Gig Giggles: Musicians, fans recall their funniest, oddest concert moments

From naked fans to fiery tips to bitten violists to narcoleptic dogs and keyboard players, the anecdotes from amusing live music events are memorable. View many of them at Local Spins.

 

It’s inevitable.

Musicians will fall off the stage, keyboards will fall over, drums will fall apart, fights will break out, fans and special effects will get out of control, singers will make goofy remarks.

Of course, that’s not all when it comes to the countless funny and odd moments experienced during concerts in venues both big and small by performers and audiences alike.

There are some classic anecdotes repeated online, including a couple recounted on Quora.com, one about a late 1970s Van Halen concert: “A very pretty young lady of about 16 somehow got onstage and made a beeline for Eddie (Van Halen). She of course barely made it eight feet when stopped by security. But she was able to slip away by slipping out of her dress. Now in nothing but her panties, she ran to the other side of the stage and dropped off the stage into the crowd. She wormed her way through the crowd and disappeared. David just gave the audience a shrug. Eddie of course gave a big smile.”

And another about symphony conductor Sir Thomas Beecham: “During a stage production of which he was not much of a fan, a live horse had a walk-on part. As it was led onto the stage, the horse defecated. Quipped Sir Thomas, “Gentlemen, that horse is not only an actor, it is also a critic.”

My band, The Honeytones, certainly has had its share of laughable ordeals — some that were hilarious at the time, others that rolled out as near catastrophes that we only laughed about later: out-of-tune guitars, crazy wild-eyed guy appearing out of nowhere during “Madmen in Love” and then disappearing, water pouring out of a keyboard after the band gets doused by sudden heavy rain, an unfamiliar new guitar amp sounding like a chorus of kazoos and so on.

So, Local Spins asked some Michigan musicians and fans as part of a recent “Question of the Week” to recall the funniest incidents they’ve seen or personally experienced during a concert — and the tales flowed almost endlessly. Check some of them out below.

Have a crazy story to add to our roster? Include it in the comments below or email info@localspins.com.

AMUSING CONCERT TALES

Tommy Plural – Deep in a The Plurals Midwest tour some years ago, we had a great engaged crowd at a packed dive bar in Wisconsin. Mid-song, a guy in the audience made eye contact with me, pulled out a dollar bill, lit it on fire and handed it to me while I was singing and playing guitar. The band didn’t miss a beat while I blew it out and it remains my favorite tipping experience.

Chuck Marshall – Way back machine: Playing a show at the Heidelberg where we brought in a light bar that sat on the floor at about stage level. It was not secure. Our singer goes to put his foot on it (like you would with a stage monitor) and the lights roll forward and he goes flying off the stage. I was headbanging and noticed out of the corner of my eye a body flying to the ground. I’m sure he didn’t find this funny, but I just had to laugh.

Bruce E. Matthews – Feels kinda funny when the mic on the stand gradually slips lower in the middle of a song ….

Jennifer Westwood – Once a guy that looked like skinny Santa kept offering me a whiskey while we were performing… i politely obliged. He disappeared then appeared again shortly after, offering me a sip from a bottle, but he was completely naked.

Laurie Laing – Belfast Gin was playing a morning show at a bar near MSU’s East campus for St. Pat’s, where they were doing a Lucky Charms and Guinness breakfast, so there MAY have been drinking involved. One fellow, was hanging out by the far right of the stage in front of our viola player at the time. He was dressed in a bibs outfit that I can only describe as the mascot for an Irish Big Boy Restaurant, and swaying in the breeze. At first we thought it may have been just due to a good time with the music, but as songs went on, and he had had more to drink than eat, we feel he must have gotten the munchies and thought we were good enough to eat. It was at this time that he came up onto the stage and bit, (yes BIT) our viola player in the arm. Thankfully he didn’t break skin and was not so kindly shown out the door by security, but the tale lives forever in our band’s history as ONE of the craziest things to have happened at our shows.

