Worst Backstage Experiences?

I have never been backstage, but I'd love to hear all your experiences.

 

I used to work with a woman whose husband was a big shot at one of the large indoor arenas in the area. Got me some great seats.
Anyway, she adores Elton. The husband had trouble getting her backstage, but finally made the connection,
She's waiting for him to come out for sound check. This is 80's Elton who was drinking really heavily at times.
Elton comes out of his dressing room with a cake and proceeds to throw it at the road manager, smearing him with it and taking the joke wayyyyy too far, all the while laughing hysterically.
It was uncomfortable and her Elton 'worship' ended.

 

A band I was in played a fairly large gig supporting a band called audioslave once.

They had a hard as nails road crew, who enforced weird rules such as ‘don’t speak to any of the band members, even if they speak to you.’ We were not allowed to walk past the band’s dressing room door, with the exception of getting to the stage, since it was the only route. The lead singer - Chris Cornell - said ‘hello’ to our drummer. Our drummer said ‘hello’ back. Some bouncer/roadie instantly wandered over and threatened him.

At the end of the night, it turned out our van was blocking one of the band’s trucks. Rather than asking politely if we could move it, they came in with an instant threat of a breeze block through the window.

From the little evidence available, the band themselves seemed fine.

I should think I have other stories, but they are not at my fingertips.

 

One time me and a friend got a chance to see Aerosmith...this was in the mid '90s. Through a friend of a friend we even got backstage passes for the two of us and my girlfriend. So we go backstage right after the show, getting back there before the band! Anyway, when we got there a bunch of people were all hanging out and partaking of booze and snacks. It wasn't long before we saw the band coming in from the stage area, and my girlfriend started making a bee line for them. Me and my buddy followed, of course. Out of nowhere we were cut off by a security guy who closed off a divider between us and the backstage area the band was in. The worse part was my girlfriend was on the band's side of the divider, while me and my buddy were stuck on the non-band side! I tried to reason with the security guy, even telling him that my girlfriend was on the other side of the divider. He didn't seem to care, though. All he said was "A lot of peoples girlfriends are in there." So we were left to just stand there like losers on the wrong side of the fence.

 

I was backstage when The Beatles played the Hollywood Bowl, and wow, talk about chaos!

OK, I was backstage at the Hollywood Bowl after that show, but The Beatles weren't there.

OK, once I saw the Hollywood Bowl from a sightseeing bus.

 

The first time (of 2 total) that I had a backstage pass was at an REM show in Springfield, Ohio on the Pre-construction of the Fables tour.

When the show ended, I went to go backstage, and someone stopped me, and said the band will be right out.

They came out on the floor, and mingled with everyone who was still around. No backstage pass needed.

They were as nice as can be though.

 

Another one - I won’t say who, but at a gig I played in the early 90s, a well known 80s UK band who were, let’s say, way past their prime, left an unbelievable quantity of bloody tissues dumped in their dressing room.

 

Very minor one but since it's about one of my favorite musicians.....Somehow I scored an all access backstage pass for the Warner Theater in DC for a show on March 18, 1978. Some bells are ringing out there in Hoffman land. Yes, it was one of the great Jerry Garcia band shows of all time. The first show started and after about 6 songs, Garcia pulls the plug and walks off. Evidently, he wasn't happy with the feedback from the audience or something like that. Soooooo, we head back stage at the break me thinking maybe I can say hello to the great man. The door to the dressing area flies open and Garcia comes in and it was clear this wasn't the time to make pleasantries as he had a thunderous look on his face. Ok, back to the stage side for the second show all of us thinking uh oh it's going to be a not so great music night. Well, it was a great, incredible show as has been documented. We were all transfixed by a guitar god being a guitar god. Absolutely incredible to be so close. Donna came off for a break mid set, we enjoyed a joint with her and all was well. I remember the roadies had to basically carry Keith on and off the stage as he was so high but he played well. At the end of the night there was a large amount of food and drink that the band left so we chowed down. Quite a night.

 

Ooooh this thread gonna be good

 

Off topic, but I'd rather talk about a positive experience. Johnny "Clyde" Copeland was a great Texas bluesman. Perhaps he's not well known any more, but he played on the classic, "Showdown" album with Albert Collins and Robert Cray. I used to see Johnny at various clubs around NY and NJ in the 1980's with his band. He had a heart condition, and multiple surgeries, and was one of the first patients to get a special type of defibrillator device. He recovered enough to play some great comeback shows, and would wear the battery pack on his belt. You could see it under his suit jacket when he was wailing on stage.
He had a medical setback, and there was a benefit concert held for him at Tramp's in NYC, which is now closed. The bill was a who's who of blues greats, inc. the legendary Charles Brown, Clifford Solomon, Ruth Brown, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, and Lucky Peterson, among others. His surgeon, Mehmet Oz (Dr. Oz, of TV) was in the audience, too. It was an unforgettable show, and afterwards, I went backstage to talk to the great man. He was sitting on a sofa with his wife, and looked wiped. I would have kissed his feet, but I just shook his hand, told him how much I loved his music, and what an inspiration he was to me. I could see that he was touched, and it meant the world to me to connect with him, because he died shortly thereafter.

