Scooter Posted August 21, 2005 Posted August 21, 2005 My band played at Mickey Finn's Brewery in Libertyville, IL last night. Halfway into the fifth song, the power goes out. Not just in the club, but the whole street. (Apparently a traffic accident took out a transformer.) They evacuate the place and we proceed to stand around in the parking lot for the next hour. So... Our rhythm player pulled out his acoustic and attempted to entertain to folks in the dark. Hahaha! Truly a Spinal Tap moment! (Loading out by flashlight SUCKS!)
tafkathundernotes Posted August 21, 2005 Posted August 21, 2005 Kudos to the rhythm player. Good thinking!
FunkyE9th Posted August 21, 2005 Posted August 21, 2005 Mickey Finn's is a pretty nice room. I work in Libertyville and go there for lunch occasionally. I saw a band there a few weeks ago.I bet it wasn't fun carrying your equipment up the stairs. I'm sure it was even worse going down the stairs after the power went out-FunkyE9th
Jeroen Posted August 21, 2005 Posted August 21, 2005 yeah pretty good thinking!!, Thats great if you can entertain people in situations like this!!Jeroen
DavidE Posted August 21, 2005 Posted August 21, 2005 I played a gig 2 years ago filling in with a country band. The transformer outside the bar literally caught fire and our power went down. I grabbed an acoustic and played in the audience for a while. There was power in the front part of the bar, so they ran some extension cords to the back and we were in business within 15-20 minutes. The acoustic thing was fun!
tgoss Posted August 21, 2005 Posted August 21, 2005 At a gig a while back we were outside under a tent. A huge thunderstorm blew in, the wind was so strong it toppled the PA cabs on their stands and starting taking the tent away. We had acoustics with us and went inside an old farm house and continued the gig unplugged.
Stevieconlon Posted August 22, 2005 Posted August 22, 2005 Too bad to hear about the power. The acoustic was a good idea!
Hackubus Posted August 22, 2005 Posted August 22, 2005 Oh god. Sorry to hear about that. My band had a total Spinal Tap Friday night ourselves.Our singer got us booked at a three day music fest on the first night. We were the third band out of four scheduled to play. The arranging & advertising for this event was TERRIBLE in every sense of the word. It just so happens that the annual BalloonFest was this weekend, and their radio ads were all played on a pop/hip-hop station. Nary a hip hop band, much less any pop acts are playing this thing. Long story shortened just a bit, the event was held in a horse pasture 5 miles out of town at the end of a goat trail. My friend Craig & I arrive at 6:30 to get our gear set up. There are 3 cars there. The first band is playing to two people. There's a generator drowning the band out. The stage is caving in, and there's the most ghetto PA set up I've ever seen. I speak to the man in charge & he assures me that as long as we play we'll get paid. Ok, fine. We're gonna play. I'll just play while trying to disappear up my own asshole then. Finally the rest of the band, girlfriends & wife all arrive, and the audience has now increased by 250%. It's determined that we'll get our gear set up after the first act goes off. (Second band's drummer has failed to show up at this point)We finish scooting my gear to the side of the stage just as the second band's drummer arrives. I assume this because he has stickers on the back of his little Bronco II that says "The Shacks Drummer" A few WTF's from said band & we back off. They set up & tear into the most out-of-tune, 'look ma, I can play the git-tar' crap rock I ever did hear. Their opening number was a poignant little ditty called "We Are The Shacks". They proceed to nawt-rawk the house until about 10ish. We were slated to go one at 8ish. We were well on our way to being shitty drunk by then, what with all the free band beer & our specially prepared pre-gig shots of Diesel (Bacardi 151, Hot Damn & a bit of tobassco sauce to make it go down good. People start trickling in by then. Oh wait...that's just the fourth band. Naturally, my singer had been assuring me all week that despite my claims that this was a fly by night operation, and gonna go down as a hard lesson, our Waterloo if you will, that this was a pro rock festival. Yeah right, lick nuts already. So I bring the Big Rig. Two 4x12s, two 50 watter heads, and a 2x12 for the drummer. (I don't trust the soundmen at these types of shindigs) So's I slap all this shit together in no time flat (under their most generous light show that consisted of one light can & a toy Jedi Light Saber) & it works! We're off! Soundcheck time! w00t!By this time the boss & TV star (the festival organizer) wants to know why we sound like ass from the PA & have no monitors. Closer investigation revealed they'd wired up the PA wrong. So the PA crew is called in to fix it. Now. Can I pleeeeeeeeeeeeze go home now? The PA crew gets the monitors back up & running in about thirty minutes or so. Bear in mind they're drunker than we are. So we proceed. Now to wind all this madness up, the big rental flood lights crap out at the exact moment our drummer smacks his snare to count off the first song. BAM in the dark, save for that solitary light can perched up on the stage between the monitors. And it's pointed at me. I can see my pedal board just fine! But the bass player way over on stage right is in total pitch darkness & can't see what gear he's in. We blaze thru exactly three songs & are counting the fourth off when the generator kicks off. Aw hell to the no. The fest organizer runs over & checks it out. Yep, it's outta gas. But wait there's more! Somebody has stolen the reserve gasoline! "We'll go get some more, could you guys please play a few more songs when we get back?" sez he. Sure.....45 minutes later we're still in the dark & no one's brought any fuel. The 4th act is now blistery drunk & starting to mouth us about getting the show on the road. Not wanting to make a scene & have to whip their asses or anything, I tell our singer (the self appointed minister of getting us into this stupid shit) to go get our money, We'll tear down & we're getting the fuck gone! Lo & behold, he comes back after about 5 minutes with FOUR long wheelbase ten dollar bills. (that's $400 in Hackspeak). Not a bad score for only three songs being played, I'd say. Sorry for such a long winded post, but I just had to get that offa my chest.
cmatthes Posted August 22, 2005 Posted August 22, 2005 Damn! Well told story - I felt a bit of your pain! That sucks, but you got PAID, which helps. What a crapload of aggravation though.
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