Weird Things Experienced At A Concert

Note: This topic was started by someone at another site and developed into quite an interesting thread; I bet that most folks here have some bizarre story worth sharing related to a concert experience. Here's mine:

Richie Havens preventing a small riot from occuring at an undersold, overhyped Woodstock revisited gig in OKC.

The show had been locally promoted in Oklahoma City as a Woodstock revisited concert (note: this was in the late 70's, around the 10th Anniversary of the original Woodstock) and booked for the biggest arena, The Myriad. The promoters promised big acts and supposedly had booked a few, but as the date for the concert approached news had apparently gotten around that some of the acts had cancelled. Unofficially, word had filtered down that the promoters may have abscounded with the pre-sold gate and no refunds would be offered.

This information only made it to some ticket purchasers ears as a rumour because no one at the arena had made any public announcement or was willing to act in any official capacity whatsoever. They weren't responsible for putting the show on; it was the promoter's responsibility. As far as the Myriad owners were concerned the venue had been privately rented and paid for up front, which limited their liability.

Now I have no idea of how many tickets were originally sold for this arena show, but most of those who showed up expected either the performances they'd been promised or a cash refund. As an early ticket purchaser myself, had I been aware of all the difficulties with this show I might have just written it off, but I had heard nothing official about a cancellation, just a couple of loose rumours.

My girl friend and I arrived around noon as this was an open seating event of a scheduled all-day concert. Admittedly, we were a bit naive as well, in that we were unaware at the time of how serious the behind the scenes problems had been leading up to the concert or the growing anger of other ticket purchasers resulting from the various rumours which had been circulating. In fact, early on we were excited to be able to grab seats about 10 to 12 rows back from the stage, positioning ourselves in what would normally be considered great floor seats in a venue that could easily seat 50,000.

However, in a short span of time it became abundently clear that something was seriously wrong as a group numbering no more than a couple of thousand folks snagged the remaining floor seats while the surrounding arena seats, roped off and inaccessible, remained completely vacant. Apparently ticket sales to this event were limited to early sales and halted after rumours of cancellation and the promoters stealing the gate.

As the time for the concert's start came and passed murmering in the small crowd got ugly. Phrases like "If the performers don't show we're gonna rip this joint up" were becoming audible. To make matters worse, some joker from the Myriad's staff nervously stepped out on stage and announced that most of the performers initially engaged to perform had withdrawn due to other commitments (i.e., to most folks this sounded like a euphemism for the performers cancelled because they hadn't been paid).

This did nothing to quell the tension. No Arlo Guthrie; no Santana; no Joe Cocker; etc., etc., but as angry mob noises in the audience grew louder, Richie Havens, the only Woodstock alumnus to actually show up for this concert walked out on stage and made a short speech of his own.

He apologized to the audience for the unfortunate circumstances which led to folks being ripped off by something less than what they expected; he added that he hadn't been paid either, but promised everyone that their money would be refunded if they went to the main box office and showed their ticket stub. Now it wasn't the customary policy of the Myriad to give refunds in a situation like this, so I figured that someone in the front office had weighed the cost of potential damages and bad publicity, but for all we knew Richie was making the offer out of his own pocket.

In either case we were unaware of what was transpiring behind the scenes, but I digress. Richie Havens continued, and I paraphrase: "Folks, if you stick around, I'll play for you and if you still want your money back you can get a refund." This seemed to placate the crowd a bit, and looking around few if any within the disgruntled audience had moved in the direction of the Myriad's main box office.

IMHO, what followed was truly historic. One of those rare instances when a professional musician plays his heart out for a very small crowd and those there come to the realization that they've been part of a unique intimate experience. He played a full set on acoustic guitar, jumping around on stage with even more enthusiasm than I recalled from the original Woodstock film; his delivery was passionate and rock solid.

By the time Richie got around to playing "Freedom" folks were all but dancing in the aisles; there were standing ovations after each song. I recall thinking at the time that this must've been what it felt like at Woodstock and yet, upon reflection it was just the opposite extreme; something besides large numbers and rolled numbers was providing the atmosphere. I don't believe that anyone sought a refund that day, even though it had been offered and not one chair or turnstile was trashed. Folks just got up quietly after his second encore and walked out slack-jawed. In retrospect, Richie's performance proved to me once and for all that it's a performers ability to move the audience, not the size of the event that makes an event special. Richie Havens had class and demonstrated it to everyone there.


