Concert-going Cluster@#$%'s

I was reading thru the Vengeance Rising section of Ult's site and found this very interesting story about his experience at a V.R. concert years back...Ult's saga made me wonder if anyone else here has had a concert going experience go horribly wrong for them? I have a good story that I will post momentarily (I just typed it up at another forum) about my trip to see Extreme at L'amour in Brooklyn back in early '91.


>>>Here is a bizarre story that happened during the tour for this album. I met the band on their tour in support of this disc and spent several hours locked inside of a club chatting with Roger Martinez. The band was scheduled to play the Sunshine Theater in Albuquerque with the Moshketeers opening the show. A local radio show called G-Rock had sponsored the show. However, on their way from their gig the night before, their van broke down. They didn't finally make it to the club until close to 1 AM. By the time they got there some of the fans had left, but many had stayed to watch a handful of local bands that played to fill in the time. (Combat Faith was one of the bands I remember.) By the time they got their equipment set up and Vengeance finally took the stage, they only had time to play about four songs. (One of which was a new song that was to be recorded for the next album, but never was.) Afterwards I stuck around to help the band break down and clear their equipment from the stage. In the meantime, the owner of the club decided he wanted 15% of the band's merchandise table sales and claimed he had a right to it. However, nothing in the band's contract stated this, so it became a big issue. The club owner locked us all in, waved a gun around, would not allow the band to take their equipment out of the club and called the police. It took several hours to clear up the issue, but in the meantime I got to spend the wee hours of the morning talking with Roger Martinez. I didn't hear all that happened with the situation, but in the end the club owner didn't get any of the band's table sales.'<<<

Here's my tale of the Extreme concert trip that went straight to hell... anyone else out there got a story that can beat mine or Ult's? Nobody waved a gun around in my story, so I think Ult's saga wins.

My pal Gary and I were the music critics for our college paper at the time Extreme's PORNOGRAFFITI was released, and when Gary reviewed the album in our column we sent a tear sheet of it to A&M Records on a whim. At best, we figured we'd get put on A&M's promo list and start getting free CDs from them. Surprisingly enough, several weeks later Gary got an out-of-the-blue phone call from Extreme's publicist at the label, saying that Extreme were going to be playing at L'amour in Brooklyn in a few weeks and asked if we wanted to be on the guest list and interview the band for the paper. Of course, our answer was a solid "Hell YES!" because interviewing a band would've been a first for our silly little rock music column....Little did we know that when the big day came, we were in for the biggest concert going clusterf*ck of our lives.

We were told to be at the venue at 5 PM on the day of the show to meet the band and to do our interview. Photo and guest passes were supposed to be waiting for us at the door. We got to the club, went to the box office, and the idiot behind the counter couldn't find our names on the guest list. She sez "I have you down for a photo pass, but not guest passes." So we took the photo pass and went to look for anyone we could find in the Extreme camp, hoping that we'd be able to find out where our guest passes were. Using our college ID's we were able to bullsh*t ourselves into the club through the back stage door, where we were told that the band were running late -- they were in Manhattan doing a radio interview and weren't even at the club yet, though they were expected any minute now. So we stood around the empty club, watching the roadies set up stuff (and watching Tangier, one of the openers, doing a photo shoot by the back wall) for a while, then Extreme finally arrived. We introduced ourselves to Gary Cherone, who was a totally nice guy, but he said that they were running extremely late (pun not intended) by this time and needed to do their soundcheck right away... so the odds were there wouldn't be time for an interview. he also had no idea what to tell us about our guest passes. That kinda sucked but we still hung around, watched'em sound check (which was kinda cool, they played "Hole Hearted" and "Get The Funk Out") and afterwards we met Pat Badger, a very nice guy as well. Eventually a club security goon asked us why we were inside if we didn't have passes, and before we could explain our situation, he kicked us out onto the sidewalk to wait for the doors to open with the rest of the (quite sizable) crowd.

