Uncomfortable in more than one way.

 

...the sound cut out completely during the last encore, the title track of the new album Optical Race.

 

Ralf Wadephul aka "the new guy" jerked his head one way and then threw his arms up and laughed. Paul Haslinger was shaking his head. Edgar Froese was concerned, but just for a moment. Then they all got up from their keyboards, and Edgar grabbed a mic and went "Sorry, folks...sometimes these things happen!"

 

***

 

My friend saw Rush on the Hold Your Fire tour (I didn't get to see them till they came back 'round for Presto) and he said Geddy went into the chorus of "Limelight" too soon, but Alex and Neil caught it. Whew! No such goofs when I saw them...those were flawless shows, give or take.

 

Ian Gillon band with Toni Iommi at guitar. During a solo Iommi climbs a pile of speakers and loses the jack of his guitar. Then he goes back, reconnects the jack and restarts the solo, but has again the idea of climbing the speakers and the jack falls down again. So he throws the guitar on the floor and the band stops playing that song. More funny than disappointing. 

 

thought I recognized you in the video. I was right!

"What's wrong with you people?  Are you on valium?  When Montrose would come thru here,  Dallas would go crazy.  Well f**k it.  I'm going to have a good time, whether you do or not!" 

Afterwards, Joe Cocker's crew quickly prepared the stage for the main attraction.  While watching the roadies, I couldn't figure out why they put out two microphones for Joe - once a foot of the ground plus the standard microphone stand.   His band came out and jammed for a jazzy 20 minutes and then Joe hit the stage, carrying a pop corn sized container of beer.   OMG was Cocker clocked.  The foot high microphone was there for when Joe fell down drunk. 

Joe Cocker reminded me of a bored monkey as he kept picking his ass and this is happening while he was singing "Your So Beautiful"  And the Dallas crowd loved it! 

Good Evening. Welcome to the very first show of this King Crimson here in Texas. We have some frightening stuff prepared for you, so hold onto your pumpkins” announces Belew at the start of the show. Belew had little idea just how frightening things would get on this Halloween Eve gig. Eyewitness Paul Ciminero tells the tale. “At the end of the show the entire band stands out front and bows together..some moron threw something at the stage and hit Fripp in the head...” From a slightly different vantage point, Alan Edmonds: I couldn't tell what it was; it appeared shaped like a small Frisbee but colored red and white like a Coca-Cola can. The crowd groaned in shock and mumurs of 'there goes the encore' were heard throughout. Mr. Fripp put his hand to his head and started looking around for the object. The band left the stage and the crowd started clapping and hollering again. For some reason, the band came back out and did three songs for the encore(s). One of them was the three drum percussion number with Adrian, Bill and Pat. During this number, you could see Mr. Fripp walking around in the back with his hand to his head. No word was mentioned about the incident with the thrown object.”

Halloween Fun!

Yes it was, please take dancing lessons.......

Last time I saw Ian Anderson. He could barely sing, and it was painful seeing him that way. The music was great as usual, but his voice is another story.

I saw MP motion to the guy enough, after about 30 minutes and finally MP got so pissed he flung a stic at the guy, did not hit him. 

Then his drum tech came to everyone in front row and said no more pics with flash.......I get it, but it was rather funny and disturbing, put a damper on the front row.

 

Your post reminds me of two things:

 

Spock's Beard at Prog Fest '97 — Neal stopped the set cold because, as he flat-out told us, "I have to tune my guitar."

 

Transatlantic at Prog Fest 2000 — Roine Stolt had a brand new guitar that buzzed whenever he played it. He played a quiet outro and smiled, with that bzzzzzt happening. They didn't seem able to do anything about it, so they stopped worrying about it. Meanwhile, Neal took a few opportunities to poke fun at Pete while he sang his verse of "Strawberry Fields Forever": he yelled, right as Pete was singing: "Clap, people! Come on! Make him feel better!"  

Yes, I agree, the acoustics are really bad in that building. However, I saw Yes (the Union tour) and Peter Gabriel  at the same venue, and the sound was quite good. It's a shame to hear Rush (I'm not blaming the band), in such horrible conditions. The worst concert (in terms of sound) I've ever attended.

 

"In The Round" – May 14, 1991! I was there, too. Helluva show! Also saw Rush at the Arena on April 5, '90! I recall it sounding pretty good, though. I saw Rush from the 8th row at the Forum in L.A. two nights earlier, and I couldn't hear Geddy's bass half the time...which sucked, considering that's the element that got me into Rush in the first place!

 

That's must've been something!

 

I once waited two hours with 60,000 other people for Led Zeppelin to come out after Derringer's raucus performance at the Oakland Colosseum.  That also happened to be Judas Priest's first west coast tour.  Most of us did not know who they were, but they rocked our faces off.  The show being during the day, Zeppelin gave a lackluster performance.  Robert Plant said that if they seemed slow it was because they got out of bed 1/2 hour before the came on stage.  At 3:00 in the afternoon.  This was 1977.

 

I thought I permanently damaged my hearing seeing Robin Trower in the early 00s.  Thankfully, not.

