Horror Stories: Loading in and out

[tboy]

Back in the day, I often played a place named Rush Up, on Rush Street in Chicago. Getting in was like climbing a ladder. 25-30 stairs going straight up. Then when you finally got your stuff up there, the stage was suspended between two floors. These were also the days of B3's and SVT's.

I had an Ampeg VT22 with EV's that felt like it was bolted to the floor. I finally muscled it up to 2 stairs from top and lost it. It tumbled end over end, down the stairs, crashing into a wall at street level, and the manager garnished our pay to fix a hole in the wall it made. Amp was trashed.

Any other similar horror stories out there?

[charlie chitlin]

I ran over the drummer's cymbals with the van when loading in.
They looked normal, but sounded like garbage can lids.
So we stacked 'em up and ran over 'em again.
They sounded as good as new to us!
And, yeah...that's when you'd walk in to get that last armload at 3:00a.m. and it was just you and the CS-800.
The widowmaker, we called it.

[tuuur]

I played a gig once at Gabes' Oasis in Iowa City, Iowa. It was in mid winter, and the steep steel stairs we had to climb to load and unload were covered with ice...
We were very lucky nothing got dropped, but actually that was a miracle.

[pengipete]

Originally Posted by charlie frey

I ran over the drummer's cymbals with the van when loading in.

At least that's what you told him.

The definition of drummers - weird people who hang around with musicians.

[stephent2]

I used to do "agency" gigs, usually in hotels, load in through the slippery kitchens to the service elevator to some convention room. As the "band leader" I owned the P.A.,.... never was it fun, just good pay.

Anyway, I quit doing that over a dozen years ago,.... coincidently it's been that long since I've played "Mustang Sally" or "Old Time Rock & Roll".

[garytelecastor]

I used to work a club that had two entrances. One a hundred yards from the stage, the other a door right next to the stage but we were on the second floor and the stairway was too narrow to climb. So we would back the truck up to the stairway and hand the equipment up by manpower. Hated it. Hated it. Good money though.
Since I no longer run a band, I come in, plug in my stuff and go get a beverage. Much more agreeable to the back.

[Michaell]

big drum kits in tight questers! lol!

[superlightweigh]

We used to have a converted schoolbus with about the first six rows of seats left in and the rest for gear. I remember one time when we were loading up after a gig and our drummer was muscling a big cab around into position and stuck his big butt right through the window! I mean, he broke out the window, frame, everything, it was just gone! We all laughed so hard

[pengipete]

Originally Posted by superlightweigh

We used to have a converted schoolbus with about the first six rows of seats left in and the rest for gear. I remember one time when we were loading up after a gig and our drummer was muscling a big cab around into position and stuck his big butt right through the window! I mean, he broke out the window, frame, everything, it was just gone! We all laughed so hard

Thanks alot pal - now I've got a really horrible picture in my head.

[claudel]

Once someone helped me misplace my '51 P Bass S/N 0374 during a loadout.

Coolest bass I ever had.

It's probably hanging on some Kollector's wall today.

[petebradt]

THe only load-in/out story I have is when I brained some jerk in a parking lot when I found him trying to jimmy the lock on our bass player's van, which already his rig and the PA in it.

Telecasters make GREAT blunt instruments. The guy went down like he'd been shot. Didn't even dent the guitar, and I hit the guy HARD.

[Murphy Slaw]

Whew, this is gonna take some typing.

Around 1980 I played with a Country Band in Mesa Arizona. The "Front Man" bought an old Cadillac Limosine (like a 72') and we had a gig at an Air Force Base around Gila Bend.

I rode with him and his mistress, (sheeze, yep he was married) and we were about an hour and a half ahead of the drummer and bass player who were in the drummers 1947 or so pickup he was restoring, (think primer paint, ect.)with all the p.a. gear, drums ect.

The (black) limo got hot (Gila Bend, Arizona in July, it was like 115 degrees)
and we sat on the side of the road for an hour and a half with an ice chest full of beer. No shade, except the black car. We got drunk quick.

The old truck showed up and we loaded our guitars and amps in it, and with 5 (really) people in the front of this old truck, (old trucks have very small cabs) we pulled up to the gate of this Air Force Base.

The drunk front man, with his shirt unbuttoned, walked up to the guard at the gate, (who is a perfect, hand picked, military man) handed him a business card and said........

This stands out to me to this day as one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed.........


"Sorry we're late, but our Limo broke down."

HA HA.........

True story......

Love ya.

Murph.

[tboy]

Originally Posted by petebradt

THe only load-in/out story I have is when I brained some jerk in a parking lot when I found him trying to jimmy the lock on our bass player's van, which already his rig and the PA in it.

Telecasters make GREAT blunt instruments. The guy went down like he'd been shot. Didn't even dent the guitar, and I hit the guy HARD.

Viva Pete Townsend! Tele's are so versatile.

[hal]

Great topic. I have learned to ask questions first. I know a lot of the venues in Memphis. We charge more for some places than others. Your wedding is at the Peabody? The price goes up 600.00 minimum. And we are not cheap to start with. Riverboats cost more. Beale Street is extra and we only play there for private events. There are a lot of clubs we don't play because the pay is bad and the load in is worse. Fortunately we are playing enough corporate/private events to keep our club roster down to a couple/month.