 

Noel Gallagher. A hero of my adolescence and the proof that you should be very careful about meeting your heroes.

 

How long after did you break up?

 

I have been backstage for quite a few rock shows. In my experience, security does its job. If you have the appropriate pass, they leave you be as long as you are not getting in the way. If you are not supposed to be there, they keep you out.

The artists have typically been pretty cool. As long as you are not a gushing idiot and speak to them like a human being, I have found most of them to be approachable. Many, when not getting ready to take the stage, are just waiting around and don't mind pleasant small talk. There are some that clearly don't want to be bothered but I have found that they tend to stay in their dressing rooms.

I have found the managers, largely, to be over protective and generally unpleasant. But that, too, is their job.

I, too, have been told (with specific artists) not to look at them or talk to them, only to have them make small talk. Very awkward as I don't want to be rude and not talk to them, yet I don't want to be caught breaking the "no contact" rule.

Behavior when back stage is mostly common sense, but its sometimes a very surreal thing to be so close to musicians that you are a fan of, so common sense cannot be counted on. Therefore managers & security do their jobs.

I have also found that, with or without appropriate passes, a pretty woman is less likely to be challenged by security than a guy is. At one show I had a pass to certain areas backstage, but not others. Security turned me away. A pretty woman that I was with had the same pass as I had and was heading to the same area I was blocked from. I mentioned that she wouldn't be granted access. "yes, I will", she said, "and so will you." I simply followed her and access was granted.

 

Okay, I was in LAX once to get a connecting flight to Fort Worth.

 

Being in the opening band a couple times, I haven’t had any unpleasant backstage experiences, but a couple times that were unique. That said, to paraphrase Letterkenny, I think it’s impolite to kiss and tell.

 

No bad ones for me. Yay! One odd one, the lead singer of Alabama signed an LP for me but never said a word. I asked if he was saving his voice and he nodded and smiled. Fair enough.

 

That sounds pretty cool to me. If that was your worst experience then you're doing pretty well.

 

Was that the show the Neats were the openers? I was there too with a backstage pass! Eric Martin from the Neats wore my band’s t-shirt that night.

Don’t mean to thread crap a thread about worst backstage experiences... it was a great night

 

This is a "backstage" story of a different sort. It doesn't involve me directly, but it was something I observed.

This was at a Robert Gordon show in the late 70s, when Chris Spedding was playing guitar for him. I was in the front row of the venue, which for many years previous had been a movie theatre, and before that one where live stage shows were presented.

Robert was out front, nattily dressed, singing and bopping about to the rockabilly with a broad, confident smile on his face. He was doing the old "finger in the ear" trick; at time time, I thought he was just doing it because it looked cool. But in retrospect, it could have been because he couldn't hear himself in the monitors.

In fact, that's probably the case. Spedding goes into a solo, and Gordon, still with a big smile, goes dancing off the stage and into the wings. Though I was in the front row, I was off to one side, so I could see behind one of the side curtains. Gordon arrives, and proceeds to give the sound man who's operating a board back there holy hell. I mean, his expression is absolutely livid, and he really rips this hapless guy a new one — gesticulating and screaming at the top of his lungs (the sound covered over by the band, of course).

As Spedding's solo is reaching its conclusion, Gordon bops back out on stage, with the same big smile he had on his face earlier, and resumes singing. The transformation in his expression was immediate — and just a little creepy!

 

Once after a Cradle Of Filth show at Irving Plaza in NYC I stayed behind with a friend who did their PR. We had to go back to his car to give something to Dave Pybus their bass player at the time. We wound up at the front door which was completely blocked by the band's gear which was going right to the airport. We had to back track through the empty venue to a door that went out the back. Believe it or not there was a small crowd of fans out there. No one seemed interested in Dave though, as we walked right past. Maybe they were waiting for Joey Jordison, the Slipknot drummer , who sat in with them on a couple songs...nice guy from what I remember.

 

That’s the one.

 

Were you a student at Wittenberg? I worked at Peaches in Cincy, and our Capitol rep gave me the tickets.

 

I had kind of an inside track with somebody in radio in Columbus, they hooked us up thru the radio side.

 

Cool. Great show.

 

My band and another local band opened for a very well known Christian band in Seattle. As the first band began to play, they started performing a few of the headliner’s songs in there set. That did not go over well. Not much to say except the next night we were the only opening band.