 

A buddy of mine saw Bill Ward totally lose it mid-show.  Screaming, he trashed his drum set and left the stage to never come back.  Not sure what happened after that.

I saw Jon Anderson solo back around sometime in the last decade I guess and at some point during "nous sommes du soleil" he forgets the lyrics and some people in the audience had to sing it to him and then he remembered and kept going. Not sure how intentional it was though. Maybe he just wanted to see how well the audience knew the song. You never know.  

When I saw John Wetton with District 97 he forgot some of his lyrics to(from a King Crimson song no less)but I kind of remembered(I think I even mixed up the words) and shouted it out to him and he picked up on it and continued. 

After seeing Francis Dunnery live(yeah I know he is only marginally prog)some guy walks up to me with a pen. I have a shaved head and so apparently he thought I was him. I mean come on. You just saw the guy live and you still think I'm Francis Dunnery? Right then the real Francis Dunnery comes walking past and I said something like "here's the guy you want" or "here's the real Francis Dunnery"(I don't remember verbatim what I said)and Francis comes over and shakes my hand then gives the guy an autograph. 

Apparently their relationship was so bad at one point that while they were still performing together she would intentionally trip Richard as he walked out on stage. I do believe they eventually became civil towards each other though(way after the divorce though).

At Glastonbury one year an old guy (who I believed at the time was Mick Abrahams because he played quite a few Tull numbers, but perhaps not) was jamming away on a battered guitar in the Croissant Neuf cafe (this was in the era before it had its own stage at the festival) when an 'unkempt youth' interrupted him and asked if he could "have a go". The look of bemused dejection on the old codgers face when the kid proceeded to strum a poor rendition of 'Wonderwall' was priceless...

...as a one-time band manager I've experienced a number of  toe-curling moments that I can now look back on with amusement. 

At a gig in Camden Pub (the "Dev" for those that know it) our bass player was tasked with driving the van full of gear up from deepest Hampshire while the drummer acted as his co-pilot and navigator. Meanwhile I transported the lead guitarist and a couple of hangers-on and the rest of the band travelled by train. Unfortunately being not an untypical bass player and drummer pairing, they got lost en-route so we were left sitting in the pub drinking ale while we waited for them to arrive. Normally at pub gigs there isn't much time to grab a drink before going on stage so I was unaware that our lead singer had downed several pints of Carlsberg Special Brew by the time the hapless pair had managed to find the venue. She was so pissed (physically, literally, figuratively and metaphorically) by the time she took to the stage that whatever she was singing was completely incomprehensible and was leaning so heavily on the mic'stand to save herself from toppling over into the audience that she managed to bend it in half. After that I banned them from drinking before going on stage.

In my capacity as elected chauffeur, when driving the some band members back from another London gig in the early hours of the morning I put Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory in the CD player... as the hypnotist counted backwards to put Nicolas into a hypnotic trance I pretended to fall asleep at the wheel. I don't understand why I was the only one in the car who found that funny, some people just don't have a sense of humour I guess. But perhaps nearly killing all of us a few weeks earlier when my car aqua-planned when hitting a flood on the M25 may have had something to do with it.

On another occasion we were booked to play for a shop opening in a Southampton shopping mall. Having obtained the necessary permission from the local council we were informed that we'd have to stop if they received three complaints about noise levels. The order to stop came halfway through the first song, it transpired that two of the complaints had been delivered before the band had played a single note and were sent by the owner of a rival shop.

However most of the really embarrassing moments came from bands we were supporting or who were supporting us.

Noticing that several drunk members of Children of Bodom were leching after my then 14 year old daughter at a gig where we were booked to support Edenbridge I quickly stepped between them and whisked her away to meet Sabine Edelsbacher.

When supporting Christian Death at the Underworld a member of one of the other support bands rounded on us at the end of the gig and accused us of stealing one of their guitar head units. The more we professed our innocence the more irate he became until he was practically screaming that he'd call the police if we didn't give it back. Then one of his band mates sneaked up behind him, placed the aforementioned amp at his feet and tapped him on the shoulder, needless to say he fell over it as he turned around...

When supporting Greek metallers Rotting Christ at the same venue our lead singer decided to wear a slinky long black dress that she'd purchased specially that day only to discover that under stage lighting it was completely see through. She quickly ran to the ladies toilets with my wife in tow so they could hastily cover her, ah-hem, 'embarrassment' with gaffa tape. 

At a gig in Southampton we were supporting one band who turned out to be just a duo playing to a rhythm backing track stored on a DAW that suddenly developed a bad case of stage fright early on in their set. We just helplessly looked on as the guitarist fumbled with leads and berated the technology with a foul-tempered barrage. In the end he decided that he was unable to continue so we played two sets that night.

