Your best gig

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Bozza Bostik, Aug 4, 2014.

  1. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

    You do surprise me with the Guitar Wolf. I got to see them in Tokyo (brag, brag). They were on my "must see list" and I got to see them about a week before I left. Incredible band. I wouldn't say it was the best gig though, there is some truth in the stereotype that the Japanese stand around and clap politely. It wasn't that bad, but near enough!

    Capoeira footwork and movement works perfectly at gigs. Now, if I just pop out some back flips etc in the pit, that would be awesome.

    No, you kept that one secret! That was fantastic, deserves a "post of the day" award.
     
  2. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    Well, there were the big shows ( as in huge collesiums ) and then there were the best shows ( usually the smaller venues and clubs ). Then there was the Daffy-Duck Postage Stamp Nazareth gig.

    The first concert I ever went to was also the largest – by a large factor. I've never seen as many people in one place (outside Hong Kong) as I did when I attended one of the many dates for the largest show on the road at that time – it wouldn't be until U2's Joshua Tree tour, I think, that anything approached the scale of Led Zeppelin in North America that year.

    I'd just been sent to stay with my auntie and uncle who'd migrated sometime before and were keen on having my mum send me out for the summer ahead of us making the planned move the following year. It so happened my relatives lived across the street from someone associated with the promotor for the largest venue in the area and as I had become good chums with his son that summer. I was in a state of disbelief when my friend asked if I were interested in going to see Led Zeppelin – my alltime favourite. Excited would be a horrendous understatement. Didn't manage to see the band in person or anything, just a brief glimpse of the drummer's roadie tuning up his kit.

    So, here we are, third or so row in the centre...couldn't be better for a lad of barely 13. But as they began playing, it became clear to us ( in front, the rest of the auditorium were clapping like mad ) that something was odd. The insturments were playing all out of synch with each other...well, they manage to pull it together pretty quickly, then my friend starts tapping me on the arm. “Look at that” “What?” “Someone's throwing up over there!” Sure enough, one of the musicians was projectile vomiting all over one part of the stage. I quickly regretted the view the VIP seats were affording me. They managed through another song and then the whole show was cancled.

    Thin Lizzy at Ulster Hall 78. That was the best. I warn't really too keen on them before I saw them play. They were so much more in life – it made their recordings seem two-dimensional in comparison. They had played there several years previous and I can recall overhearing several of my older cousins talking about the concert – but I was 10 at the time and warn't into it. When they returned again they were very well received and this time they were the headliners. Enjoyed that one far, far more than the Led Skeg-Vomit show I'd seen the previous summer, lol.

    The Boomtown Rats around that time - saw them a second time a year later after I was sent (permanently, this time) to the States. We could've been on the same flight together 'cause two or three days after I landed, I heard a promo on the radio that had mentioned them playing at a small seater.

    Couldn't believe it, lol. I knew my new home had to be a bit of the backwards side, culturally speaking, as no one, absolutely no-one seemed to know who they were at the time, which is not surprising as Elvis Costello and the Attractions had played the same Capri Theatre (with the Talkings Heads co-billing) and only had a couple hundred attending – and most of those on free passes!

    Another memorable one was Nazareth, though I canna say it was memorable for the music. I knew them as a band from Dunfermline but they had become big successes in the States and Canada. When they played, it was at the major sports arena ( though they didn't fill it up quite) downtown. Downtown at that time, like NYC, was not a very nice place back in those days before they cleaned it up, lol, but my relative just dropped me off in front of the Arena to see the show and took off for home some miles in the suburbs, lol.

    It woulda been alright, 'xcept in the row right in front of mine, were a group of older people who were passing their smokes around to each other and getting a bit friendly. A girl of about 17 in an adjacent seat turned 'round and laughed when she saw me, then started asking me who I was with and where I was from – which I thought very nice of her and me having just turned 14 a couple of months previous – I was quite flattered that this 'older woman' would chat me up, lol. But then she passed something back to me, I couldn't really make out what it was – some little squares with odd cartoon figures printed on 'em.

    “Lick them”, she said. “Wha?” Oh, they were stamps, I see. She needs me to wet her postage stamps. So naïve, lol. I didn't take the time to inquire as to why she would want to mail a letter from a sports arena that was having a rock concert going on at that moment.

