Live Performance (John Adams)

Very few fields of endeavor involve the strange mix of variables and contingencies that live music performance does. The rare combination of equipment, music, personalities, directions, personal tastes, and sometimes alcohol, can make for some of the most hilarious or tragic or hilariously tragic interactions I have ever witnessed! If you ever want a long conversation, ask some musicians "what is the funniest (and/or weirdest) thing you have ever seen happen at a gig?" I admit though, from my own experience, sometimes those things are only funny in retrospect. Another way to have nearly exactly the same conversation with those same musicians is to ask them instead "what was the worst gig you have ever had?" I would be very surprised if everyone isn't laughing by the end of the story. With this end in mind, I will relate a few of the unusual or humorous things I have encountered over the years.

The first area to delve into is the scenario of tune requests. While in the middle of playing a tune a customer comes up and starts saying, "Do you guys know this tune... (they start singing the melody)?" I ask, "What is it called?" They say, "I don't know." "Who sang it?" "I think it was either Billy Joel or Elton John." (I am thinking, "Oh good, at least it is not by someone prolific!") "I'm sorry, we might know it but if you can't tell me the title I am not sure we can figure it out." (The customer walks off in disgust).

A customer walks up and requests "Can you play 'Feelings'?" (band finishes vomiting) Depending upon the situation (and/or the amount of the tip, if any) the band proceeds to play 'Feelings' with feeling. The couple who requested it proceed to dance nimbly to it. Two tunes later they come up and demand, "I thought you were going to play 'Feelings'?" To which we gently reply, "We just played it." (confused looks from couple) "No you didn't." "Yes we did, and you even danced to it." (couple walks off in disgust).

A customer walks up and says, "Can you guys play 'Big Wheel'?" (confused looks from band) "you know, "Big Wheel keep on turnin'!" (band walks off in disgust). Other popular tune renaming are: "In Other Words" (instead of "Fly my to the Moon"), and "The Girl with Emphysema" and other variations (instead of "Ipanema").

Some tune requests seem to indicate an exceptional (not mention odd) spectrum of musical tastes. I will never forget the request that came handwritten on a paper napkin to one band leader I work with that read "Can you please play the theme from 'Rawhide' or anything by Miles Davis?" I recall that we proceeded to do both.

The most frequent event in "request hell" is getting a request for a tune that you just played. This may be because the requester were not in the room when you played it, but most commonly it is because he was busy talking and your beautiful rendition gently prodded his memory. The challenge at that moment is, do we play it again and run the risk of the other guests and/or staff thinking "these guys play the same tunes over and over," or wait and play the tune later, thereby causing the requester to think "these guys don't know anything."

Finally, some events are just hard to comment on...A rather tipsy young couple was doing a poor imitation of swing dancing near the end of one night when the young lady lost her balance landed on top of one of our pieces of equipment. And then to my amazement, I overheard one observer say to another one "Well I don't know why they have the band where all the people are anyway!"

Next week I will recount some of the other touching incidents involving equipment I have witnessed. Musicians, feel free to submit your own gig stories for consideration to me, and I may start a weekly column here... "Gig stories?"

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