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I love true gig stories...Don't you just love it when you get an outdoor gig and they say rain or shine, cuz they have a building you can go in if it's raining?. Then when you get there it really looks like it could rain, but everyones trying to think SUN , so you set all up and BANG it starts to pour....Do you have a "Singin In The Rain" story? I've got a lot of em but want to hear yours.... Sue

Absolutely honest to goodness true story.

I was in the 7th grade and wanted to sing for a talent show at a harvest day celebration in Emington IL. I got up to sing "Sunshine on My Shoulders" by John Denver and it started pouring down the rain. It was a long time before I ever sang in public again. That can traumatize a 13 year old boy.



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ric4music
"Have Guitar, Will Travel"

Wow, that must have been intense to say the least. 13 Years Old ... Sue

[This message has been edited by laineytunes@yahoo.com (edited 08-22-2006).]

It was more embarrassing than anything I think. It wasn't all bad and it taught me persistance because the next year I went to Solo-Ensemble contest and did "City of New Orleans" and placed 1st. I've always been persistant.



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ric4music
"Have Guitar, Will Travel"

Ric, with a slogan like "Have Guitar Will Travel" you would definately have to have persistence Sue

Got hired once to sub with a wedding band to play an outdoor wedding in the backyard (more like a park) of a suburban home. They had a large tent set up. We already knew rain was expected when we arrived, so they set us up in the corner of the tent. Unfortunately, it turned out that the tent was positioned at the lowest point in the yard. There was a torrential downpour, and the water ran down and accumulated under the tent. After about 20 minutes, the ground under the tent turned to mud. As the couple were exchanging their wedding vows, the claps of thunder made it impossible to hear what was going on. They had planned a baloon release when they kissed, so everyone had baloons, but when they moved the ceremony into the tent, nobody said "don't bother with the baloons" so everybody released them- only the tent wasn't that high, so for the rest of the evening everybody was walking around through a forest of baloon strings that were hanging down. The guests had a good time, took off their shoes, rolled up their pants, and the women didn't seem to mind the mud on their dresses. I recall one extremely obese woman had to be rescued when the back legs of the chair she was sitting in started to sink into the ground and she couldn't get up. As far as the band, we got soaked because the rain was so heavy it came in sideways between the tent top and the tent wall. We tried to elevate the electrical cords, but we had to turn everything off periodically due to lightning. Eventually, we just decided it was too dangerous and gave up. A few members of the band then decided to be strolling minstrels, and went around the tent with acoustic guitar, tambourine, concertina and vocals.
Of course, the rain wasn't the worst part. They ran out of beer.

Hi Stu, great top of the morn story to LMAO to. Thanks, Isnt it amazing how people love to kick off their shoes etc..and just go with the flow? Great story..I'm sure you have many.
One time in the early 70s we were hired to do a college party on the ferry boat to Martha's Vineyard. It was already raining when we left but back then they never called things like that off, the generation of parents who sent their kids out to play in torrential rains & electical storms We loved it of course,,,,,anyway, we played for a while sort of inside undercover, but you know what small ferrys are like, and when it started to flood on the cement floor , it was sort of like playing inside a campground restroom...smells and all. So of course it starts to thunder & ligtning. The boat is rocking from side to side, the college kids are heaving over the boat, then my mic stand starts to wobble & I grab onto it , to also keep from falling over while singing and playing guitar and instantly feel a huge jolt go all through me. Scary to say the least, I was ok but couldnt continue as I was trembling all over. So I went to find a spot to sit down, and I had been on the ferry before , but never for this long(4 hours) , so to top things off I was soon joining the party grads at the boats edge.
The band finished the last set without me,and when we made it back to dock, the rain stopped , the sun came out, & we changed clothes, found a great seafood restaraunt drank some beers together and watched the sunset at Woods Hole..what a great day... Sue

Stu,that was a very funny story,I could picture it in my mind.I'll bet everyone will remember that wedding and have a laugh.It might have seemed a disaster at the time but those thing become fond memories that you reflect on.

Sounds like a good topic for a novelty song, did you write one?

Everett

Well Sue you had to ask,
I was in your neck of the woods in that state down and over a bit June 24 for my wife's 50th High School Renuion. Ct. to be sure. And it was raining Cats and Dogs. One of the students has a big house with indoor swimming pool and big out door deck. They were all inside because of the rain. And they are planning another reunion in 5 years.

