The Worst Gig

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The Worst Gig Page 11

by Jon Niccum


  Thankfully, at the last second, the fiddle came back. As I finished the final lines of the chorus, I spun around to the back of my amp and let it fly.

  Our drummer set up in back of all the amps to have the perfect view of events taking place behind the rest of us. He told me the stream of vomit made a perfect arc (like a chunky rainbow) from my mouth to the trash can.

  I had time to wipe my mouth and then get back up to the mic for the second verse.

  I finished the show somehow, and while the other guys had a meet and greet, I puked one more time in the parking lot for good measure. When we got back to the hotel, our tour manager set us up in a new room that had a toilet that wasn’t clogged with my disgusting discharge, and I promptly went to bed.

  I was in a warm, dry, dark, safe place snug inside my bed, shivering a little, listening to all my bandmates and the radio guys partying down the hall. I turned the TV on so I could drift off to sleep, and the movie Back to School came on.

  And that’s how Rodney Dangerfield saved my life one New Year’s Eve.

  Chapter

  -7-

  Violence

  From fistfights to riots to third-world military interventions…

  The Sex Pistols

  Credit: Helen Collen

  When the first line ever written by a band is “I am an antichrist,” that’s a lot to live up to. And though the images of singer Johnny Rotten, bassist Sid Vicious, drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones in ripped T-shirts, dyed hair and sporting safety-pin jewelry look more contemporary than shocking by today’s standards, in 1977 England they were the closest thing to Satan the country had seen. When the quartet’s classic single “God Save the Queen” was released, the BBC banned it. When it went to number one anyway, the slot was left blank rather than admitting which artist occupied the top position. But to modern audiences, The Sex Pistols are regarded as the greatest and most influential punk band of all time, and their lone record, Never Mind the Bollocks, is deemed an irrefutable classic.

  • • •

  “One has really stuck in my mind as my worst gig scenario. I remember it well because it was my fortieth birthday on the Pistols reunion in ’96. It was my fortieth birthday, and I thought it was going to be a great day. It was in Belgium actually, by the seaside somewhere. We got on the train from London to Belgium, the Eurostar that went to Brussels. I was going to keep it quiet, but someone mentioned it was my birthday. This was nine o’clock in the morning, so it kind of gave everyone the excuse to get the champagne out. You can guess that by the time we arrived in Belgium, everyone was really tanked up…Basically, it just turned into a nightmare. By the time we took to the stage, John had completely lost his voice. Consequently, nobody could hear what was going on onstage. I don’t think anything was coming out of the PA, vocal-wise. Then it turned into total chaos; it got worse. I don’t know what happened, but there was a mass brawl between security and people actually fighting onstage. I think someone tried to attack John, and he started hitting him with a microphone. I remember a stretcher coming onstage as well.

  “Somebody was knocked out. There was blood spilt onstage, and there was fighting going on. It just seemed to escalate…We were still playing away while somebody was being carried off on a stretcher—one of the security guys. It was just one of those gigs, and I was expecting to have a really good day for my birthday…It was a classic rock-and-roll gig, I guess. What was the most miraculous thing about it all was that at the end we actually got an encore. People wanted more!”

  —Paul Cook, The Sex Pistols

  Joe Satriani

  Credit: Chrissie Goodwin

  Joe Satriani first came to prominence as a guitar teacher to the stars, with Steve Vai, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Counting Crows’ David Bryson as pupils. Soon, however, the teacher gained notoriety of his own, following the 1987 release of his Platinum-selling Surfing with the Alien. Although he’s spent time filling in as a member of noted bands (Deep Purple) and as a sideman for other stars (Mick Jagger and Alice Cooper), Satriani tours nearly every year with G3, a concert event he founded that partners him with other renowned six-stringers such as Queen’s Brian May, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp and Journey’s Neal Schon.

  • • •

  “That would be the Malaysian show…It [started] four hours late, so we went on at four in the morning. And it was in this stadium that holds one hundred thousand people. But it was raining, so there were only about two thousand people there. Before us there was Jethro Tull, there was Sugar Ray…Toto—just the weirdest group of bands ever. It was a two-day festival. Anyway, someone wakes me up at 3:30 a.m. and says, ‘You’re going on at 4 a.m.’

  “So I get down there, I’m in the middle of the second song—which is ‘Satch Boogie’—and the [Malaysian] army comes onstage with machine guns. They threaten to put us in jail unless we stop immediately. So I put down my guitar, I picked up my backpack, and I left the stadium.

  “I have no idea [why they needed me to stop], but I didn’t argue. When you’re in a country like that and they show up onstage with weapons—you know, I came packed because I knew from experience that sometimes you gotta be ready. So I literally put on my backpack and gave my guitar to my tech.

  “I said, ‘Put it in the case and come with me now.’

  “Then we got in a car and left, and three hours later I was at the airport flying home.”

  —Joe Satriani

  Tool

  Grammy-winning, multi-Platinum-selling quartet Tool has perfected what Rolling Stone calls “a primal sound as distinct as it is disturbing.” The Los Angeles band (singer Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor and drummer Danny Carey) assembled in 1990 and has since become one of the godfathers of the progressive metal movement.