Stefan Paul – Mid-process of “rocking out” my swinging guitar hit the end of Geoff Hansen’s trumpet and smashed his mouth piece into his lip, resulting in a nice shiner and some minor bleeding. His head’s been on a swivel ever since, and he’s never stood as close to me on stage since.

Paul Michael Magnan – I was subbing in with Amboy Dukes (bass player had an accident, I played two gigs) and some guy climbed up some scaffolding (for lights), took all his clothes off and was swinging around to the music. A couple of cops started climbing up to try and get him down, but the guy came down a bit and jumped into a crowd of girls near the front of the stage, and pretty much splatted on the floor. I think he was almost unconscious, but a cop dragged him back by his long hair.

Arthur Chrysler – Tanglewood had played at the Harbor Inn in Grand Haven many times. As their drummer, I had a habit of tipping back on my drum stool and leaning on the back wall between songs. While the club owner, Jim Cornell, was remodeling, he knocked down the back wall and hung a large black tarp over the open space. You can guess the rest of my story. I brought down the tarp which caught on Rodger Bliss’s Leslie speakers (spinning horns and all). While pulling me out of the pile of bricks and twisted metal, bassist Roger Rozema cut his hand and for us, the night was over. It wasn’t so funny back then, but we can laugh about it now.

Lee Chase – For kicks, we (Flying Tigers) borrowed a fog/smoke machine for an encore at our gig downstairs at Rick’s in East Lansing. We were told to push the button on the thing for 8-10 seconds ONLY. When nothing happened right away, our guy held it down until fog started coming out. Long story short: The bar and next-door restaurant were evacuated by the Eeast Lansing Fire Dept. The event was caught on video from the sound board: As the fog thickened the band, then the crowd, disappeared from sight.

Dave DeHaan – We were playing a show and the audience was really engaged, dancing and singing along, when the bartender/manager shouted to turn it down. We did. Resumed playing and the bartender walked out on the dancefloor to shout at us to turn it down again. We turned the mains off and resumed playing. The audience resumed grooving. The bartender resumed shouting to turn it down. So we stopped playing and announced that we were taking a break. The band walked outside to discuss the situation. The bartender walked outside to resume shouting at the band. The audience walked outside, picked up the bartender, and carried him to the parking lot to ‘reason’ with him. The band had to rescue the bartender from being reasoned with. The rest of the night was great!

Linda Kinney – A funny moment a couple years ago at Frederik Meijer Gardens when at the end of the show, Jason Isbell was thanking the fans and then made a comment about the guy in the front row taking videos the whole time: “Got Stephen Spielberg right in f—ing front of me here.” Another night, there was an argument in the crowd and they tried to get Andrew Bird to “solve it.” He replied, “I’ve got a lot going on up here right now!” Both of those comments get repeated a ton at our house.

Tommy Erickson – We had some guy dressed up totally like Alice Cooper, in the middle of the summer, in Bay City– giving us pizza slices during our set at Bemo’s.

Mo TerMolen – Steve Poltz played St Cecelia’s a couple years ago. Midway through his show he went running off stage, up the aisle, stopped next to me and then kissed me on the forehead. He then ran back to the stage. Never said a word. Nada. Just came out for the smooch I guess? My music career has been blessed ever since.

Alison Sanchez – Peat in the Creel was playing for a private outdoor party one summer. The owner did “fospice” for shelter dogs so they could live out the rest of their years at her home.
A little dog named “Peanut” suffered from narcolepsy and often would fall asleep in the middle of his backyard wandering. During one song he fell over asleep mid-song and we all lost it.

Alex DeYoung – I once laid on the stage and held Chris’ patch cable in place so LOKELLA could finish their set.

Nate Karnes – I fell asleep while playing keyboard on stage in Fort Wayne, Ind., around 2007 or so. We were covering Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla.” There’s only two chords in the song, and I always found it boring to play, especially that night.