    The opening act had finished and Dan McCaferty had just walked out on stage and as he began speaking, I realised I could not understand much of what he was saying and that is the way the rest of the concert went. I do remember thinking that it seemed to last a very, very long time. I warn't enjoying meself and began feeling very unsettled and was glad when the house-lights came on. I bolted for the doors that led out into the foyer/hall area that circles the building and has the suvineer stands and concessions, etc.

    I was horrified to find that the hallway of the arena had grown to monstrous proportions and had become an impossibly complex labrynth of interconnect mazes. I must have walked around the full length of the outer hall, looking for an exit sign for ages. The exit signs had been right in front of me but I warnt seeing them. I suppose if it warn't for the many people in the place in various states of panic, being held tight by comrades as they stared silently at the ground, open mouths agape, I might have been noticed.

    Apparently, my concert-mate wasn't the only one with letters to mail at the arena that evening, but I didn't put it altogether for some time. I just accepted that I was no longer able to remember what an exit sign looked like and wasn't able to remember if I had passed by any given point at any time. It didn't occur to me to question why I'd become so spatially disoriented. It was just the way it was. Like a dream. I'd also began having odd sensations of time, I felt like I had been in there for what could have been years.

    Well, at last I must have recognised an exit sign – or someone must've grown tired of seeing this little kid walk around and around and around the building and took matters in their own hands and shoved me out a door.

    If I'd thought that navigating innards of the arena akin to transversing Mordor, outside of it was Dante's Inferno. I had no idea what door I had exited from and even if I had, I was unable to relate that hole to any of the thousands of holes that cratered the building - a dimly lit, megalithic square behometh with thousands upon thousands of tunnels leading inside.

    I was cooked.

    Again, I walked around and around, stopping to ask a group of people how to get home. I was still unable to recongize speech, but I would just nod my head and walk off in the general direction they seemed to be pointing. After a bit I would end up asking the same group of people I had encountered how to get home.

    I was so disoriented that I couldn't recognise it was the same group of people each time. I was trying to avoid coming to them again - as I was the increasing number of police in the area, some of them on mounted units (I didn't know it at the time, but they had been looking for me for some bit) – but I would always end up approaching the same group of after-concert goers and not being able to remember them, would ask them how I could get home. LoL. They probably thought I was one of the kids out of “The Shinning”, a-haunting them, no doubt.

    Several groups of people took instant notice of me and started yelling incomprehensibly and pointing in my direction. To my utter horror, I saw three mounted police units heading quickly in my direction. I took off like a bat out of hell! I'm sure it was a sight – this long-haired midget in denim running past the winos and vagrants that littered the adjacent streets of the sports arena while being pursued by policemen on horses, lol.

    In reality, it probably took them all of three half-strides to reach me, but my spatial-time perspective being what it was that evening...

    I was very relieved when I heard one of the policemen call out my name – being able to understand a human voice had a very calming effect and all of the anxiety melted away. They were quite happy and relieved to see me as apparently, there had been a bulletin out for me for a while. They had even taken my poor relative who'd dropped me off for the concert, down to the city morgue to confirm something – there'd been some sort of mix-up in one of the reports – I reckon another kid in the area had been struck by a car or something...My in-law, I don't think she ever spoke a word to me after that.

    I never told them about the girl at the concert and her daffy-duck stamps. I didn't go to another concert for 5 or 6 years after that, lol.

    Welcome to America, lol.

    Oh yeah, Frank Marino and Mahogoney Rush was the opening act. They played well as I recall.
     
  3. Rhythmkiller

    Rhythmkiller Animo Non Astutia

    Brilliant story and a divine comedy of errors. Enjoyed the read.

    Baza
     
  4. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    I agree. It was one of the most entertaining posts I've ever read.
     
  5. dormindo

    dormindo Active Member Supporter

    Wow, belltoller, that was some story! Sorry that that happened to you.
     
  6. dormindo

    dormindo Active Member Supporter

    Oh, man, how old am I! I remember me and my classmates back in the late nineties going to the salsa clubs and throwing some capoeira movements into the middle of steps when we were out on the dance floor.

