Your happiest gigging memory?

[bassninja]

Continuing the spirit of 'How was your gig last night?', what was the occasion when you were happiest at a gig, or what is the one stand-out gigging memory you have?

For starters... Big Jim Sullivan playing beautiful bebop guitar on my right, and the 'triffik Malcolm Mortimore drumming up a storm to aft. Me grinning like a goon between them at a jazz club in Mid Sussex when up jumps Herbie Flowers on... Tuba!

You get the idea...

[teen t-shirt]

mine has to be so far my first and only gig

newly formed band at school we were chosen to play our set for part of the crimbo disco..

it was fantastic me on bass and lead vocals just seeing my younger brother up on stage playing lead guitar his lil teenage face grinning back at me he seemed on top of the world and my mates all singing along and laughing dancing and smiling up at me.

i was on top of the world.........

absolutely fantastic we only played bout half an hour then some sweaty DJ came on but i tell u it was the best half an hour of my life.......



i had the biggest grin on my face in the world and i culdn't of been pruder of my brother he played his lil heart out

[et1058]

2002

Flying Picket, Liverpool

Girl

Womens toilets after gig

[Clydefrog]

Dunno about the happiest, but certainly the weirdest was a party near Goodwood over the festival of speed weekend. Looked up mid-number to see Damon Hill up the front wiggling about in a Roman legionary costume

Cheers,

Si

[gilmour]

Electric Picnic in Ireland - great festival - great vibe - great backstage - and lots of beatiful Irish ladies serving us free drinks

[wateroftyne]

There's been a few, but playing Newcastle City Hall for the first time was a bit of a dream come true.

Here's some footage of it here, in fact:

[url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GLWAJoQY92k"]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GLWAJoQY92k[/url]

I always told myself the day I played there I could say to myself 'I've finally made it'. How wrong was I?

[mikeh]

There have been a few goodn's. But my happiest gig memory had to be a charity gig we did for Children in Need, organised by a local club. Superb crowd, dance floor full from the first note played to the last.

[Bassassin]

Stand-out must be our first gig in Prague, last September. We were over there as guests of a big-in-the-Czech Republic local band, and were meant to be playing an out-of-town festival, which ended up being pulled at the eleventh hour because of a Biblical scale deluge.

The other band pulled some strings & blagged us a last-minute gig in a sweaty little rock pub called the Vagon - we found ourselves, just hours after getting off the plane (and me & guitarist Nick whacking it at the idea of our instruments in the hold) looking at each other in bemused disbelief, playing like bastards to a packed audience - who'd been expecting a DJ, not a live band from the UK!

Followed by drinking ridiculously cheap, hangover-free lager into the small hours with the other band & a gaggle of ex-pat Brits, all pissing ourselves at Nick's increasingly desperate attempts to pull.

Good times...


Jon.

[s_u_y_*]

Drinking 6.5 pints of Guinness before a gig, before my singer took my last half pint away. Happy times!

Edited December 18, 2007 by s_u_y_*

[Machines]

Playing Birmingham Academy Bar with the place packed out with 150 people. Terrible PA and awful tiny stage, but the atmosphere was fantastic.

[Adee]

Well in CORBY any gig where you get out alive !

[niceguyhomer]

We played at a wedding about two months ago and there was a small boy - about 5 years old hanging around the stage, dancing about like they do. He caught the singer's eye and next minute, he got down and was singing to the littl'un when the boy grabbed the mike and started singing along like a good'n.

We let this carry on for quite a while because he was really enjoying himself and the audience was loving it. I've found out since that he's autistic and apparently he never stops talking about it. F the money, that's what it's all about.

[lee4]

School fete gig this year.One of the parents plays a few numbers with us,then dedicates a rendition of Happy Birthday to his youngest daughter who's in the audience and has a brain tumor.As we all join in myself and our regular singer turn away from the audience because we are both starting to cry.
Not the biggest crowd or the grandest venue but a very ill little girl was seranaded by her Daddy and left there happy.Makes being in a band worthwhile.

Edited December 18, 2007 by lee4

[WalMan]

That'll be Worthing Assembly Rooms for the Live Aid gig. Like I said before I just wish the video bus had worked so that I could relive it on screen not just memories, but hey memories will do me.

Brilliant night at a time when we were doing all original stuff (and it didn't matter) & with a set that night that we had worked up really tight for changes with some leeway for audience participation that ended bang on the end of allotted time.

[bassninja]

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='105749' date='Dec 18 2007, 09:17 AM']We played at a wedding about two months ago and there was a small boy - about 5 years old hanging around the stage, dancing about like they do. He caught the singer's eye and next minute, he got down and was singing to the littl'un when the boy grabbed the mike and started singing along like a good'n.