Chad Michael Wedeven – Hard to beat the conga line with a hundred people led by They Might Be Giants at Calvin College in 1994.

Justin Stover – I saw a bassist decline a free beer once.

Scott Langford – Bryan Adams was the warmup band right after he released his debut album. He was really good, but he only played a few songs because, as he said from stage, “That’s all the songs I have.” Then he repeated a couple of songs before leaving stage.

Vanessa Clark – I could not stop laughing when ekoostik hookah had each band member put on a giant foam head of themselves at Wakarusa many eons ago.

James R. Murphy Jr. – The first that came to mind was from 30 years ago. The Bedrockers were playing at what is now Billy’s, and we were playing the Clapton song, “Wonderful Tonight.” Mark Huizenga was singing, and I was singing harmony. Bob Tedlock was playing drums, and Bill Van Ess was playing bass. At one point, Huizenga sang, “My darling/I look wonderful tonight” and we nearly fell down laughing. Bill and Bob apparently hadn’t heard him do it, and they were puzzled about why we were laughing, but Mark and I were in hysterics. First time I saw Tom Petty was at Cobo Hall in ’83. He’s playing the song, “A Woman In Love” and his strap broke loose, and the guitar went to the floor. Guitar tech comes running out, gets it worked out, and then Petty steps to the mic and says, “Well, that in itself was worth the price of admission,” turned to the band, swung his arm back and forth, and they came in at the exact spot where they had stopped. Both funny and amazing.

Rick Wilson – Mick Jagger plugging his nose while plucking a pair of panties off his mic stand.

AJ Dunning – The Verve Pipe show at the Orbit Room, sometime in ’97. Chewing bubblegum, blowing bubbles, long hair. The math’s fairly easy to suss out.

Michael Packer – When I Was On Stage: The keyboard player having a crush on me which broke up the band. This happened on stage. She stormed off after I snubbed her. She left in the middle of the set never to return. When I was an audience member: Steppenwolf’s bass player’s amp falling on top of him in the middle of a song. (I guess he was “Born to be Wild.”)

Kurt Ehinger – I saw The Pat Metheny Group with Lyle Mays do “The Roots Of Coincidence ” which starts with a programmed arpeggio pattern that Lyle has programmed into an I-Pad sitting on a short stand. He triggered the computer, then started playing left hand synth and right hand grand piano. The I-Pad hiccuped the pre programmed pattern once. Lyle looked up from the piano and gave the laptop a very dirty look. It malfunctioned again badly and without missing a beat, Lyle Karate kicked the computer off the stand and it disappeared in to the Orchestra pit. He played the pattern on his left hand for the rest of the tune and pulled it off.

John Sinkevics – So, at one of our early Feedback events at Martini’s (later to become Billy’s), The Honeytones were in the middle of a song when guitarist Charley Honey — who was singing on one of our songs and unhappy with the mix on his monitor — yelled into the microphone, “I can’t hear myself!” as a not-so-subtle message to the sound guy. The mix never improved. I had placed a tape recorder next to the soundboard to capture our set on tape, and afterward when I listened to it and heard Charley’s plaintive cry that he couldn’t hear himself, I heard the sound guy declare, ‘F—- you!’

Lee Middleman – We were performing as our duet in a retirement home. David was in the middle of the solo in an Ellington tune. Our greatest heckler ever shouts “Look at her playing along real nice. He’s just trying to mess her up!” And that was just one of her comments.

Stacy Noonan – Beaver Xing played a set at Fricano’s Pizza on Alpine Ave. (Grand Rapids, Michigan area) Open Mic. There was an aspiring music photographer there who graciously shared her pics with us via social media, where I discovered a giant hunk of oregano on my front tooth throughout the entire set. I asked her “couldn’t you have photoshopped that out?” She replied “oh yeah, sure. Of course” But she never did. Also, my step-bro was drummer for Ugly Kid Joe. They were opening for Def Leppard at Castle Farms in Charlevoix. They had a song called “Panhandlin’ Prince,” and it became an audience tradition to throw change onto the stage. A speaker got blown out, and two of Def Leppard came out on stage pissed off and a brawl ensued mid-song. Everyone got evacuated and Def Leppard never played. UKJ got kicked off the tour then and there.