  • • •

  “We played up at Boise, Idaho, one time. It was an outdoor thing and quite a few people showed up. I remember this horrible feeling looking at the crowd where all these malicious, skinhead psychos showed up and started beating people up to our music. We had to cut the set short out of fear that someone was going to get beat to death. That was pretty grim…I remember it being a tough decision. We just got in a huddle onstage and said, ‘Man, what are we gonna do? Every time we start playing a song all these fists just start flying.’”

  —Danny Carey, Tool

  Mike Finnigan

  Credit: Ken Altbush

  Mike Finnigan was a nineteen-year-old student at the University of Kansas when he became the proud owner of a Hammond B3 organ. Since then he’s transformed into one of the premier purveyors of the instrument. His collaborations have ranged from blues greats Buddy Guy and Etta James to pop stars Peter Frampton and Rod Stewart, to rockers Jane’s Addiction and Poison. He also spent years touring with Crosby, Stills and Nash. But he is most celebrated for contributing organ to the tracks “Rainy Day, Dream Away” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming” on Jimi Hendrix’s classic Electric Ladyland.

  • • •

  “When I was starting out I used to play in nightclubs for like weeks at a time. You’d go somewhere and play for two weeks in a club, and then they might pick up an option and hold you over. I remember being forcibly held over by a mobbed-up joint—guys that were part of the broken-nose club…I was a young guy, and these guys were legitimately gangsters. They were like the real thing. They weren’t like just faux tough guys, they were really mobbed up in those days. Like in Youngstown, Ohio, it was like Crimetown, USA. The guy who owned it was a known guy.

  “I told him in advance we had another commitment—it was just before Christmas—back in Kansas City, and we’d been out in the Midwest and the East for a couple of months.

  “I said, ‘There’s no option on this. We can only do the two weeks.’

  “He said, ‘Fine.’

  “Then after a couple of days he was like, ‘We really like your band. I�
��m thinking about holding you over.’

  “I said, ‘Don’t forget, I told you we had this commitment.’

  “Then a couple of days later he said, ‘I’ve decided to hold you over.’

  “I said, ‘But what about…’

  “He said, ‘Kid, you don’t get it. You’re staying!’

  “[So we stayed another] two weeks.”

  —Mike Finnigan

  Henry Rollins

  Henry Rollins is a modern Renaissance man—the type of person who’s achieved success in so many different fields that to define him by only one is not just lazy but mildly insulting. The musician, actor, writer, poet, columnist, VJ, television host and pop-culture luminary first gained fame in 1981 as the frontman for the seminal California punk band Black Flag. With few exceptions, Rollins seems to be the rare singer who has created a cottage industry around his everyday voice. Whatever the scenario, the performer can never be accused of being dull.

  • • •

  “There have been a few. Not because we sucked, because I’ve never been onstage with a band that was high. Equipment failure was detrimental at times. In Singapore, everything basically blew up onstage; everything went poof. We had to play through the PA. No amps onstage, just plugged in direct. It sounded awful. One time in Austria in 1983 there was a riot inside the venue. The police came in. The fans beat up the cops. The fans beat up the bouncers. A guy punched me and laid me out on the ground. That gig was like, ‘How are we gonna get through this? No one seems to be interested in music. They’re just interested in beating the crap out of everyone, including us.’”

  —Henry Rollins

  Translator

  San Francisco was the physical setting for Translator’s ascent to popularity in the early 1980s, but musically the group owed more to British new-wave influences. Led by singer-guitarist Steve Barton, the quartet that also includes guitarist Robert Darlington, bassist Larry Dekker and drummer Dave Scheff rode its signature tune, the moody, entrancing “Everywhere That I’m Not,” into a pervasive underground hit. The band continues to record and perform with its original lineup intact.

  • • •

  “There was a gig in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, probably in about 1982. We got to the club, and the first tip-off something was amiss was the guy who greeted us had these two snarling Dobermans.

  “We were like, ‘Hello?’

  “He said, ‘Don’t worry. There’s only some kind of people they don’t like.’

  “OK. Fine. Whatever that meant.

  “So we’re playing the gig, and there’s this girl at the front of the stage who was either reaching up to touch us or throwing things. I don’t remember. But this two-hundred-pound bouncer guy tackled her and threw her out of the club. I’m sure we said something onstage about it.

  “But then at the end of the gig—and this is what makes it really memorable—our road manager went to the office to get paid. She was this fantastic woman named Christine; it was really unusual to have a road manager who was a woman back then.

  “She went to the office and said, ‘All right, that was a great show. We’re getting ready to leave, so let’s figure out the money.’

  “The guy opened the drawer, took out a gun and put it on the table.

  “He said, ‘There’s only two things I hate more than women.’

  “She came out of the office white as a ghost and said, ‘Get in the van. Let’s get the hell out of here.’

  “She told us what happened. Then when we got to the hotel, she said this club owner intimated that he and a few of his buddies were going to come by and ‘take care of us.’ I don’t know why he didn’t like us, but she insisted we get the hell out of there.

