It being October 31st, and a Wednesday, my mind turns to fright and terror, and I recall, shivering, my three most terrifying gigs….
The Day the Guns Came Out
As a young man, I lived in a “band house” with a bunch of other musicians, and our next door neighbor was a large (mostly tall) colorful feller who was a classic “outlaw” biker. He was an OK guy though, and once he found out we had a band, we got a number of gigs at parties for his, uh, motorcycle club.
These parties tended to be pretty lurid and exciting. The men were large, tough and profane and girls were tiny and vivacious. We felt safe because we weren’t in the game. We were harmless musical hippies who staked no claim on their inter-club rivalries, women or beloved motorcycles.
At one such party, things were going pretty well was loud, crowded and raucous. Suddenly, from the stage we saw the packed crowd part like the Red Sea, and at the edge of the gap was a gray-breaded old biker waving a shotgun, apparently in a rage. It seems that he (they called him “Dad”) was having s heated discussion with someone and things got a bit too heated, so Dad went for his trusty 12-gauge. He was infuriated and it was serious – everyone’s eyes were wide with alarm.
People all over were saying “C’mon, Dad, please, put the gun away!”, but it was clear Dad couldn’t distinguish friend from foe and didn’t know how to de-escalate the situation.
The other guitar player in our band (I wish I could say it was me – it’d make a better story), jumped off the stage and walked towards Dad.
“Dad, why don’t you give ME the gun?”, he said in a low soothing voice. “You know I’m not on either side, right? Just give me the gun and we can get back to the party, OK?”
Dad saw his out and handed the shotgun over to the neutral musician, and immediately tensions eased, and indeed, the party did resume, although knees were generally a little shakier than before.
The Day The Earth Moved
Wedding gigs are always memorable – sometimes for unexpected reasons.
We played a wedding gig out at a union hall in Pacheco, and it was a LOT of fun – very nice families, clearly there to have fun. Even the grandparents were groovin’ (or pretended to) to the rockin’ sounds we were putting down.
During one song, a peculiar thing happened – the earth began to move. From the vantage point of the raised stage, we could feel a slight rumble (could have been a truck rolling by?), and then we saw the entire building rocking back and forth.
People began streaming for the exits – never a good sight for musicians. We were in a quandary – what should WE do? As Californians, we were quite familiar with earthquakes, and we were getting paid to play. Should we power through it?
But the quake went on, and I saw the drummer standing up, ready to bolt. I saw no reason to go down with the ship, so we gave the evacuation order and joined the leaving masses.
In the end, no one got hurt, but we never again played the song we were playing when that quake hit. I’m sorry to report the marriage itself proved as shaky as the wedding, but I played the bride’s next wedding, too.
The Day the Heavens Opened
Another wedding gig! This one looked promising. The couple was lovely and had come to see the band play a number of times. The location was also lovely – along Lake Chabot on a beautiful grassy expanse.
When we arrived for load in, however, a couple of circumstances presented themselves. First of all, the beautiful grassy expanse was a couple of hundred yards away from where we could park – this meant multiple trips to get heavy PA gear, plus instruments to the site… Secondly, a light rain was falling. Even if it let up, the ground would be mushy and muddy.
Still, a wedding’s a wedding and letting our smiles be our individual umbrellas, we schlepped our stuff like overdressed Sherpas with multiple trudging trips through the increasing precipitation and plunked it all down in the driest spots we could under some canopies at the site. When we were done, we were soaked, sweaty and muddy.
I guy walks over and holds out an extension cord. “Here’s where you can plug in!”, he cheerfully declared.
We looked around at the soaking morass and agreed it would be suicidal to try and plug something in, plus it would be electronics abuse to even try that PA in this weather. We decided to go “commando” – after all, this is bluegrass made to be played in the natural manner.
Things got markedly less terrifying from this point on. In fact, they became increasing joyful, as the wedding party (getting their cues from the bride) decided to let the rain just be an interesting part of the story of this wedding day. We played, we smiled, people danced, and by the end of the day, everyone was mud-soaked to the waist and thoroughly happy with how things turned out.
