Subject: I shouldn't have done that... From: alanabit Date: 07 Mar 06 - 03:12 PM We have all played gigs at which we made fools of ourselves at some stage. No doubt I would cringe if I saw footage of my first outings in folk clubs, but the one really painful moment to recall came at a rock gig. I was singing and playing second guitar in a band. I thought I would make a nice dramatic gesture to kick the gig off. The plan was to spring dramatically into the air and crunch out a power chord over the opening drum riff... The second time I did it, I remembered to check that the amp was not still on standby... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Purple Foxx Date: 07 Mar 06 - 03:19 PM On stage dancing in a village hall (not something I do well) brought my foot down HARD for dramatic emphasis & went straight through the floor. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: jonm Date: 07 Mar 06 - 03:22 PM ... it was just a stage you were going through! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Peace Date: 07 Mar 06 - 03:23 PM Doing a gig at a club in Montreal Foot went through the floor. I said into the mike, "Hey, it's just a stage I'm going through." Even the club owner chuckled. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Rasener Date: 07 Mar 06 - 04:31 PM MCing at my club, I was introducing John Conolly and saying that I didn't really need to introduce him as he is so well known and the person who wrote that famous song called "Fiddler On The Roof" and immediately John started to sing "If I was a rich man etc etc". He stopped and said "I wish I had written that, I would be a millionarre now" Everybody had a good old laugh. For those few who don't know John, it was of course "Fiddlers Green" |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:23 PM I have a standard chuckle-getter if there's a bald-headed man in the audience: "If you and Telly Savalas put your heads together you could make an ass of yourselves." Well, one night four couples came in and sat near the stage. One of the men was bald-headed, and he started a little bit of gentle heckling. Good fun stuff - no malice. So I used the Telly Savalas line. Whereupon his wife pulled him out of his chair, led him up to the stage and stood in front of me screaming: "It's CHEMO, you asshole!" it sure stopped the heckling - which really wasn't my intention. Seamus |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:35 PM While I'm at it...I was playing a Festival on the West coast (U.S.) when a couple walked in front of the stage pushing a young child in what appeared to be a space-age stroller, all stainless steel-tubing, aerodynamic design with roll-bars and big wheels. I said, "Wow! Cool stroller!" They turned it around and walked towards me, stopping in front of the stage. I could see that the child was handicapped and wearing a protective helmet. The husband said: "It's a wheelchair." Seamus |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Northerner Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:40 PM I've nothing to add - but I've really enjoyed this thread! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Georgiansilver Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:47 PM I shouldn't have given up Folk Clubs in the seventies due to marital pressures....been back with it for nearly three years now but have lost something through my absence. Lack of practice with the singing and too much smoking in the eighties has left me less powerfully voiced...sad but I am at least back to going to clubs and I do sing occasionally when I feel adequate enough. Just wish I had kepy it going |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Northerner Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:54 PM Hello Georgiansilver. I can empathise with this as I also gave up the folk clubs for many years (for medical reasons). There are alternatives to singing, or at least skills that you can add onto it. One, you could try a musical instrument. I'm with a drumming circle. We meet up once a week and perform regularly. Great fun! And it doesn't require much musical talent beyond an ablity to listen and pick out the rhythm. We play the djembe. I'm also learning to play the guitar (but am lot further away from playing that in public). Two, you could do a spoken work skill. I'm learning to be a storyteller. That's a lot of fun. I find it's not as stressful as singing, or as physically demanding. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Georgiansilver Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:07 PM I have played some little part in the overall lie of things inasmuch as I write the occasional song for others to sing. I have had two songs..in 2004 and 2005 in the "Write a Lincolnshire Folk Song competition" and been in the final ten with both...in 2005 I managed to achieve a second place....perhaps the song was good but the singer made it what it eventually was (She is a mudcatter) I will be entering again this year and have a great singer performing the song for me...better not praise him too much as he may read this (being a catter himself). Who knows, my song might get into the final ten again...that is good enough for me....to see it performed to a packed theatre is reward enough...although winning would be a bonus. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Northerner Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:12 PM Sounds good to me! Good luck in the competition! I may consider entering one or two competitions myself later in the year. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 07 Mar 06 - 07:18 PM Once, in the dark of the bedroom, I grabbed and used the Listerine instead of the K-Y- jelly!! We were both very "surprised"!!! Art |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: SINSULL Date: 07 Mar 06 - 07:23 PM Art - go sit in the back corner until we decide you can rejoin the forum. Seamus - those two incidents + Old MacDonald's Deformed Farm must put you on somebody's hate list. And you're such a sweetheart! Too bad. Now go join Art in the Dunce's Corner. SINS |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: GUEST,Art Thieme yet again... Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:00 PM Brian Kozin, once owner of the No Exit Coffeehouse in Chicago, and a jeweler, by accident cut off a finger. Long after that he was heckling me from behind the counter and I mentioned to the crowd: "Folks, that's Brian Kozin, the only man I know who has to unzip his fly to count to ten!!" Most enjoyed the quip. A few didn't; just like here at Mudcat! Art |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Bert Date: 08 Mar 06 - 01:36 AM Hey Art, you're lucky that was Listerine and not superglue. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 08 Mar 06 - 02:10 AM Would give another entirely different and totally unexpected meaning to the old phrase "get stuck in"! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Big Al Whittle Date: 08 Mar 06 - 04:35 AM George Shearing (the blind jazz pianist who once said no real gentleman would ever play an accordion)) told this awful story on tv once. he was playing a gig and he heard this whistling sound. he stopped the piece, and said, who is whistling? I'm not starting playing again until that whistling stops...! turned out to be someone in an iron lung |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: alanabit Date: 08 Mar 06 - 06:13 AM I heard the tale of an idiot, who heckled a singer in the show "Cabaret", who was doing a number in a state of near undress, with the usual witless, "Get 'em off!" She stopped the band and came up close to him and said huskily, "That's the difference between the men and the boys. The boys want to see what is underneath. The men know!" |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: mooman Date: 08 Mar 06 - 06:25 AM Ambled nonchalently onto the stage in front of 700 people and promptly fell off the back of it. Peace moo |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: mooman Date: 08 Mar 06 - 06:28 AM Also a friend split the back seam of his trousers at the start of a gig but remembered however to keep facing the audience. Towards the end, when the buzz of performance had made him relax he forgot about it and turned round to pick up something from the floor. I was there watching. It was not a pretty sight. Peace moo |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Geordie-Peorgie Date: 08 Mar 06 - 06:43 PM Aah once introduced Jim Couza at a folk club Aah meant te say "Aah've worked wi' Jim loads of times and he just gets better and better" What aah actually came oot with wez "Aahve worked wi' Jim loads of times and he dizzent get any worse" Foot in Mooth disease! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: rhyzla Date: 08 Mar 06 - 07:16 PM I was compere at a folk club I used to run (mid 80s) and was closing the show and appologising to all present for the small turnout and said " I'm sorry we've had a really bad night", to which the guest (standing at side of stage) replied "Well I've had a nice time", and I then spent 5 minutes trying to explain that I thought he was great, and that I was talking about audience numbers etc - but I think the damage was done. I'm pretty sure it was the same night that I slammed the hatchback on my car onto my guitar-case and smashed the back windscreen! I shouldn't have done that ... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: SINSULL Date: 08 Mar 06 - 07:22 PM Actually, Art's Listerine story reminded me of my hairdo in the 70s. Big, teased bouffant held together with cans of hairspray. One morning I was running late for work and sprayed my hair until it was wet with...Lysol. I shouldn't have done that. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Pistachio Date: 09 Mar 06 - 12:31 PM Like Northerner,I've enjoyed this thread. I'm sure there's something(s) I shouldn't have done...but... H. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Scoville Date: 09 Mar 06 - 01:15 PM Not me, but a bandmate blew a fiddle string in the middle of a song and forgetfully barked, "Oh, shit" into the microphone in front of an auditorium full of sheltered midwestern octogenarians. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Chris Green Date: 09 Mar 06 - 01:21 PM I was acting in a murder mystery evening a couple of years ago and I was the murderer, which meant that I had to learn a confession speech for the end of the night. My identity was revealed and I stood up, acknowledged the applause and launched into it. "Yes, I did it! I put a bullet through his black heart! Let's be honest - all of you wanted to do it, but you were all too SPINELESS!" It was at this juncture I remembered I was adressing a benefit audience for a multiple sclerosis charity. Fortunately the audience saw the funny side, but the rest of the speech lacked conviction! Ouch! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: Sorcha Date: 09 Mar 06 - 01:34 PM Used Feria haircolour....had eggplant/aubergine hair for 6 weeks.... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 12 Mar 06 - 06:44 AM Some years ago, I was doing theatre workshop - we were workshoping a play over a fortnight. the director would then take any useful ideas and then work with his professional theatre groups to put the play on at a major theatre. It was a scene in a nameless Shakespearean comedy, in which a bunch of drunken fools (see - typecast again!) were singing a drunken song. I just quickly cupped my hand over my ear to find my voice in amongst all the others, and the director shouted out "Keep that! Looks Good!"... I'm sorry... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: GUEST,Tom Bliss Date: 12 Mar 06 - 07:19 AM For the last encore of a rock gig, many years ago, for some reason I didn't bother with my guitar, just grabbed a tambourine and started bashing it on my hip. Mid verse I suddenly noticed a strong smell of burning. Grabbed the mic and ducked over to the guitarist: "There's an amp on fire!" Desperately we scanned the back-line.. no smoke or flames. Then he glances down "Waaah, Tom, it's your trousers!" There'd been a box of vestas in my pocket. (I'd not felt the heat because of the adrenaline and my shades case in the pocket, with had protected my skin from the explosion)! Another time, at a pub gig, we were doing a triple lead solo (three guitar harmony). There was a low ballustrade across the front of the stage and I decided it would be cool to leap onto this, and pull some shapes. Next thing I wake up in the drum kit, with the band peering down - plainly distraught. I hadn't noticed that, as well as the ballustrade, at the front of the stage there was also a very low beam..! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that... From: alanabit Date: 06 Sep 09 - 02:44 AM I missed that post when it came up. That's a hoot! I am going to revive this thread to see if we can get some more stories. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Will Fly Date: 06 Sep 09 - 04:05 AM It was only after I'd finished singing George Formby's "Chinese Laundry Blues" for a bit of fun at a jazz gig - without my specs - that the band pointed out to me the half a dozen Japanese tourists in the front row of the audience... I wonder what they made of the words, "Oh Mr. Wu, what shall I do?" |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: MGM·Lion Date: 06 Sep 09 - 04:18 AM In my now long-ago English teaching days I naturally used folksong as part of my curriculum. I was halfway thru a lesson about sudden death on the track [Wreck of the Old 97, Carter Family's FFV(Engine·143), &c], when I realised there was a girl in the class who had lost her father in a car crash a few days before. I still go hot & cold with horror when I remember it, tho it must be nearly 40 years ago. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrass From: VirginiaTam Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:00 AM Few months ago, open mic folk spot, trying to adjust my dreadnaught guitar around/beneath rather ample bosom, I quipped "These things are just not designed right." To which several men in the audience replied. "Oh yes they are!" I meant the guitar. Did you know it is quite difficult to render a raunchy bluesy House of the Rising Sun when you are blushing to beat the band. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Mooh Date: 06 Sep 09 - 06:10 AM When I was younger, much younger, I had the tendency to drink too much. Usually this wasn't a problem, just an irresponsibility. The band was playing wedding receptions and I was pretty bored with them, but the money was good so we took as many as we could for a few years. At one with an open bar, the whole band had too much to drink, even before we started to play, so that by mid gig there was more partying going on on stage than elsewhere in the room. The poor folks didn't know what hit them, being rather staid families and we being an out of control young rowdy party band. There was inappropriate language, suggestive behavior, songs that were, well..."Predecease Me, Let Me Go", "Green Green Grass (!) Of Home"...Luckily, the younger part of the crowd loved us while the older folks hated us...so there was some balance, shall we say. I hit on the bride. Peace, Mooh. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Will Fly Date: 06 Sep 09 - 06:55 AM Could have been worse, Mooh - could've been the groom you hit on... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Tradsinger Date: 06 Sep 09 - 08:00 AM Gone into the wrong tune in the middle of a set whilst the rest of the group looked on in puzzlement and had to busk their way through. Tradsinger |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: foggers Date: 06 Sep 09 - 08:06 AM I have not done owt too embarassing whilst singing, but in a theatre company in the late 80s on the Edinburgh fringe, I was playing the role of a downtrodden housewife and in my opening scene I had to stand and vacantly peel a carrot. The peelings dropped on the shiny, well polished stage. Later in the same scene in a tense moment of threatened domestic violence when I was supposed to dodge a blow, I stepped on the peel and did indeed evade my abusive spouse by sliding in a skateboard stylee several feet across the stage. We managed not to laugh (just) but there was a wave of guffaws from the audience that rather destroyed the dramatic tension. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Tattie Bogle Date: 06 Sep 09 - 08:13 AM Clasiccal moment: used to play timpani. In the middle of one of the most beautifully lyrical bits, I dropped the adjustable spanner needed to tune one of the screws on the drumhead: it didn't just crash to the floor, but managed somehow to bounce down 3 or 4 steps into the audience. If looks could kill, I was surely dead! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: evansakes Date: 06 Sep 09 - 08:53 AM Not long ago I was MCing at our Andy Irvine gig and after rounding things up and before leaving the stage for him to do his encore I asked Andy whether he still did 'Sweet Thames Flow Softly' and if so would he fancy finishing with that... Andy smiled before politely replying that in fact it was Christy Moore who'd sung it on the original Planxty album and that therefore he'd never learnt the words.... Ouch! How the audience laughed.... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: GUEST,John Hartford Date: 06 Sep 09 - 09:26 AM Hi I was organising a folk concert at the rugby club that I was playing for at the time. Of course in those days the facilities were to say the least. sparse. We had a work party down on the afternoon of the gig and a stage was erected made from four tables with tyheir legs lashed together and a couple of old carpets throwm on them. There were no lights over this "stage" so we pulled two hanging lights together with string so that they were over the stage. During the night I was singing a slow sad ballad when one of the bulbs fell from the makeshift light and hit me right on the top of the head.....after a moments hesitation I continued as if nothing had happened. When I finished the song to "rapturous applause" ...someone shouted "What happened, why did you stop". Quick as a flash I replied. " Oh I was feeling a little light headed ". Sometimes I surprise myself. Cheers John....not THE John |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Bobert Date: 06 Sep 09 - 10:05 AM Embaressin' stuff on stage??? I thought that was why we get up there... Nevermind... B~ |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrass From: Genie Date: 06 Sep 09 - 04:59 PM Art Thieme said: "Once, in the dark of the bedroom, I grabbed and used the Listerine instead of the K-Y- jelly!! We were both very "surprised"!!!" Yeah, sure. But think how much MORE awkward it'd have been if you'd been on stage! PS, I once had a similar incident involving Ben Gay, not Listerine. Much bigger disaster, I'd say. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Tim Leaning Date: 06 Sep 09 - 11:04 PM $ in the morning and got tears running down my face thank you chaps. Not long back at the Station in Loftus I had just played a few songs quite well (for me) feeling pleased and relieved at not leaving the stage feeling embarrassed for once,I turned to smile at my whistle player and smacked a mic stand with the machine heads of my Guitar. It teetered,tottered then crashed to the ground. Close but no cigar... |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: YorkshireYankee Date: 07 Sep 09 - 02:03 AM Got onstage for my "3 songs or 12 minutes" open mic spot at The Ark in Ann Arbor, some 15-20 years ago. The MC, about to introduce me, leaned over and whispered in my ear "XYZ!" (For those who don't recognise this pithy little phrase, it's short for "Xamine Your Zipper".) Instead of having the presence of mind to discreetly turn 'round for a moment and zip up, then face front again, I just reached down and did so (very quickly!) while still facing the audience -- which of course made it very clear that my zipper had been down... The really silly thing is -- it wasn't all that noticeable from the audience; if I had done nothing in response to the MC's warning, I'd have been better off... Put the audience in a pretty good mood, though! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrass From: Genie Date: 07 Sep 09 - 03:03 AM Well, YY, I had a sort of related thing happen to me a while back when doing a happy hour for a Masonic Retirement Community. I was setting up to do the music and went to the ladies' room for a pit stop beforehand, and when I came back and turned to pick up my guitar, one of the women discreetly called me aside and pointed out that my skirt was tucked into my pantyhose in back. (Fortunately, I was also wearing underwear, and the skirt was rather full, so I probably hadn't "mooned the Masons" too shockingly. But another potential 'Mason-mooning' incident happened at the same Masonic home that same summer. The women's restroom on the second floor had one of those windows that, for some reason, was placed very low to the ground. As I finished my 'service call' and stood up (pants around my ankles), I realized to my chagrin that, with that low window open, as it was, there was pretty much a direct eye-shot from the grounds of the courtyard below to my backside. (Whoever designed that loo should have been sued.) Fortunately, as far as I could tell, no one had been in the courtyard below at the time. But I couldn't help thinking that, if this sort of thing kept happening there, I would have to immortalize the occasions in a song such as "Merrily Mooning Masons On A Monday Morn." |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Dave Roberts Date: 07 Sep 09 - 09:42 AM In the early years of the Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival, when I was the festival's one and only MC, we decided to hold an open air concert on Market Field with a trailer for a stage. This would be around 1993, I think. I seem to recall that it was in aid of National Music Day, the Mick Jagger fronted annual event which ran for a few years in the 90s. We had great performances from King's Ransom and Invisible People (one of Mr Bob Webb's many previous bands) and I then took the microphone to give the crowd an impromptu speech about how wonderful the festival was, how it had helped put the town on the map, brought people together in a spirit of peace and harmony and generally been the greatest and most wonderful thing ever to happen to Middlewich. Having delivered this inspiring homily, I promptly fell off the stage in an undignified heap. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Mooh Date: 07 Sep 09 - 08:10 PM Well, a friend sat in for a whole gig on various hand drums, vocals, and misc other instruments. We faced the setting sun at a family friendly community gig, so his situation was obvious. Though I noticed while we were playing, I kept forgetting to tell him between tunes that his fly (zipper) was undone and his rather flesh-toned shirt tail was hanging out of it. It did appear like his privates lacked privacy. I should have told him sooner, but whatever, at least some of the audience was amused. He was not. Oh well. Peace, Mooh. |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Sep 09 - 08:54 PM I was at The Garland Ox, the then venue of Bodmin Folk Club. I'd gone to see Pauline Cato and Tom McConville (and grand they were) but my wife sneakily informed the MC that I had a harmonica in my pocket (no, I wasn't just pleased to see her...) I found meself up on the rickety wooden stage for a floor spot, playing Carolan's Concerto solo on a G harmonica (yeah, I know, wrong bloody key...) I started to tap my foot as I played it. To my horror, the bit of stage I was standing on started to bounce back at my tapping foot, so loose were the boards. This reaction of the stage was completely out of time with the music and my own tapping. I was getting horribly confused, so I kind of leapt down off the stage towards the audience and just carried on playing. When you've got a gobful of harmonica you can hardly make a witty quip to explain what you're doing, and I distinctly remember the looks of utter bemusement on everyone's faces at this dramatic gesture. When I got to the end I just burbled something utterly incomprehensible to explain what had happened. I got the distinct impression that my mumblings has explained what had happened to precisely no-one. But at least I did get through the bloody piece! |
Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment From: Tug the Cox Date: 08 Sep 09 - 07:48 AM Last week, at a session in Exmouth, I was wearing trousers that had a split seam. A friend quietly whispered to me ' Do you knopw you've got a bollock hanging out'. What could I reply but ' You whistle it and I'll try to follow'. ( Actually did happen, not a shameless attempt to give a context to an old chestnut...oops, not best phrase in the circumstances) |
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