Great ad-lib stories.

Subject: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Margo
Date: 14 Apr 99 - 10:50 PM

I've been in some tight spots while performing and came through with an ad-lib. Here's one of my stories. I'd love to hear yours!

My gig was at a fundraising dinner for the arts here in Vancouver Washington. I was singing accompanied by a guitar player. As he set up our next song I noticed that the photocopy he had was incomplete, and the ends of all the staffs were cut off, including a few notes. I commented on this, and he just exclaimed that it was O.K., because we have 90% of the song and that was good enough. The audience thought that was funny.

Here comes the climax of the song, a high note with great emotion. My mouth opens and nothing comes out but a squeak! We stopped, and the air was filled with tension. I asked my partner where the note went, and he pointed to the music and said that it was one of the notes that had been left off the end of the photocopy. The tension in the room was relieved with laughter.

We resumed, I sang beautifully, high note and all. After the performance, people flocked to us and told us that we had a wonderful routine. They thought it was all planned.

I love it.

So how did you get out of your close calls?

Margarita

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Sam Pirt
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 08:43 AM

I was playing at a ceilidh and mid set (reels) my chair fell off stage with me playing my accordion on it, as it fell I stood up (luckerly) and kept playing, we didn't stop laughing the rest off the night.

Bye, Sam

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Colin The Whistler (inactive)
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 04:54 PM

Been there sam...Playing with 'Kiss The Blarney' on our very last gig and being in a small hall, or cables leads and such like were struin over the place. Some drunken headbanger tripped over my mike lead during a tune. I was focusing on the mike and noticed it was a Sony. So as it was falling to the floor I started singing 'Sony Don't go away, I'm here all alone'...Place errupted,the boys in the group died in fits.. and then yer man lying drunk on the floor thought they were laughing at him so the twat got up and thanked them.

Colin Ballygally

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: SeanM
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 05:03 PM

The group I'm with was playing at an event... at one point, the organizer of said event asked us to come with her and take some publicity photos. During the shoot, while we were singing, our harmony high singer/concertina/harmonica/bodrahn player's knee spontaneously decided to spontaneously tear some ligament or another. We packed him off to the hospital, and then realized that we'd lost a substantial peice of our act with one show to go... and this was our first gig, so cutting the last show was not an option.

Well, fortunately, we improvised the scripted comedy bits around the gap, and ended up coming through with one of the better shows of the gig... most of the last show ended up becoming a wake for the late great 'Whiskey O'Toole', and squabbles over how to split his share of the pay. Oddly enough, the audience loved it...

M

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: bill\sables
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 07:56 PM

I remember once playing with a band where the singer thought he was gods gift to music. He arranged with the compare at the club we were working to open the curtains just after we started to play the intro to the first song then he would be standing there for all to see. We had placed the speakers in front of the curtains and when they opened ( electrically ) they swirled out and caught the speakers and koocked them over. We kept playing leaving our red faced singer leaping about the stage trying to catch the speakers to the delight of the audience. He never tried that effect again. Cheers Bill

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Tucker
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 10:20 PM

colin, great story. Hey, I have been looking for the words to Sonny. I heard it on that Disney special too and I've got to have it.

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 10:30 PM

It's in the DT under SONNY'S DREAM.

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 01:28 AM

At a Ian and Sylvia concert in the Gaslight in Washington D.C., 1966, Ian was noticeably of high blood alcohol content, and Sylvia seemed ticked off about something. These two facts may not have been related. You could feel the tension between them growing, and suddenly in the middle of a song, Sylvia stormed off the stage and out the front door of the little club. Ian sang toward the end of the song, winding down and finally petering out before the end. He hemmed and hawed uncomfortably and said "Sylvia's just gone out to...umm..errr...get her autoharp!!...and she'll be back soon." About a song and a half later, she returned, gave him kind of a glare and joined in the song.