We let this carry on for quite a while because he was really enjoying himself and the audience was loving it. I've found out since that he's autistic and apparently he never stops talking about it. F the money, that's what it's all about.[/quote]


Very cool...

[urb]

Going mental on my now defunct funk band Jasco's last gig in Thailand in 2005 at the Koh Samui Music Festival - the end of a dream week in the sun playing alongside some amazing bands (backing up Laurence Cottle's quintet, and Da Lata on two separate nights was awesome) - and just leaping about the stage barefoot, spazzing out playing funk to a packed (250 capacity) club... wicked!

Here's a vid from one of our other gigs that week:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfplFGY3tJQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfplFGY3tJQ[/url]

M

[Jono Bolton]

Mine is playing in Germany in May. The second night, in what was once an old milk factory. It'd been converted so there was a venue, with flats surrounding it. Great fun, we played well, met some awesome people, got as much free beer as we could drink, did 2 encores and just generally had a blast. Cos the people that stayed in the flats helped run the gig, they all stayed afterwards so we had about 50 people in the "backstage area" til 4 in the morning. Good times!

[queenofthedepths]

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='105749' date='Dec 18 2007, 09:17 AM']We played at a wedding about two months ago and there was a small boy - about 5 years old hanging around the stage, dancing about like they do. He caught the singer's eye and next minute, he got down and was singing to the littl'un when the boy grabbed the mike and started singing along like a good'n.

We let this carry on for quite a while because he was really enjoying himself and the audience was loving it. I've found out since that he's autistic and apparently he never stops talking about it. F the money, that's what it's all about.[/quote]
I've played at a local special needs school a couple of times - it's really nice to do something they really enjoy and to get them involved as well

[Shaggy]

Definitely my first ever gig, aged 16, which was playing bass in a school rock opera*, also my band played an opening and closing set.
The school hall felt as big as Wembley arena, and with my trusty Kalamazoo short-scale bass, and puny amp farting feebly in the background, I felt I had the world at my fingertips….

2nd favourite – a couple of months later playing at a friends’ 17th birthday party, with a pair of still-warm girl’s panties dangling from my headstock. Ah, rock n’ roll.

(*biographers’ note; the school opera was based on “Far From the Madding Crowd” which the artist formerly known as Shaggy had been forced to endure for English Lit “O” Level. The Stones track “Brown Sugar” was played as “Bathsheba” with the slightly dodgy lyric “Bathsheba, how come you taste so good……”. Half of the band stayed in the music business and hit it big in the ‘80’s & ‘90’s, the artist formerly known as Shaggy went to Uni, got a degree, and spent the next 30 years playing seedy pubs and clubs.)

[wotnwhy]

the gigs that stick in my mind (sort of) are the free parties and raves we used to do. everyone there is there to have a hassle free good time, and dance! (do you notice people are getting more and more self concious about that these days?)

there was one the drummer often talks about, when we're playing a particularly hectic bit, he looks up and can't see any of the 3 of up (2 guitars, bass), he sees 2 leads going off into the crowd and catches Tims head bouncing up and down out then, and then sees someone pouring vodka down my throat, but still no sign of Ben, he then spots him lying on the floor of the stage doing his solo! when we come to our senses and return to the stage/stand up, an older gentleman comes up with a saxamafone and asks if he can join in. this gentleman used to play in a little band called Hawkwind, and proceded to blast out some sweet sweet sounds over some improve funk. we played for a few hours (literally until i could barely stand), and finished to a fierce roar of applause and cheering.

it felt [i]very, [b]very[/b] [/i]good in fact, i've got goosebumps just thinking about it!

[cetera]

Walking out onto the stage at the Ariake Colliseum in Tokyo, Japan and hitting a huge low E on my Spector (through an old SVT) and feeling it go right through me as 14,000 people cheered....!

Edited December 20, 2007 by cetera

[paul h]

Playing The Dorchester in Southampton, mumblemumblemumble years ago!

For some reason we were staying at the Chief Coppers (official title) house so he popped into the venue and encouraged the landlord to let us play for as long and loud as we wanted.

It was a great gig, the support band were brilliant. Up Ballon UP IIRC. My girlfriend/now wife was there with her mates. We ended up playing into the small hours with practically every musician in the place getting up for a jam. A fine old time was had by all.

p.

[Bassmonster]

mines would be my last gig with my old band at the cathouse, glasgow 2002, we played a good set and finished it with master of Puppets, the place was jumping, the band that came on after us were quoted as saying "How do we follow that"