I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment

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 - 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 - 05:40 PM

I've nothing to add - but I've really enjoyed this thread!

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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...