    Yeah, its one of only a few videos online of me doing anything capoeira related. Our group is already slated to do a performance downtown in November and that one will be purely capoeira, not samba de roda, so if I can get some footage of that I'll post it on the performance thread (an old thread here on MAP where I had originally posted this video).
     
  7. Rhythmkiller

    Rhythmkiller Animo Non Astutia

    Hehe you shouldn't be sorry, it should be put down to experience and hey it was a lovely recount of non voluntary mis-spent youth.

    Baza
     
  8. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

    All in the mind, it's all in the mind!

    "capoeira movements" - I hope you didn't start headbutting and sweeping people though.

    That would be good to see. I'm hoping to add some capoeira in one way or another to the forum when I get back to training. A bit more diversity on the forum would be a good thing.
     
  9. dormindo

    dormindo Active Member Supporter

    ^^^True enough. I still haven't forgotten my promise to put some capoeira stuff on the technique thread. Looks like that may happen in September--once the semester has started and I can settle back into what is a nominally 'normal' schedule.

    Back on topic: I've always enjoyed smaller venue shows to the big megaconcerts, though I have been to some huge shows that I enjoyed (the aforementioned Nirvana show, Earth Wind & Fire, House of Blues outdoor festivals, etc.). The feeling at the smaller shows is not only familiar, but a bit familial in an odd way.
     
  10. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Best gig ever:

    Prince Kentish Town Forum 31st July 1993. This was after his Wembley Stadium show (where I had a great front row spot). The forum gig was free and only offered to celebs and fan club members, I got my tickets by accident after bumping into the ticket distributors outside Wembley. It was a small show with just a couple of hundred people and he jammed loads, covered the Stones, tore it up on his guitar and bass and staged dived into the audience. It was a very different show to the arena gigs he does - he seemed to be having loads of fun (as did the audience).
     
  11. dormindo

    dormindo Active Member Supporter

    I'm so jealous! I've never had a chance to see Prince! Maybe some day the stars will align.
     
  12. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    I'm a huge fan of his! The arena shows are usually spectacular, but if you ever get the chance to see him at an aftershow or small club venue, take it. It's a much better show, he jams more, funks stuff up massively and you even get chugging guitar riffs a la Megadeth - AWESOME stuff.
     
  13. Rhythmkiller

    Rhythmkiller Animo Non Astutia

    I am a fan. Apparently he can play every instrument known to man. Brilliant performance at the superbowl in 2007 especially when he breaks from "all along the watchtower" into the foo fighters "the best of you"

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBJ69LXU4o"]Super Bowl Halftime Show 2007 Prince - YouTube[/ame]

    Baza
     
  14. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    He has an amazing way of seamlessly slipping from one song into another - even from his own stuff into cover versions. I go all gooey when he picks up a bass! :love:
     
  15. Rhythmkiller

    Rhythmkiller Animo Non Astutia

    He was billed as the new Jimmi Hendrix when he was young. Still one of the greatest guitarists ever, everything is effortless with him. i don't love him mind you but i do admire and respect him.

    Baza
     
  16. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    I went to see him at Bagley's Warehouse in Sept 1993 and was lucky enough to have front row. The way the small stage was set up we were right in front of the microphone stand and one of the things I found really interesting was watching him use the different pedals he had for his guitar and how he manipulated the sound he was producing using them - yes, I am a geek!
     
  17. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

    I don't like his music at all (we do actually listen to him when we are having our comical 80s nostalgia hour) and he is kinda creepy (watch yourself at this concerts Frodo) but he is incredibly talented. Gotta respect him for that.

    Yes, yes you are.

    The effects I use are volume up to 11 and distortion up to 12. :p

    RAWWWK!!!
     
  18. Rhythmkiller

    Rhythmkiller Animo Non Astutia

    Lol a tiny terror and Wah for me.

    Baza
     
  19. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    I used to have a business repairing and remoding guitar effects such as pedals and so forth.

    Prince used BOSS pedals quite a bit on stage. Used a Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion and a Boss Blues Driver. He also had a Crybaby Wah running over everything. A couple of rack-mounts and a couple of speciality oddies that no one knows much about :)
     
  20. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Don't be dissing my Prince! :ban: ;) :D

    Oooh, my inner geek loves you for this information! :)
     

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