Re: What's the craziest thing you've seen on stage??? (no coffee drinking GeriO)

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: : Well this one isn't that good but here goes.
: Last summer I was the house ME at the Alaska State 
: Fair.  Ted Nugent was playing and had brought his own monitor guy so I was just babysitting.  The women in Alaska tend to be a rougher lot than most of you are used to and the women at this show were even scarier than normal for an Alaskan show.  About halfway into the show I looked out and noticed 20 or show big burly gals right in front of the stage getting a little physical.  Ted launches into "Cat Scratch Fever" and that was all she wrote.  Biggest cat fight I've ever seen.  Ted and the band are kinda getting a kick out of all this.  I'm off to stage right just kinda checking it out as security jumps in and hauls a few beefy chicks away.  Things kinda quiet down for a few songs until a whiskey bottle comes flying through the air hits the deck and shatters into a thousand pieces pelting me and Ted's ME with glass.  Just about that time Ted is launching into a furious guitar solo with one foot up on his wedge and his eyes closed....just getting into it.  This is the cue for Ted's big moment and the bass player sets down his axe and the drummer gets off his kit, both to leave the stage to Ted for his grand finale.  Just as Ted is really getting into it the biggest damn woman I have ever seen in my life breaks through the security line about twenty feet from the stage and makes a beeline for Ted whose eyes are still closed and is still soloing his ass off.  Ted's M E and I are in total shock and this elephant of a woman with beer in hand is screaming "TED I LOVE YOU" and probably five feet from Ted going twenty miles an hour.  Mario the bass player caught her out of the corner of his eye as he was turning to walk off the stage, runs across the stage like lightning and hits this chick with a textbook perfect forearm block when she is no more than six inches from Ted who still has no idea what is happening...just soloing his ass off.  He looks up just as this babe goes flying ass over teakettle into one of our double 12" wedges sending it flying five feet or so off stage.  Security is right on it now.  They jump this chick and a dozen or so of them carry her away still screaming "TED I LOVE YOU" and pissing her pants.  Ted steps up to the mic and says "Don't hurt her, she's my sister" "Don't hurt her...just get that fat bitch outa here".  Ted's ME looks over at me with a kinda shocked look on his face and say's "Wow" it's pretty wild up here in Alaska, that was one big chick".  I just looked at him and said "That's my wife you asshole, she was just trying to bring me a beer!!"
: : I thought it would be kind of fun to read about some of the crazy antics that happens on stage. I'll leave a couple stories and maybe post some more later on.

: : Story 1:
: : What brought this on was this past weekend I'm in Gainseville, providing sound, light, stage, roof package for the ska band Less than Jake. In the middle of their set, some dude gets on stage and in one fluent motion, drops his pants and streaks across the stage, followed closely by security, runs down the ramp, pulls his pants back up. Security chased him for a while until they ran him right into the cops that were there giving the promoter a ticket for violating the 71db noise limit at the property line (which all 4 punk bands backline alone exceeded that). The band never missed a beat, though we were all laughing our asses off.

: : Story 2:
: : Last year we were providing sound for one of the Off-fest dates (Ozzfest bands that played additional shows together). There was over 30000 in attendance, one of the attendees was in a wheelchair. This wheelchair guy was not going to be let out of having fun (or most likely a lot of drinks either) and decided he wanted to bodysurf. So his buddies pick him and his chair up and start body surfing his wheelchair around with him in it. Everyone's getting in to this and he gets bodypassed all the way up near the front, this guy was having the time of his life, headbanging, shaking fists in the air, screaming in joy. I don't remember which band it was, but the singer saw this guy and stopped the song, invited the wheelchair guy on stage, talked to him for a minute and went into their next song. The wheel chair guy started running his chair in circles around the stage as fast as he could, then proceeded to launch himself off the front edge almost killing himself and a couple security dudes. The barricade was about 15 feet in front of the stage for this show, so the dude basically faceplanted himself on the ground in front of the barricade. He was OK, but I will never forget that event.

: : Story 3
: : Same show, but this time it's the artist I thought was a little insane. The band was playing their last tune, the singer proceeded to start climbing the DSR roof tower until he's all the way at the top (about 35' or so). The band kept repeating the hypnotic musical phrase that was in the song (apparently waiting for the singer to jump or climb back down) The crowd was chanting "JUMP, JUMP, JUMP". Thankfully the singer didn't jump and started climbing back down, stopping every now and then to look back at the crowd (who were a bit dissapointed that he didn't try "roof" diving), until he was about halfway down. Then he launched himself into the crowd, the crowd actually caught him and started cheering like crazy. At the same instant the singer hit the crowd, the band switched from their melodic repeated musical phrase into the heavier ending of the song, almost as if it were scripted. Now mind you the singer of this band was about 15' above the stage (which would make it about 20' above ground) and the barricade was about 15' from the stage. The name of the band was Boy Hits Car, I have since renamed them personnaly to Boy Hits Barricade because he almost did just that. I do have pictures of this one that I will post if someone wants to see them. The promoter was sweating bullets during this entire part of the show. I have later found out that the singer of this band is kind of known for stagediving from very high places, like climbing speaker stacks, hanging from roof trussing in clubs, etc.

: : That's the end of my stories for now, what do you guys got???
: : Mike Babcock




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