At another gig we'd somewhat reluctantly agreed to take part in a "battle of the bands" just for the expediency of securing what was for us a pretty high-profile gig. One of the other bands playing were miming to a backing track and that too inevitably and predictably packed up midway through their set leaving them standing on silent stage like lemons, but that wasn't the embarrassing bit this time, it was just tear-inducing-ly funny. At the 'cheer for each band' voting at the end of the evening it was clear that from the popular vote it was a tight two-horse race between ourselves and a terrific band called Ordinary Psycho (who were probably the closest anyone ever got to being Prog Gothic), but for reasons known only to the organisers neither of us were crowned the winners, but even that isn't the uncomfortable bit. Nor was it when most of the audience proceeded to boo as the winners were presented with their prize, even though I kinda felt sorry for them because despite the prize money, it was only supposed to be "a bit of fun" to engage the audience with four bands they'd probably never heard of before. Even listening to the winners boasting backstage that they had been told they were going to win before the gig had started was neither uncomfortable nor particularly surprising given how close-knit the Goth community can be. What made that gig so uncomfortable for us was we found it practically impossible to get gigs in the Goth scene after that. Fortuitously, as a direct consequence we became less gothic and more metal just as female-fronted metal became the "in thing".

 

Whoa! You saw Twelfth Night with Geoff Mann!

I'll take your word for it, I was very much a metalhead back in those days, I was primarily there for Black Sabbath & Thin Lizzy though I also really enjoyed Magnum, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Anvil, The Enid & Ten Years After. I really don't remember anything about Twelfth Night, Pallas or Pendragon and was distinctly unimpressed with Marillion. Steel Pulse got bottled off stage half way through their second track, "Hey Man, if you don't stop throwing bottles we're leaving" cue deluge.

 

My seat was not under the roof.

 

About a half hour into the show, there was a massive downpour with thunder and lightning.

 

It actually wasn't that uncomfortable.

 

It's good that you stood for the second half. That guy took a real risk throwing a beer at younger concert-goers, though. I would've flung it right back at him. Usually Rush fans are more considerate.

The opening act (Peter Frampton) was unremarkable, but when KC began to play, the crowd (who seemed very drunk and high on drugs) starting yelling back in forth.  The group closest to the stage wouldn't sit down (the place was a dump, no chairs) and the group in the back was yelling "SIT DOWN" and throwing empty liquor bottles at those in front. 

The tension was high, and Fripp was glaring out at the crowd from his stool, clearly upset that the crowd was not intently listening to the music.  I wrote to Bob years later to recount this and compare it to the Chicago show in 2014, which was reverential and quiet in comparison.  His brief reply was "Bless you, Chuck!"

Despite all of this, it was a successful show!        

I went to see Jethro Tull back around 2008 or so. The opening act was Peter Frampton. During Frampton's set the women behind me were talking and would just not shut up. I didn't ask them to be quiet because based on past experiences that never works. I should have at least tried though. Anyway, at some point I told the security woman and she said she came over and told them to be quiet. This made things worse in a way. The younger woman who was apparently the daughter of the woman sitting next to her said something like "oh, can I clap?" I just put my finger up to my mouth as in "shhhh" and she then gave me the middle finger. I went up to her and said "you wish." Apparently her mom thought I said "you bitch" and grabbed me by the back collar of my t shirt. A slap boxing match ensued involving me and about three or four different women. After about maybe 45 seconds the same female security guard came over because she thought I threw a punch(I did not though I was just blocking their slaps). I know better than to do something like that in public. I wound up being detained. Later on they came over to where the security guy was "holding" me and continued to insult me and call me a coward for not telling them to be quiet(as if that would work). The mother insisted I called her daughter a "bitch" which I did not.  What eventually happened was they went back to their seats(I assume)but I was actually "demoted" to a better section. I was in the top level but they put me in the bottom level on the ground. Once down there some big boobed blonde woman was standing for the rest of Frampton's set and so I didn't really enjoy that performance much. After this ordeal I didn't really enjoy JT that much either. After the show I went to my car and just sort of hung around. I struck up a conversation with one of the women who was parked near me that I saw earlier. I wound up hugging her(just hugging her)for about two to three minutes. 

That was probably the weirdest experience I've had at a concert and that's saying something. I've also been hit in the head by a woman's purse and "stabbed" by a feather from a guy's hat. I guess he was trying to be Robin Hood. 

My first ever concert was like that, Rainbow in 81 at Leeds Queens Hall, I was crushed and must have had my feet literally off the floor a few times as we surged and ebbed and flowed. Fortunately I was 17 and fairly large so I loved every second.

Damn, bunky, that was a fine yarn!!  

I notice that Peter Frampton came up twice in this thread already....do I detect a pattern? 

I was at this show in the front row of the mezzanine.  Ray Davies was seriously drunk.

This is not my blog (although I know the guy who wrote it) and my recollections differ slightly.  His more detailed reminiscence is at the link.

"March 30, 1971 -- The Kinks play at Lincoln Center's prestigious Philharmonic Hall (later renamed Avery Fisher Hall). In contrast to the elegance of the hall, Ray Davies' spontaneous, campy, outrageous, sometimes disoriented performance elicits a huge crowd response. When he falls into a bank of amplifiers (brother Dave kindly steps aside when he sees Ray toppling), members of the audience leap on stage to finish the song "Apeman" for Ray. By all accounts it is a night to remember. "

http://raydavies.fr.yuku.com/topic/9525/March-30-1971-Kinks-play-Lincoln-Centers-prestigious-Phi#.WLY8PYWcHIU