Once again we went back to the idiot at the box office window (I later dubbed her "the Spandex Enormity" in our article about this show) and asked again if she had found our guest passes. Again, the answer was negative. Gary and I finally decided "F*ck it, we'd better buy tickets, otherwise we're not even gonna be able to see the show." $42 later (!) the girl hands us our tickets and then two seconds later sez "Oh WAIT a minute, HERE you guys are! I was looking at the wrong list." She'd been looking for our names on the band's guest list, we were on the label's list. So we sez "That's great, then can we get our $ back for these tickets we just bought?" ...and she sez (WAIT FOR IT!) "I'm sorry, there's no refunds." Gary was homicidal by this point and I was not far behind him, we sez "You gotta be kidding! Can we see the manager?" So she calls the manager. He comes to the front, we explain what had just happened, and his response was, and I quote, "If you don't like it, you can f*ckin' leave." So that was the end of that. No guest passes, no interview, no nothin'. So much for our big journalistic moment!!!

We did stay for the show, and it was excellent, (though I was so pissed off the entire time that I didn't enjoy myself anywhere near as much as I should have) but the entire experience soured me on ever going to L'amour again, even though it had previously been my favorite club to see bands.... neither Gary nor I ever set foot in that place again!! We did, however, turn our trials and tribulations into our best-ever column for the college paper, a full page article that we titled "An Extreme-ly Rough Night In Brooklyn."

King's X in Dallas on the Black Like Sunday tour 2003.

They were the first band scheduled to play a new club that had just opened (owned by the vocalist of that old metal band Omen). The club was just a hair's breath from looking like it would fall down but my hopes were high.

Unfortunately, in the rush to get the club opened nobody bothered to make sure the club's electrical system was up to code. Omen was the opening act (coincidence huh) and their set went basically okay. The problems didn't begin until King's X took the stage.

They came out and opened with Dogman...but about 35 seconds into the song Ty's guitar amp blew out. Fried by the electrical system. So they were forced to stop and swap the amplifier out of his rack. About 30 minutes later they were ready to start again. So they apologized, said "let's start this again" and began with Dogman again...about 40 seconds later the replacement amplifier blew.

After much head scratching and arguing amongst the band and club owner Ty walked up to the mic and asked the crowd "does anybody have an acoustic guitar with them?". Another 10 minutes goes by and Ty shows back up on stage with an old beat up acoustic/electric and informs the crowd "well, it's acoustic or nothing." Ty ran the guitar through a wah pedal and that was the extent of the available effects for the evening.

Then Doug tells the crowd, "We know this isn't the show you paid for, so if you want your money back go tell the club owner...but we're going to play and it's going to be an all-request night, what'cha wanna hear?"

Then in true King's X fashion they KICKED SERIOUS ASS for the next 90 minutes...acoustic guitar and all. They played Visions and it was heavier on acoustic than it ever was on the album. They were getting a little drunk and started getting looser and looser as the night went on, it ended up being like a little private party with the band.

One of the most interesting and FUN shows that I've ever attended.

How many other bands can you think of that could pull off their whole set without the benefit of their effects and stuff? Not many.

Great story FF!

tohostudios wrote:

Great story FF!

Thanks...though re-living it just now made me renew my oath that if I ever happen to run into that L'amour manager guy on the street, I am gonna put a boot right between his nards.

Clubs are known for ripping people off. In L.A. at the Key Club opening bands have to sign a contract to pay $2000 to open before a headlining band.

Wow! Cool King's X story. Wish they would have done something like that when they were in Albuquerque a few years ago. They were opening for Dio and Hammerfall at the Midnight Rodeo. King's X hit the stage and were having some sort of problem on stage. Not sure if it was the monitors, or what, because it sounded fine through the mains. Doug Pinnick was getting visibly pissed off and screeched at the crew after the first song. By the third song Doug just threw his bass on the ground with a loud crash. He grabbed the mic and sang the end of the song, threw the mic and stand on the ground and walked off stage leaving his band mates hanging. The rest of the band just shrugged and left the stage. End of show! What the...

