the best gig ever was....

[cherrybomb]

Man, that list takes some beating! :shock:

Biggest show I ever worked was in a stadium with Leon Russell, The Eagles, The Band, and Lynrd Skynrd.

I'd have loved to have been at that party! What a line up.

 

[Repack Rider]

During the early seventies I worked as the sound man in a sleazy, drug-infested dive of a night club called The Lion's Share.

That was during the time when Van Morrison had taken up residence in Fairfax, and several of my friends were playing in his band as sidemen (one still does).

On Tuesday nights anyone could play at The Lion's Share as long as they signed up in advance. You didn't get paid, but if you impressed the owner you got a paid shot on the weekend. The door charge was only a dollar, but most Tuesday nights the place was not full. One Tuesday night Van called the club owner and asked if he could come in unannounced and play a set, because he was itching to play but didn't want to make a big deal out of it.

Of course the club owner went for it and wanted to keep it pretty close to the vest, but there was one person he had to tell that Van was playing his club that night.

Me.

I made sure to get down there early and get everything neat and in working order, and maybe I tipped off a couple of my friends. Word got around, a crowd gathered, and the lucky ones who got there early paid a dollar to hear Van Morrison from ten feet away in a club that held a hundred fifty people.

The people I felt sorry for were the guys in the local garage band that had signed up weeks before to get the 11:00 time slot. They had to follow a polished concert band made up of professional musicians and an international star, and their showstopping, set ending piece was... Moondance. Which had just been played on the same stage an hour earlier by Van himself.

 

[Repack Rider]

Don't me started on rock 'n' roll stories.

Like The Lion's Share in the anecdote sbove, the Fillmore West had an amateur night, and unknown bands could play to see whether Bill Graham would notice them. In fact, only two bands ever made it from the Tuesday audition to the weekend bill, and I was there for one of those auditions.

I had some friends from high school who had put together a band, and they had signed up for a Tuesday night at the Fillmore. They would be the third of the three bands performing that night in early 1969. I had never bothered to go to the Tuesday auditions, but I went to this one to support my friends.

The second band to play was a bunch of Mexican kids from the Hispanic Mission District of San Francisco. They called themselves the Santana Blues Band. Whatever they played, it was not blues, but the percussion driven band blew the doors off the building. I had never heard anything like that before, and I had been around.

Amazingly, these guys had put together this act without ever taking it into the public. They didn't start in a club as the house band and move up. They had never played anywhere but wherever they practiced, and then they just EMERGED on a Tuesday night and it was a lot to digest without any expectation of what they would play. OMFG do you believe what you are hearing? When they played that night, they were already the full-fledged superstar band that took over San Francisco in a month, and then the world with its unique, driving Latin rock. They didn't have to adjust a thing; they hit the stage for the first time and they were ready.

Oh yeah. My friends played too.

 

[Repack Rider]

In 1974 the band I roadied for, The Sons of Champlin, toured with Three Dog Night. We opened the show, they closed it. Most of the time we could get our gear off the stage and into our truck before Three Dog Night played, and then we could get back to the hotel early.

We did a show in an indoor football stadium in Pocatello, Idaho, and the management wouldn't let us start up our truck inside the building until after the show, so we were stuck there even though the truck had been loaded and we were done for the night.

Hanging around the dressing room, one of the guys in the band said that for a hundred dollars, he would "streak" the stage. He didn't have to say it twice; in seconds there was several times that amount on a table. That was something we would pay to see. So we made a plan.

The singers in Three Dog Night went offstage during their performance for a costume change, and the keyboad player took an extended solo before they came back on. On this evening the keyboard player finished, the freshly costumed singers stepped out onto the stage...

And a man wearing nothing but a smile strolled across the stage six feet behind them, flashing the peace sign to the crowd. Which erupted, something the singers didn't understand, because they hadn't done anything yet.

No one stopped the streaker. He ducked into our truck parked behind the stage and dressed quickly, then joined the crowd of security people looking for that guy, who seems to have vanished.

Three Dog Night were not really happy when they got the details.

 

[Lysander]

I envy Repack Rider.

FACT.

 

[Repack Rider]

I envy Repack Rider.

Here's the downside. I'm old.

 

[xizang]

I envy Repack Rider.

Here's the downside. I'm old.

Maybe so but we're all going to be one day, hopefully, and it's doubtful many of us will have such cool stories to tell the wee ones

 

[Lysander]

Heh! I'm middle aged.............and I'll never be as young as you were!

 

[tintin40]

Pink Floyd Wembley 1990's

 

[al]

My top 5........or the ones i can remember!

The Stone Roses, The International, Manchester 1986?

The Smiths, The Palace Theatre, Mcr 1984?

The jesus and Mary chain, The Hacienda, Mcr, 1985?

The Chamelions, Rock World, Mcr 1998? reunion gig.

Culture Shock, Some place in Cheshire, early 90's

Cheers,Al