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Ian Stephenson
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 05:55 AM

Bill and I did a gig the other night with a skiffle band and the drummer dropped his tambourine on the circuit breaker and cut the power to all the PA!

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 09:45 AM

We led a hymn sing at church with Frank on bass, me on fiddle and the choir director on piano, using the church hymnals for music. After an hour of songs that I had pre-selected and practiced, the minister got up and said:

"Pick your favorite number from the hymnal. Let's play stump the band!"

So I said, "Don't anyone say a word. Play stump the minister!"

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Barbara
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 10:00 AM

When I was in college I went to a Simon and Garfunkle concert where Paul wanted to sing a song he'd written, and Art didn't. After several go-arounds where Paul would introduce it and Art would start playing something else, Paul started in on the song alone. Art looked at him for a minute, set his guitar down, walked behind Paul on the stage and stood on his head. All the change fell out of his pockets. As Paul turned around to see what the noise was, the audience just howled and Paul had to blow off the song for the night (seems like it was a serious sad love song or some such).
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 02:23 PM

When I was in college I went to a Simon and Garfunkle concert (no, this isn't Barbara's incident) where Paul broke a string. What happened next was probably not exactly ad-libbed, although it seemed so at the time: Art said he would tell a nasty story, but that he'd stop the tale in progress as soon as Paul finished changing strings. Paul change the string faster than almost anyone I've ever seen, and Art never got to the end of the tale.

Mark

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From:
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 02:33 PM

I auditioned for a solo guitar & singing gig at a restaurant. This place had a nice stage, and on it - a white grand piano. Just before I was about to begin my first song, I leaned again the piano. The piano apparently had a leg that needed gluing, because the leg snapped off and the piano crashed to the stage floor.
You must try this sometime, the sound of a grand piano falling onto a hollow stage is quite unique. It really woke the diners up and fixed all attention on me. I think I said something Jimmie Durante style about "a piana's a delicate instament and no one knows it betta than me." Actually I'm still working on a snappy ad-lib comment, and as soon as I come up with it I'll head back to that restaurant.

Mark

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 02:35 PM

Sorry, lost my cookie..

Mark

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 06:11 PM

I was very impressed with a young chap who offered a long, unaccompanied ballad during an "open mike" intermission one night at The Sounding Board in Hartford. About half-way through the ballad, he forgot the words. Rather than panic, he simply sat there, thinking, for a long, silent moment. Then he looked up at the audience, smiled, and calmly said, "This is the instrumental break." When the words came back to him, he continued and finished the ballad. He sure won my gold star for that evening!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Great ad-lib stories.
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Apr 99 - 06:41 PM

A few years ago I played the part of "Fiddler" in a production of O'Neil's "Desire Under the Elms". In one scene I was to drop in on the dysfunctional family lookin' for a couple of free drinks. "Paw" commands me to "play that damned fiddle, and I'll wet your whistle, boy". When I start to play "Pop Goes the Weasel", he gets up and does a crazy galumphing kind of dance. Since nobody likes "paw" they all encourage me to play faster and faster until the old man falls down in a sweating heap. At least that's how it went for the first few weeks of the run. One night the actor playing "paw", David Fox, was in especially good form and his manic clogging was surprising even the rest of the cast. He was jumping on and off tables and chairs and made a leap for the couch, where his new and very young wife (actress Wanda Cannon) was sitting. He realized that he was going to smash into her (which wasn't in the script) tried to change direction in mid-flight, and went head-first THROUGH the wall! (which was made of canvas) I stopped playing instantly, the cast stood there open mouthed and in shock, and the audience let out a collective ohhhhhhh! Wanda saved our bacon, as she calmly peered through the large hole and said in a seductive southern drawl, "I guess my kinda lovin' makes you strong!" The audience howled, David climbed back through the wall (had he come back in by the kitchen door he'd have gotten another laugh) and they carried on as if nothing had happened. O'Neil must have turned in his grave that night.