I was bummed. I was anxious to see King's X! They are a band I absolutely love. I don't think they've been back in Albuquerque since.

Well, Doug wasn't exactly "happy" about that Dallas gig either, he sat back on a stool in the corner of the stage and had a couple "J's" while Ty and the crew worked on the guitar rig. Once the acoustic show first started he seemed a little annoyed, but you could see him visibly start having fun by the 2nd or 3rd song and by halfway through the concert he was joking with the crowd, singing bits and pieces of old 70's pop tunes...having a blast.

Anyway, that show was filmed for a local Dallas PBS special...I'm sure somebody must have a tape of that gig...I'd kill for a copy.

Also, Dimebag and Vinnie from Pantera were both at that gig, they were beside me in the front row jumping up and down with the rest of the crowd.

All these King's X stories remind me that I missed going to see them on the FAITH HOPE LOVE tour due to a (thankfully minor) head injury earlier in the day (long story that involved a paint can and a fall from a ladder)... spent a few hours in the emergency room, got a few stitches, and by the time I was let out there was no way I would've had time to meet up with my friends to go to the show...

...so I still have never seen King's X.

Fat Freddy wrote:

All these King's X stories remind me that I missed going to see them on the FAITH HOPE LOVE tour due to a (thankfully minor) head injury earlier in the day (long story that involved a paint can and a fall from a ladder)... spent a few hours in the emergency room, got a few stitches, and by the time I was let out there was no way I would've had time to meet up with my friends to go to the show...

...so I still have never seen King's X.

That was 1991, they've been touring ever since...they are going out on a headlining jaunt soon...go see 'em!

detuned wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

All these King's X stories remind me that I missed going to see them on the FAITH HOPE LOVE tour due to a (thankfully minor) head injury earlier in the day (long story that involved a paint can and a fall from a ladder)... spent a few hours in the emergency room, got a few stitches, and by the time I was let out there was no way I would've had time to meet up with my friends to go to the show...

...so I still have never seen King's X.

That was 1991, they've been touring ever since...they are going out on a headlining jaunt soon...go see 'em!

Haha, I'm semi-retired and don't go to nearly as many shows as I used to these days, besides, there really aren't any decent venues near me that they might play. I can't really do the "road trips" for shows anymore....

I have a King's X story:

On the Tape Head tour in Raleigh NC...King's X & Galactic Cowboys...

After the show, Jerry came off stage and saw me & my buddy and said "Man, I could use a shot...". My buddy (Robert) immediately ordered 2 tequila shots. Robert asked Jerry if he ever had "Carolina Mouthwash" (stupid, I know). Jerry looked puzzled and said "No, what's that?" Robert proceeded to swish and gargle the tequila before he swallowed it. Jani Lane (Warrant) was standing next to us and went completely bug-eyed

Anyway, Jerry took a deep breath and did it himself, and nearly choked. He looked up with his eyes watering, laughing, and we all had a good chuckle out of it. Robert then looked at Jani and said "Want one?" to which Jani replied "Dude, no way!"

Afterwards Jerry and Robert were talking (Robert is a bit of a theological philosopher) and Jerry made the statement "King's X has never been a Christian band, but if there ever was a Christian band, it's King's ." We still don't know exactly what that meant...haha!

My King's X story isn't as good as the other ones - but I saw then on the Bulbus tour at Jaxx in Springfield, VA (a famous or infamous Metal night club in the Washington, DC area. The power had gone out fue to a storm earlier in the evening and the band couldn't set up their equipment on time for sounds check, then the power went out again, blew a circuit. When the ciruit was fixed, King's X would not have mad the 11pm start time. They didn;t go on until 1:30am in the morning and still played a full set!

I was tired the next morning.

Geez, lotsa stories about power failures/bands' equipment blowing up... I went to a club on Staten Island to see Kix years ago (about a 90 minute drive from where I lived @ the time) only to find out that some of their equipment had fried during their sound check, so they were packing up to leave just as my friends and I arrived. We spoke to Ronnie "10/10" Younkins and he was none too pleased, he was sorry that we'd come all that way for no show but said "I think these a**holes (meaning the club management) are letting the opening bands play, but we're outta here."

