One for the Noisemakers among us: Best Gig or favorite show(s) played?

[battema]

I never saw anything that crazy at a gig, lol. We used to play at a place that had a strip club and bowling alley attached. During the breaks a couple of the guys would go to the strip club. Our singer had been a bouncer there and knew all the dancers. Before I was in the band they had played at a big outdoor bash put on by some bikers. At one point someone fired off a cannon and the concussion apparently took out one of the PA speakers. Things started to get dicey with someone pulling out a gun. The band decided it would be a good time to leave and a bunch of bikers helped them tear down and load up. They were loaded and heading down the road within about 10 minutes, lol.

Oh man...the rock blues band used to play this biker bar downtown in Richmond (Medley's, long gone now). Those bikers were legit awesome; they loved our shows and packed the house but also respected the bar and treated us all really well. It was always a little surreal, being a very nerdy IT professional/prog keyboard player who was welcomed so warmly in that joint. But I always got excited when we had a date to play there. Easily some of the most all-around fun gigs I've played.

[Plasmatopia]

Oh man...the rock blues band used to play this biker bar downtown in Richmond (Medley's, long gone now). Those bikers were legit awesome; they loved our shows and packed the house but also respected the bar and treated us all really well. It was always a little surreal, being a very nerdy IT professional/prog keyboard player who was welcomed so warmly in that joint. But I always got excited when we had a date to play there. Easily some of the most all-around fun gigs I've played.

Reminds me of a veterans club we played a couple of times. You never knew what was going to happen, but they did treat us very well.

[Rarebird]

Me at my only live performance

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[battema]

^^ nice!! Almost has a Depeche Mode feel to the look. Well done

[Plasmatopia]

Me at my only live performance

Always nice to have some documentation of such events. My bands rarely looked so photogenic though.

[Rick L.]

I have had a few over the years but here are two particularly memorable ones:

My band Tamandua had a double bill with Cheer-Accident back when they were touring after Fear Draws Misfortune came out. They were awesome people and great to hang out with. They played first (great show) and then we went up. The New England Patriots were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. The game was being shown on the TV while we were performing. We would always have sections where we played free improvisation during our performances. The owner of the club was a complete lunatic. While we were playing an improvised piece, he kept running around the club screaming, "Fuck Pittsburgh!" at the top of his lungs. Clearly audible above the amplified music. After we finished our improvised piece, I announced to the audience that the title of that piece was Fuck Pittsburgh. I was chatting with Jeff at a Cheer-Accident show a few years later and he said the Fuck Pittsburgh thing was his favorite moment from that whole tour. Our very own Bill (sputnik) and his wife were at that show. I played with them in Eccentric Orbit and did the two shows Bill mentioned in his earlier post. Both were quite enjoyable as well.

Another very memorable performance and fun show for me as a player was with a free improvisation group I used to play with called Third Nipple. The guy who played analog synth and bass also played guitar and sang in an indie rock band that played his original music. He had a gig at a local club (where I first saw Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and had my mind blown) and his band bailed on him last minute. He called the rest of the Third Nipple crew and asked us if we wanted to nip out (this is what we referred to our freely improvised playing as). We all said yes and brought our gear to the club. It was an evening of indie rock and we played right after a band called Jade Monkey who did a kind of pop punk thing sort of like '90s Green Day and Blink-182. They were good band and put on a good show. The audience and club people expected another band in that general vein. We got up and nipped out and pretty much cleared the whole club out within minutes. I thought our performance was quite awesome! They don't know what they missed. The four or five people that were still in the establishment when we finished all said that it was totally awesome and that they'd never heard anything like it and really enjoyed it. Mission accomplished. I can't imagine the bartender was very happy, though.

OK, bye.

[Rarebird]

Always nice to have some documentation of such events. My bands rarely looked so photogenic though.

But I suppose you could hear what you were playing. I didn't and I had to pay for a cab home.
But still it was a once in a lifetime experience.

[SteveSly]

It was mostly not as interesting as one might hope, lol. One guy came up to the side of the stage while we were setting up. Completely nude aside from his sandals. He stood there with one foot up on a retaining wall while he talked to my female bandmate. She seemed to handle it okay, but these people were mostly not any great physical specimens. The coolest part of the night was during our last set and it was getting dark. A few more attractive ladies showed up to dance under the black lights while wearing body paint.

This show didn’t happen to be in Indiana did it? Back in the 90’s a nudist resort about an hour south of me in northern Indiana did a few big weekend long music festivals. Some pretty big acts played including Kansas, Alan Parsons and a bunch of smaller bands. A good friend of mine went to it. He is not necessarily a nudist, but decided to go with the flow and go bare assed most of the weekend. He said the same thing that most of the people there probably looked better with their clothes on.

[Sputnik]

My band Tamandua had a double bill with Cheer-Accident back when they were touring after Fear Draws Misfortune came out. They were awesome people and great to hang out with. They played first (great show) and then we went up. The New England Patriots were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. The game was being shown on the TV while we were performing. We would always have sections where we played free improvisation during our performances. The owner of the club was a complete lunatic. While we were playing an improvised piece, he kept running around the club screaming, "Fuck Pittsburgh!" at the top of his lungs. Clearly audible above the amplified music. After we finished our improvised piece, I announced to the audience that the title of that piece was Fuck Pittsburgh. I was chatting with Jeff at a Cheer-Accident show a few years later and he said the Fuck Pittsburgh thing was his favorite moment from that whole tour. Our very own Bill (sputnik) and his wife were at that show. I played with them in Eccentric Orbit and did the two shows Bill mentioned in his earlier post. Both were quite enjoyable as well.

I remember that show very fondly, except for "Fuck Pittsburgh," which I largely agreed with, but it was incredibly distracting. If they guy wasn't the club owner, I'd have told him to keep it down. I was happy when you played my request, "Skeleton Boat," my favorite Tamandua song.

For all the distractions, you played extremely well that night, and we saw the band several times.

Bill

[Plasmatopia]

This show didn’t happen to be in Indiana did it? Back in the 90’s a nudist resort about an hour south of me in northern Indiana did a few big weekend long music festivals. Some pretty big acts played including Kansas, Alan Parsons and a bunch of smaller bands. A good friend of mine went to it. He is not necessarily a nudist, but decided to go with the flow and go bare assed most of the weekend. He said the same thing that most of the people there probably looked better with their clothes on.

No, this was near the Massachusetts/Connecticut border....don't exactly remember which state it was in.

[Plasmatopia]

But I suppose you could hear what you were playing. I didn't and I had to pay for a cab home.
But still it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Yes, I was lucky I could usually hear what I was playing, despite our stage volume being totally out of control (another reason I gave up playing in bands).