Our motto should be "we play for free. We get paid to move the gear."

[charlie chitlin]

I almost forgot about our singer backing his Pinto wagon into a post at a gas station and denting the rear bumper so the hatch wouldn't open.
Very tough getting the PA out the side doors.

[Telakaster]

A friend of mine got up one morning after a gig and found a Peavey monitor that didn't get packed on the roof of his van. He'd driven 120 miles to get home the night before.

[olewichita]

the ultimate load in/out horror story remains clarence white's... that's why years ago we instated the clarence white memorial cone... tj

[Tim Bowen]

I've done loads of conventions and hotels and lounge gigs, so elevators and kitchens are no big whoop.

Worst load ins:

Smith's Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA.

No big deal if you're doing an acoustic-electric set in the "Atlanta Room", downstairs. However, if you're working a full band scenario upstairs, that outdoor set of stairs is intimidating to say the least. Every time I lug gear up those stairs, I'm reminded of footage of bridges or porch decks collapsing. It gives me the heebie jeebies. I always feel lucky to have survived.


Tootsie's Wild Orchid Lounge, Nashville, TN.

Well, there's really no place to load in thats practical and won't piss somebody off. The musician turnover on any given day is so high that people are antagonized by default. You can pull into the back alley to load in, but there will be a little mini-tour bus up your butt in short order. You can tell folks that you're "working", and they'll ask you at which restaurant. Fair enough. Every time I play there, some 20-something sound tech insists that I'll get better tone by DI'ing my tube amp than by mic'ing it. Whatever, I'm totally fine with playing an obscure podunk north Georgia tavern and actually getting paid, and minus the 'tude, at that.

[colonelrobert]

Originally Posted by hal

Great topic. I have learned to ask questions first. I know a lot of the venues in Memphis. We charge more for some places than others. Your wedding is at the Peabody? The price goes up 600.00 minimum. And we are not cheap to start with. Riverboats cost more. Beale Street is extra and we only play there for private events. There are a lot of clubs we don't play because the pay is bad and the load in is worse. Fortunately we are playing enough corporate/private events to keep our club roster down to a couple/month.

Our motto should be "we play for free. We get paid to move the gear."

Speaking of places to play in Memphis...
The Western Steakhouse And Lounge (with the famous Elvis booth) had in my opinion the smallest bandstand in the world. You had to put the mikes outside of the rail. But the kings and queens of country music played there for years.

One of the worst load/unload I remember was a benefit for a sheriff election one year in Memphis.

They had put two flatbeds together and we had to load and unload without steps. Picking those cabs over our heads were a bugger!

And playing on the square upstairs above Sams where the stairs seemed to go straight up and forever.

[bo]

Originally Posted by tuuur

I played a gig once at Gabes' Oasis in Iowa City, Iowa. It was in mid winter, and the steep steel stairs we had to climb to load and unload were covered with ice...
We were very lucky nothing got dropped, but actually that was a miracle.

LOL! I think everyone has had the same experience at Gabe's, it's just worse in the winter. I swear those shakey stairs are meant to be bolted to the side of a building and not sticking straight out the back door. In talking about this same situation one of the guys in Slobberbone said they played there in the dead of winter and after the first load up the stairs he watched their van slide down hill towards the street on the ice.

[tboy]

Originally Posted by hal

Great topic. I have learned to ask questions first. I know

Our motto should be "we play for free. We get paid to move the gear."

Ain't it the truth.

We've now got a great regular gig (2 years+) where we go from Iggy Pop, to Charlie Parker, to Koko Taylor to Scofield to Sleepwalk and back to Iggy. We have fun, crowd digs it, and free seafood buffet for us Fridays. Often, folks want to hire us for a party, and they're shocked at the price, but we tell them the reason is that we have to cancel here, strike, set up, strike and set up. That's the work. And if it's Friday, we miss the buffet

[Jakedog]

Played a big Oktoberfest gig in Wisconsin many years ago. Sound crew was set up for the whole weekend, and they were staying in a little trailer parked behind the stage. It had a window type air contioner in stalled on the end wall of it. I went to back our big box truck up the rear of the stage to unload, and ripped that air conditioner plumb off.

The sound company guy couldn't yell at me, he was the one signaling me to keep backing up.

Once played a "Dick's Last Resort" about ten years ago down in the Flats here in Cleveland. Narrow street, and the cops would not let you stop and park, even to load in. We had to park in a pay-lot a block down, and hump our gear down the crowded sidewalk. Not knowing ahead of time that this would be the case, I brought the Twin WITHOUT the wheels. On the way back to the truck after the gig, I broke my hand carrying that amp. Stress fractured in two different places. I also tore a tendon at my elbow. Now I have a collapsible hand truck. You live and learn.


Jake

[petebradt]

Originally Posted by tboy

Viva Pete Townsend! Tele's are so versatile.

And ya know what? The Woodstock incident I'd heard so much about was the inspiration for said braining of the would-be criminal. When he came to about five minutes later, I was standing over him with my Tele and asked him if he wanted some more.

He scrambled to his feet and fled. I'm not a violent guy in 99.9 percent of my life, but DON'T MESS WITH THE GEAR or the GALS.

[Doug Ferguson]

Originally Posted by petebradt