Bruce Ling – On stage, huge crowd, taking a fiddle break and a butterfly lands on my peghead and stays there through the song and into the next one. In front of a thousand folks at Wheatland, taking my instrument break on a song, and a deer fly lands on the side of my nose and starts drilling in deep. I played the break without a lost note, the fly finished its meal, and I was left with blood leaking from the hole.

Daniel P Hudelson -Was playing an outdoor show when a very big dog lifted his leg on a lady sitting on a blanket on the lawn. Our frontman’s comment was, “I hate when I do that!”

Stephen Aldrich – Dry was to open for Chumbawamba (remember them?) at Muskegon’s Summer Celebration, but it was about 2 years after their only hit, so we figured there would be very few people there and didn’t make any special preparations. What we didn’t count on, was it was 4th of July weekend, and when we rolled in, there were 16, 000 people, yikes! There is no soundcheck, and we are suddenly all nerves. Add to that, NFL Films has their top crew there, shooting for some reason (we did not allow them to film us). At any rate, we needed drinks to settle down, problem is, the Chumbas were in a foul mood as England had just lost to Germany in World Cup, and these wankers stole our catering, all of it. As there was no beer on sight, I knew of a little dive bar, just up the street, and we had just enough time to down shots and get back. This was the middle of the afternoon, and the bar had about a dozen hardcore day drinkers in there, bemused by what just came thru the front door. We ordered up shots and beer for everybody, and when they learned what we were doing, they wanted to see the show. No problem, so band, crew, drunks, and the two women who were behind the bar, locked it up and off we went. Amazingly, security had no problem with our new friends. With all now in a proper frame of mind, the show went without a hitch, and we extracted our revenge. But to this day, when “Tubthumper”comes on, grrrr!

Barry Bazza Crawford – On Stage Singing: I had a necklace made out of wires that looked like very thin coral snakes. I was pretending they were strangling me….and then they were! I was rolling around on the floor trying to get them loose. The Audience: Is this part of the act or is he dying up there !!? I bit of both?

Mark Kozlowicz- We were playing a show in Wisconsin at a place that had a very small but very tall stage. Our (very drunk) pedal steel player was at the very back of the stage and leaned back in his stool and fell off of the stage. Our drummer saw it happen, started laughing and fell off too.

Mike Ensing – I remember a joke Ray Stevens told at a Kalamazoo concert in 1977 – talking about JD Sumner who sang bass with Elvis – “He can really flat-out sing. He had a vasectomy last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”

Max Brown – I played a festival on a cruise ship and the drummer threw up during the set from sea sickness.

Mark Stoltz – Lots of stories that I can not print.

John Breen – I have stage stories I can’t even tell on Facebook

Evan Woots – Singer ripped off his sweaty shirt and threw it into the crowd, only for it to wrap around a girl’s face inthe front row. Priceless.

Darlene Raven – I was at a gig my pal Zoë Lewis was playing in Brighton. She surprised me by throwing me a vocal solo in the middle of a song. I had just taken a big glug of water, so i gargled the solo.

Karen Dunnam – I was calling dances for a Civil War ball, outdoors in a museum parking lot. Spectators joined in. One was walking her little white dog.

Trae Brockett – I pissed my pants at the end of a show once cuz I hadn’t gone all night…was drunk as s–t and when I hit my last note sustain: boom bladder released… was soooo funny.

Jeshua David – When Diiv played the Pyramid Scheme shortly after Trump was elected for the first time, the lead singer just kept throwing “Grab ’em by the p—y” into every song. It was a hilarious way to poke fun at the circus.

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