Warning: Long one ahead!
Summer, 1967, I was 18 years old and I had been signed by an outfit called; Elan Associates. They had offices in the *Brill Building in N.Y. (*music central!) and they handled a bunch of groups, among them; Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Moby Grape and a few other bands that were big in the 60's.
They had set-up offices in New York, (they were originally an LA outfit,) and their A & R guys were scouring the New York clubs and bars for unsigned talent they felt they could develop. Myself and the lead guitar player from the band I was working in were recruited in between sets at an uptown bar called; The Batcave. (Yes, it was a dive!)
Elan had purchased an existing recording studio on Bleeker St. in the Village called; Ben-Gor Studio. I was hired to do session work for them several times a week. For awhile, I was the 'house drummer' at Ben-Gor. In order to pay some bills, they used to book high paying/high profile gigs that I'm dead certain their wealthy clientele was paying through the nose for!
The 'Band' they used consisted of the Ben-Gor house musicians. Five of us, bass, drums, lead guitar, keyboard, with rhythm guitar and vocals done by one guy. One of the many gigs we did that summer was a Debutante Ball being held for all the 16 year-old Southern Belles that were 'coming out' that season.
The gig was at a Country Club in Atlanta, Georgia. They flew us down there accompanied by Jackie Cassen and Rudy Stern (famous for their psychedelic light displays called, 'The Pig Light Show', along with all of their gear. We were met at the airport by two limousines, taken to a first class hotel, dumped into our rooms and we were instructed to wait there until we got picked up for the gig scheduled to start some 6 hours later.
The cars arrived late. There would be no time for rehearsal, sound check, nothing. We were running real late and it became a situation of going from the cars, right into an enormous circus tent they had set-up for the occasion, onto the stage, and Rock & Roll. We were working split sets with a popular local Rock-a-billy band and I was supposed to use the other drummers kit.
Already you can see it was an accident waiting to happen.
The stage was set up against the back wall of the tent. It was about 5' off the ground and more than a little shaky. On top of that, about another four feet above the rest of the band was a separate riser for the drummer. The drum riser was even more shaky than the stage. If I moved to much, me and the kit would sway side to side and the riser would creak. It was spooky being way up there and I felt very insecure being on that POS they had built.
Ok, the kit wasn't bad, (Rogers WMP) and it only took me 5 mins. to move a couple of things around and set it up comfortably for myself. I sat down, looked around and there was an ocean of people out there. I looked over at the singer to wait for the cue to start and to my horror they had already started playing!
I couldn't hear a bloody note. Nothing, silence, like I had suddenly gone deaf. The guys in the band were all turned around looking at me with mixed expressions of horror, anger, and complete disbelief. The audience began to boo loudly. We all just walked off stage for a conference and the other band ran up and launched into their set.
The lead singer almost lunged at me when we got behind the curtains. He was apoplectic. "What happened out there?" he demanded. All I could tell him was, "I'm sorry, I swear, I can't hear a note up there!" Just as he was about to launch into a tirade, we heard the other band having problems. The drummer was off by a country mile. I told my guys, "See? He can't hear schitt either!"
Turns out it was a combination of the heavy curtains surrounding the stage, the size of that tent and the height of the riser. It created a sonic dead-zone up there. My guitar player grabbed an amp and set up a crude monitor for me and it was fine after that. But we had to go out there again to very loud booing and shouts of, "Go back to New York, Hippie Yankees!"
I counted us off and we did Chuck Berry's, Nadine. By the middle of the number, we had won them back. The dance floor slowly filled, we all looked at each other and breathed a collective sigh of relief and everything was good. But I have never felt so horrified on a gig in all my life. I've had plenty of bad gigs believe me. Just some bad nights. But the nervousness, confusion and raw fear I felt on that night, mostly because it was such a high profile gig, was something special, unique in my experience. I'll never forget it. It left a mark on me!
Got any 'bad gig' horror stories? I'll bet you do! Anything from drunks trying to 'sit-in' on your drums, to $cumbag club owners that try to screw you out of money. Go for it, get it out... get your therapy. Talk about it! lol
John
