Strangest thing you saw at a musical concert?

How perfectly well Crash Worship could play an inner-city Pacific Northwest venue and make it seem like I was in a bliss capsule that everybody predicted to implode then explode through wine and fire!

 

Yes, 90125 Tour
Some guy slip in the vomit of the person who drove me there.

(No need to tell me how stupid it was to let someone that drunk drive me, or drive period. I know.)

 

Ran into a dude at the Furthur NYE run in San Francisco in 2012 I'd met at prior shows. Talked to him pre-show and he didn't seem too out of it. Show starts, couple songs in, and I hear this loud "CAWWWW!!, CAWWW!!, CAWWWWWW!!!!!" near me. Turned around and saw that he'd put on a yamaka, was crouched down and flailing his arms slowly up and down as if he were an eagle.

 

A guy at the River 2016 Tour in Berlin. He was off to the side area of the front of the side, away from everybody. I'd see he was about half-way between the rest of the general audience and the area where the paramedics chill out. It's also broad day light as it's summer, so everybody can see him clear as day. And he is just absolutely beyond drunk. He started miming along and playing air guitar really ambitiously. He did this during slow and uptempo tracks, and it was just truly hilarious. Lord knows he paid the arena's electrical bill with all the beer he likely drank.

Also at a Springsteen show, Wrecking Ball Tour in Boston. We were all in line at the lottery, and this girl was totally out of control drunk. She was drunk about an hour or so earlier when I was picking up my ticket, and by this point, she could barely stand. They bring out a barrel for her vomit in. Eventually, the section we're standing in gets chosen to be in the pit. And about ten minutes later, she's being wheeled by us on a stretcher and put in the back of an ambulance. Her friend, who was naturally also in the lottery winners section, did not go with her friend to the hospital-- she promptly attempted to sell her friend's ticket to anybody else, now with the advantageous bonus of being in the front row.

And just a general pet peeve, going to a show in Germany can be a little grating, because Germans love to systematically clap during just about any song like it's a Schlager Volkslied.

 

Chuck probably didn't hire the band. He usually just toured alone and asked each venue to supply a band that knew his songs. As you might expect, the quality of the backup band varied from night to night. It was not unusual for Chuck to unplug any band member he felt was not up to the job.

 

Have you seen the Pearl Jam documentary, "Twenty?" There are a number of concert clips from the 1990's with Ed climbing around high above the stage and the band---particularly Stone Gossard---looking up apprehensively. I think Stone says in an interview in the film that he found Ed's antics in the 90's difficult. Given the death of Andy Wood in 1990, he couldn't bear the thought of losing a second lead singer in such a short period of time.

 

Yeah, Germans love anything that seems orderly. Not a bad thing, but can be annoying.

 

I can barely hear the music sometimes. Pro-tip: don't clap during ballads. I often feel torn between my American side and my German side, but there is no gray area with me. It's one or the other, and the German lose out on this one imo.

 

One of the reasons I don't go to concerts is the distractions. I wish more Americans were as orderly as the Germans seem to be. Bunch of slobs here.

 

Americans get far too drunk and puke everywhere.

Madonna - MDNA Tour 2012 in Boston... this guy is in 7 inch platform boots and is drunk. AKA, he gets vertigo really quick. The show has. not. started. yet. And he keeps falling on people and scaring the crap out of this little girl with her mom. And of course security did nothing.

 

That's part of the problem, people just put up with that kind of behavior. People have the right to puke, you know...

 

Indeed, just not on my shoes.

 

I saw a Phil Keaggy solo show a few years back when, while turning his guitar into a alternate tuning, one of the pins that holds the strings popped out and flew in the to audience. House lights came up and everyone looked for the needed pin, which was not to be found. Fortunately a fan had brought his guitar hoping to get it autographed after the show. Phil borrowed a pin and the show went on.

 

Wasn't there when this happened, the infamous "bottle incident" at the 2002 concert by The Who at Madison Square Garden.

 

I did that at a Bon Jovi concert once.

 

Did he look like this?

 

Here are a few...

Neil Young concert in VA. A guy is climbing over seats to move closer to the stage. He gets to my row and crashes into me, spilling his beer on me and falls down. The song Neil was singing? "****in' up", of course. I really wanted to sing it at him.

Black Crowes show in DC. Chris Robinson was literally kicking the crowd control security guys in the back from the stage for doing their job (stopping people from rushing the stage).

U2 show in DC. Bono is also not a fan of the crowd control guys. He does not like that they are making people stay in their seats and says "our crowd knows how to control themselves". After the show I spot Bono backstage standing with 2-3 suits. I go up to him to tell him what a great show it was. He says "they wanted to arrest me tonight". He seemed really down but he signed an album I let him know again what a great show he put on.

Bill Kirchen at the Sunset Grille in Annandale, VA. He used to play my local bar every Thursday night. Always did a great version of "Hotrod Lincoln". At the end of one storming set he takes his old telecaster and shoves the headstock through the low ceiling of the bar. It gets stuck and he just leaves it there hanging from above till the next set when he pulls it out, tunes it up and starts to twangin' again with it.

 

I saw Iron Maiden at Chicagofest back in '82. The crowd pelted the warm up bands with white plastic beer cups. Every band was booed off the stage. All of them.

3 acts set to replace Wonder at Fest (August 7, 1982)

Saw Motorhead at the Grand Circus Theater in Detroit in the Winter of '84. They sold so few tickets that they didn't even turn on the heat. There was no security at all. Nobody at the stairway leading backstage.

Great show...

 

When I saw New Order in 1985, the singer was wasted, and couldn't sing or play. I wanted my money back. The same year, I saw a Cocteau Twins show that was fraught with technical difficulties, resulting in the band getting lost and out of sync with their pre-recorded parts and drum machine; I felt sorry for them.

 

I was at that Pavement Osheaga show, too. All I could think of was "I've been waiting so long to see this, and I'm sure they're going to storm off stage." Turned out to be an excellent set!

 

George Clinton at the Club Nokia and the old guy with the gray mohawk who I saw in the backstage area before the show just chilling got up and jammed to Thank You and was Sly Stone.

 

Police, 10th June 1982 Liverpool Empire. It had been announced on local radio that The Rolling Stones would be playing a secret gig the following night. It turned out that the radio DJ had never heard of the act that was actually performing "Freddie McGregor and the Studio One Band". So on the night there was Police presence inside the Theatre just in case of trouble when people finally realised they were not going to see the "Stones''. In hundreds of indoor gigs I have attended it was/is the ONLY time I have ever seen Police at an indoor venue.

 

At a Bjork show in Boston, there was a woman going around telling people that she was drinking her amniotic fluid from a baby bottle and she had to get it to Bjork.

 

Malkmus took it like a pro!

 

Love it! Fee and the boys put on a helluva stage show! I bet it was great having a one on one convo with him.