We did stick around for the acts that did play (a pretty terrible Metallica tribute and one or two other local nobody bands) just because we didn't feel like turning around and driving home so soon, but needless to say we were pretty disappointed. When they re-scheduled Kix at the same club a few weeks later, it was in the middle of the week too, so I couldn't even make it to the make-up show.

I also drove all that way to the same club to see Trouble once only to be told at the door when we got there that they had cancelled, too!! That was it for me with that club (the Rock Palace, now defunct), I never bothered going there again.

I've been to many a shows over the years and thankfully, they've pretty much gone off without a hitch. The closest thing I have to a cluster#$%@ is getting my passanger side car window smashed in and having my jean jacket, tool box & change in the ashtray stolen while I was inside watching a concert. I loved that jean jacket.

Fat Freddy wrote:

neither Gary nor I ever set foot in that place again!! We did, however, turn our trials and tribulations into our best-ever column for the college paper, a full page article that we titled "An Extreme-ly Rough Night In Brooklyn."

Yea that place might have some good bands play there but their business side of things are a total joke. Theyve reopened and closed numerous times. I played there 2 or 3 times once opening for Winger (woopty doo) and the last time opening for Riot (didnt stick around for them). The place was in the middle of nowhere, its dirty, noones really friendly and barely anyone even goes there. Like many shows we do in places like this we didnt get paid either. So after playing there those few times we decided not to play there anymore.

Another place in NY that we will never play again is Don Hills. Its another dump with a-hole employees. They tried to get money out of us cause they didnt sell enough tickets or some BS. We flat out told him we dont owe you nothing and still ended up playing. The guy at the door was a total jerk off though. So again another place we wont step foot in.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Yea that place might have some good bands play there but their business side of things are a total joke. Theyve reopened and closed numerous times. I played there 2 or 3 times once opening for Winger (woopty doo) and the last time opening for Riot (didnt stick around for them). The place was in the middle of nowhere, its dirty, noones really friendly and barely anyone even goes there. Like many shows we do in places like this we didnt get paid either. So after playing there those few times we decided not to play there anymore.

Wow, so I guess my encounter with the management of L'amour wasn't an isolated experience then?? Haha.

L'amour has definitely had a weird history with opening/closing/re-opening/etc. They went outta business the first time in '93, maybe '94, but by that time I was out of college and it wasn't near where I lived at the time anymore so I didn't really mourn its loss. They opened and re-opened a couple of other times throughout the 90s (that I'm aware of) before I stopped paying attention. Now I hear that someone is using the name in a new location, somewhere on Staten Island.

In its heyday in the early-to-mid 80s, L'amour was THE place for metal bands though, and it was always packed. (Sadly, I only started going there towards the end of that period and missed a lot of the bands who would then go on to become really big... ) Everybody who was ANYBODY played their early gigs there. Metallica, W.A.S.P., Queensryche, Twisted Sister, Ratt, Slayer, S.O.D., Anthrax, Overkill, White Lion, you name 'em, they played there. I remember around '88 when Iron Maiden (!) played a super secret club gig there under the fake name "Charlotte and the Harlots," I would've given my left nut to see that ...

I saw a lot of good bands there in the short period of time that I went there regularly -- Lizzy Borden, Overkill (twice), Savatage, Trouble, Babylon A.D., Sepultura (their first tour of the US and, if memory serves, only their second show on American soil!), and lots of others. During my four years of college I probably averaged at least one show there a month, sometimes more. That's why it was such a bummer for me to get an "F-You" brush-off from a club that had previously been my favorite place to see bands. Their loss, cuz my friends and I used to drop a LOT of $$ in that place on tickets, not to mention their overpriced beers.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I've been to many a shows over the years and thankfully, they've pretty much gone off without a hitch. The closest thing I have to a cluster#$%@ is getting my passanger side car window smashed in and having my jean jacket, tool box & change in the ashtray stolen while I was inside watching a concert. I loved that jean jacket.

