 2 hours laughing to the point of tears, we had to pack up and leave quickly while maw and I were apologizing..........
Pedal Steel Mike
Jun-08-2005, 11:25pm
I had just the opposite thing happen. I was playing pedal steel in a bar band, and like all steel players, was watching my hands and concentrating on what I was doing, when a fight broke out about 10 feet in front of me, and I didn't notice. I didn't know about it till later.
Bruce Evans
Jun-09-2005, 7:03am
In 1981 I attended a Barbershop Society convention in Detroit. We had a mass sing of a couple thousand barbershoppers in an outside area when a local TV station's helicopter came and hovered right over us to get a close up shot. It took considerable waving to convince the pilot that we weren't be friendly, but wanted him to go away.
I also had the issue of a young lady in the front row raising her skirt to attend to her... ahh, herself while I was performing with my quartet. When I quit singing, the lead singer looked at me and I pointed out the distraction. Then he quit singing. Soon the bass and bari had quit. It wasn't until then that she looked up and realized what she was doing. I think people have gotten so used to watching the TV that they sometimes forget that live performers can see them too!
mandoanon
Jun-09-2005, 7:04am
My college day bluegrass group talked the owner of a local Country Dance hall into letting us play a set during one of the house band intermissions. #About 3 measures into our first song, the DJ kicked on the PA with 'Cotton Eyed Joe' and everyone hit the dancefloor. ( we were then escorted Outside)
Keith Wallen
Jun-09-2005, 10:55am
Here's a couple;
Played at the Strange Family Bluegrass Festival in Texas and our bass player at the time was really squeamish. A mosquito flew in the size of a crow and started chasing him around the stage and even though he kept playing myself and the guitar player had to stop for laughing.
Played a show at a brewery in Kalamazoo Mi when a guy went streaking across the stage. By the time I saw him going off the end of the stage I looked over at the bass player who was backed up against the stage pillar just incase the guy decided to stop. College town...
Playing at a bar in Dayton, Oh when a fight broke out. I was only 16 but the rest of the members were a lot older and they just kept playing like nothing was happening so I tried to do the same until two of the men started to fall into my mic so stopped and pushed them back into the crowd and we kept going...
Probably a lot more if those brain cells would just wake up... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif
Joel Glassman
Jun-09-2005, 4:47pm
I got stung by a bee on my left hand index finger while playing a fiddle solo.
Dropped the bow, pulled the bee and stinger out of my finger, and threw
the bee across the yard. People watching thought I had lost my mind.:p