  “I heard later from other people ‘that happened to us.’ I think the owner tried to intimidate people. It probably worked a lot of the time. But we found out afterward, to her credit, Christine stood up to him by saying, ‘Give me the money and I’ll get out of your face.’

  “Believe it or not, he actually paid her.”

  —Steve Barton, Translator

  Los Lonely Boys

  Credit: Piper Ferguson

  Guitarist Henry Garza, bassist Jojo Garza and drummer Ringo Garza began touring as grade schoolers while backing their father, Ringo Garza Sr., a conjunto musician who came to prominence in The Falcones. Eventually, the younger Garzas struck out on their own as Los Lonely Boys. Upon the release of a 2004 self-titled debut, the Texas trio began racking up hit singles and Grammy nods with their fusion of Tex-Mex rock and guitar-driven blues.

  • • •

  “Man, it’s tough to recap and recall the worst gig—there are so many of them that went south. Basically, when we first started out, I would have to say that was one of the worst gigs. We were doing a show in…I think it was Big Springs, Texas. We were playing a show with a conjunto band named Michael Salgado. They were playing, and they were kind enough to let our dad and us play with their stuff. We got up on the stage, and while we were playing, somebody shot one of [their] members. Our dad’s theory of music was, ‘Never stop no matter what’s going on! Don’t stop!’ At first we didn’t realize what was going on. We just saw a big commotion and heard the sound, but we were still going along. There was pepper gas flying everywhere. It was a big crowd, a big fight, and everything started breaking out…So we’re looking at each other and were like, ‘We should stop.’ We vacated the premises as quick as we could. We didn’t want no more bullets flying.”

  —Henry Garza, Los Lonely Boys

  Jefferson Starship

  After a nine-year run as one of the pioneering psychedelic acts of the 1960s, Jefferson Airplane changed its name to Jefferson Starship and began a chart-topping ride that continues to this day—give or take a few years’ hiatus. The Bay Area act forged its prolific career through classic-rock staples (“Jane,” “Miracles,” “Find Your Way Back”) and dubious commercial hits (“We Built This City”). Although the lineup changes occur so frequently as to be almost comical, the band’s arena-rock legacy is hard to dispute.

  • • •

  “We were playing a gig in Germany at the Loreley Amphitheater [in 1978]. The Beach Boys and Chicago had canceled out back-to-back shows at this place, and people were pissed off. Half the crowd was German and the other half were American Marines. There were people in the crowd with gasoline cans. The first band had already played, and they figured the show was really going to go on this time. But Grace [Slick] had diarrhea and was throwing up. She wasn’t going to go on. They asked me to go out to make the announcement.

  “I said, ‘You’ve got to be crazy. I’m not going to go out there. They’re going to kill me.’

  “So [keyboardist David] Freiberg said he’d go out there. There was dead silence when he said, ‘We’ll make the gig up, but Grace is deathly ill.’

  “I was standing next to one of my roadies by my drums, and a Heineken bottle came flying through the air. It hit him in the head, and he went down like a bowling pin.

  “Then a full-bore riot ensued. The Marines were fighting with the Germans. There was military there and police. One of the Germans was drunk and had a broken bottle, and he was coming up to one of the regular German police. And the policeman took his gun out and was going to waste the guy right there. It was Altamont all over again.

  “A military policeman said, ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  “He pushed the policeman’s gun down with his stick and said, ‘All you have to do is this!’

  “And he hit [the drunk guy] over the head with his stick.”

  —Johny Barbata, Jefferson Starship

  Ian MacKaye founded seminal hardcore punk act Minor Threat and equally influential label Dischord Records in 1980 when he was only eighteen years old. But it was seven years later that the do-it-yourself musician developed his definitive act, Fugazi. Along with fellow Washington, DC, singer-guitarist G
uy Picciotto, drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally, Fugazi fashioned an ever-shifting style more rhythmically driven than that of their contemporaries. Pounding guitars gave way to hypnotic patterns that constantly grappled between louds and softs. MacKaye’s and Picciotto’s dissimilar voices alternated lead chores, highlighting words weighted toward political or social commentary. Fugazi has been on an “indefinite hiatus” since 2002. In the interim, MacKaye has issued three albums with The Evens, a duo he devised with his drummer wife, Amy Farina. MacKaye’s story is culled from several lengthy phone interviews about the topic.

  Fugazi under Siege in Warsaw!

  By Ian MacKaye

  This is not necessarily the worst gig. There are different ideas about what tends to be good or bad. But often adversity is what makes a gig great. So, in fact, this is not a bad gig. We just found ourselves in the middle of a completely insane situation.

  In my mind, some of the worst gigs I ever played were in front of audiences where I felt like we could do no wrong and therefore didn’t have to try to do anything right. I didn’t feel good at the end of it; I basically felt like we could have been terrible and people still would have said, “You’re brilliant.” That doesn’t move the ball.

  But the story I’m going to tell you is about a particular gig Fugazi played in 1990. It was a gig that happened in circumstances that were completely unmanageable, it got completely out of control, and it was a complete surprise.

 

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