I had my passenger car window smashed in and having nothing stolen but several items from inside my car lying on the ground while I was watching Saigon Kick.

I've saw a guy at a Kreator show jump from a balcony stage right, fall about 20 feet and compound fracture his leg in front of hundreds. 2-Obituary knocking over a flash pod and setting the stage on fire. 3-One of the Milwuakee Metalfest during Body Count, a huge lighting rig came crash down on the crowd. Enough people saw it to actually stop it from killing anyone. With venue type stuff, I always have to make sure I have the tour managers cell to avoid the Will Call window blues. You just never know haha, I almost missed a Motley Crue back stage because the people said "sorry you have no tickets"-TJ

The band I did some road crew work for years ago (shall remain nameless)...we had a smoke machine blow up about 2 minutes into the set...BLOW UP....it filled the entire club with dry ice smoke, so thick you couldn't see or breathe, we had to stop the set, open the doors and let the smoke clear before we could continue.

Needless to say we didn't bother with smoke machines after that...

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

the last time opening for Riot (didnt stick around for them).

Where do you live? I've gotta go hurt you, now.


Seriously, I've had a few lame things happen (shirts stolen, bands that show up late), but NOTHING compared to some of these stories.

Me and a friend drove 300 kilometeres (about 135 miles) each way, to see Dee Snider's SMF. When we were about 60 kilometers on our way, aa gasket broke in the engine, causing water to pour out of the exhaust. But since we are both reatrds when it comes to cars, we thought he just needed to adjust something, and we could fix that later. Soon the car was overheated, and there were no water left in the system. So we had to fill water in the radiator every now and then. When we came to the venue we hooked up with some people we knew from Scream Magazine. They told us we had to go to a bookstore to buy tickets for the gig, and we did. Not 1 minute after returning to the venue, these journalists where picked up to go backstage to interview Dee. And they just asumed we where journalists to, so they let us in with them. Soon I found myself shaking Dee's hand, and my knees shaing. He had just finished shooting his Strangeland movie, and he still had that red hair. The guy is almost 2 meters tall, and when he took my hand, and looked me right in the eyes, saying "How are you doing?", I could utter a word! But we sat down for the interview, and Dee signed some stuff I brought along, and it was all cool. We spent the rest of the day in the backstage area, and got to meet the rest of the band too. They also signed my CD. The concert was fantastic. But on our way home, the car was even worse. And there were no place to fill the radiator!! No gas stations, nothing. And my buddy fell asleep! I never thought I'd see my hometown again! But miracously we made it. The car was gone though, and we never got it fixed either!

Some months, or maybe even a year, later, Dee and the band played another gig closer to home. Me and my buddy went there, and before the gig my buddy saw a familiar face. So he brought his CD to a man he knew he saw at the last gig, thinking this was one of the band members. The guy looked a little baffled my my friend asked "Can you sign my CD?". But he did, and went ahead with his own business. When the band hit the stage the dude was nowhere to be seen. Turns out, my friend had the guitar-tech sign his CD!!

I have no stories like the ones you all have experinced, the closet thing is at my first concert I ever attended was at one of the annual Rock Super Bowls in Orlando. The headliners were Journey with Bryan Adams and Aerosmith (Crespo line up). This was 82 and my brother took me (my parents were not happy since I was 12 !!)

During Aerosmith's set, Steven Tyler's mic kept going out and during the 4th or 5th song, Tyler looked he screamed at a roadie, and threw his micstand at him in front of 15-20,000 fans and walked off stage, and never returned. To say that sucked would be an understatement.

Cool story, Kurt.


BTW, this

Quote :

The guy is almost 2 meters tall,

means nothing to me.

spectrefate wrote:

Cool story, Kurt.


BTW, this

Quote :

The guy is almost 2 meters tall,

means nothing to me.

Just imagine the size of your willie, and multiply that with 100