Posted by Paul King on April 10, 2002 at 13:19:04:
In Reply to: Re: Sorry Spelling mistake in my post. (FOH not FOF) posted by Craig Maxwell on April 10, 2002 at 12:09:58:
: : Mine was'nt exactly on-stage, but at the FOH position. I was doing FOF in a massive warehouse dance party a few years ago when this girl came up and asked me something. It was really dark in there so I obliged. She wanted to get changed into some other clothes and proceeded to strip off in front of me at the console. She then said she always wanted to be f***** over one of them, so who was I to refuse her her dream. I just told her to be careful and not move any faders or knobs exept for one of course. It was an experience I'll never forget.
: :
: : Craig Maxwell.
: : : Hey everyone,
: : : 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