Hi Ray, wish I had known, would have been a pleasure to meet you and your wife & friends.. Yeah we've had many rainy days this year and lots of flooding. Let me know before you come back and we'll hook up.... Actually I have a music friend who goes to Georgia a lot he has family there. I'll find out what part...He's a professor of English at UMass Dartmouth, and a singer/songwriter. He writes stories about the South and has a few books published. Sue

This was our best show ever!

My band were playing downtown Bend OR, for an Art Walk (they called it). It was an outdoor, infront of the cafe's and shops type of show. I was by myself, watching the equipment, and it started to pour rain. I drug it under a walkway where we ended up playing for dozens of people who stood drenched in the dark cold rain to listen as I sang the most mood apropriate set ever.

silver lining indeed!

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-autumn
www.myspace.com/autumnnempire
www.autumnandempire.com

Hi Autumn & Empire, nice to meet you here at JPF...Nice story, people can be so incredibly giving and supportive of our music at times huh? This is a classic of how it works both ways, like another recent post by DH ... You must have been makin some really good music to keep them there Welcome....Sue Lainey

www.sounclick.com/susanlainey
www.susanlainey.com
www.cdbaby.com/susanlainey

Oh man Sue,,,,you HAD to mention an outdoor gig and rain, and a place to play in if it does rain!

Our Too Little Time band is playing outdoors a week from this Sunday, and was told rain or shine! The guy there even pointed to a large open air building in case it rains. We just all looked. If no wind, it might be ok. Some wind, and we might as well be outside!
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When I was 15, our band played at a lake, and it rained. We started to get wet despite another "open air building", (what a "shock" to get wet with no walls). The funny part was we all didn't want to get wet, (not even thinking of electrocution), so we stopped playing to get awat from the rain, then got into our bathing suits and went into the lake! Kids!

Bellmawr Lake, Bellmawr, NJ. Still there! NO,,,,not me in the lake,,,,,the lake is still there, Silly!

John

And Hey John, us Boomers , we walk into the place;, I look up at the sky and there is a huge cloud of black approaching very quickly
They keep saying "think sunshine" I keep saying safety... Years ago we would have thought it was cool to maybe be struck by lightning. Today I certainly know better after losing a good friend who worked on the waterfront . He was standin in a very shallow pool of water and fired up power tool and was electrocuted.
Want this to be fun to talk about , but also you youngins,,someone in the band of crazies has to be sane and think of these things...........Be Safe First SUE

What's your best Gig disaster story?

Back in the 80's one of my first shows ever was at an outdoor "Ironhorse Festival" in a small town in Indiana. We got a mainstage slot on the peak night. I had my guitarist come down from Chicago to join me and my co-keyboardist who combined brought 15 Keyboards on stage, all hooked up in rudimentary midi chain style with floppy disk drives to load, click tracks to synch all my gear to all his gear etc.

It was a beautiful weekend and just as we went up to play, it started raining. There was no roof over the stage. We did out best to cover things but with all that gear it was impossible. Still, the rain quickly passed after about 10 minutes of light sprinkles. That was enough unfortunately. As we started our opening song all was well, but when we finished, the second one started up, but all the sounds which were called up by one main sequencer (we had no live drummer) instead of playing drum sounds, it played an ever changing selection of random keyboard sounds in their place. We soldiered on, as the show must go on. I got it to stop playing the drum track about two lines in to the first verse but then when I attempted to play the bass line to my friends chords/piano parts it was a string sound, then a brass sound, then a set of barking dogs sound. We finished the song sans my parts and the audience erupted in applause for our efforts. But it didn't stop there. We had all the songs lined up so the next set of sounds for each part of the set list would call up in order. We were both often playing two keyboard parts live with additional sequenced drums, bass, arpeggiators etc. This mess went on for several more songs until we finally got a handle on it. We got about 20 minutes of it on a video tape before the video camera stopped working.

My friend is now the COO of a major US Tech firm (he actually created one of the first mp3 players incl. the one first used by Google, Yahoo and CBS, (quite a genius he is). He's threatened my life if I ever dig it up and post it. I was 21, he was 15! Those were the days, but I never took all my gear to show off again nor did I play exposed to the weather.

No gigging in the rain stories, unless it was for frogs, but every year in eastern Ohio, near Wheeling West Virginia, there is a country music festival that draws 100,000 plus every day for 5 days, called Jamboree in the Hills. it is in a natural bowl, and the only place that is covered is the stage. It features many top name country acts along with up and comers and those sliding off the charts. It is set in what must be rainy season there. I went for 5 years and we didn't have one without some storms. The bands played rain or shine, including thunder and lightning, and the people, at least most of them, stayed to hear them. Sometimes the field was full of mud, and the people slogged through to their places, and enjoyed the best country music around.