Cat

 

What is it about Oklahoma City and concert ripoffs? I had tickets to a Yes concert in 1976, and the ticket agent (Satellite Tickets) kept the money, or paid another debt, or something because there was no money for Yes, and the concert was cancelled. I still have my ticket.
Actually, my story is about a Rusty Wier concert, in June of 1978. They had booked the Civic Auditorium in my hometown of Ardmore, Oklahoma. When we got there there were maybe 40 or 50 people in the building. They were expecting many more. Rusty Wier was pretty big at that time, the progressive country deal was still going strong then. When Rusty finally walked onstage, he looked out to us, shook his head and started his usual acoustic set. When the first song ended, the few of us that were there went nuts! We were the loudest 50 people I'd ever heard. Rusty smiled to us and said "This is going to be alright!" He played for 2 hours, and tore it up.

 

LOL! Larry, I had tickets to that same Yes show (I'm originally from Okla., Chickasha specifically, and now live in Arlington, Texas as well; weird coincidence, huh?)! I hate to break it too you at this late date, but those Yes tickets WERE eventually honored when Yes toured in '78, and Wakeman was back with them by then (Patrick Moraz was their keyboard man in '76). I traded mine in for the '78 show; Donovan and a juggler backed up Yes (strange show, indeed).

BTW, I remember the Satellite Ticket Agency fiasco well; rumours about gates disappearing followed those folks just like the Woodstock Revisited sponsors. I did see a lot of great concerts in OKC (Fairgrounds & The Myriad) & Norman (Lloyd Noble Arena) though.


Cat

 

I went to see The Clash at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ in 1980. Very strange vibe in the theater all night. The show included a set by a band called the B-Girls, then Mickey Dread and then The Clash (see a copy of the program I still have which says Lee Dorsey was supposed to appear. I don't remember him playing - but Mickey Dread did (in his place I guess).

I remember the B-Girls were nothing special, but then Mickey Dread came out and "toasted" over taped reggae backing tracks and was subsequently booed. His set was cut short by what later turned out to be a bomb scare called into the theater. The Passaic Police and Fire Dept were brought into the theater and all the patrons were made to stand out in the lobby of the theater. Anyone who knows the lobby of the Capitol Theater would know that you can't comfortably fit 3,000 people out there - so we were all jammed in - very weird. In addition if there were a bomb or other device in the theater, what sense does it make to have us in the lobby if it were to go off???

After awhile, we were let back into our seats and the vibe of the bomb scare worried me a bit. Then the Clash come on and all hell broke loose. Everyone, and I mean everyone in the theater of 3,000 people rushed down to the stage. Being in the 5th row, people were climbing over and on me and my girlfriend (now my wife) to get to the stage. My shoulder was a bit hurt from people putting their weight on me to climb over me, and my girlfriend/wife wanted out of the row as she was visibly shaken. The Capitol Theater had all their seats bolted to the floor so you can imagine what the situation must have been like in our seats. It was a bit scary to say the least. My girlfriend and I made our way out of our seats and up the aisle to the first empty row, where we stayed for most of the show before we left a bit early. We were shaken and a bit freaked, as I had the longest hair in the place, and I didn't look the part of the "punk" as 90% of the audience did. The funniest thing was as we were walking up the aisle to get out of the crushing situation down by the stage we passed David Johansen coming down the aisle. In addition we saw Vin Scelsa (anyone familiar with classic NY FM radio knows who Vin is) down near the stage also. The next day he made mention on his radio show how the show was great, but the situation near the stage was a bit frightening to say the least. You can't put 3,000 people in 10 rows of a theater like the Capitol!


At another show at the Capitol Theater, I saw the David Bromberg Band and Dickey Betts and Great Southern on a double bill, or should I saw we saw David Bromberg since Dickey pulled a whopper of an unprofessional move. Bromberg played first and blew the audience away, as was usual for David. After a fairly long wait, out comes Dickey and Band. He looks perturbed to say the least. He plays two or three songs, lays down his guitar and walks off stage - leaving his band wondering what happened. The band also leaves a minute or so later. Dickey and Band never return, while John Scher (promoter and owner of the Capitol Theater) indicates that Dickey cannot finish the show, but he promised to make it up to all of us. We were not offered refunds, even though Dickey never really played (I guess since it was a double bill and Bromberg put on a killer show). The upshot is that Dickey did make it up to me and about 60,000 other people when he came back to NJ and played a free concert in the Eagle Rock Reservation. Yes I went to the free show, was no where as close to stage as I was at the Capitol (3rd row), and had to fight the packed crowds of thousands when I clearly PAID to see Betts. (I know I mentioned this Betts story before in some thread a few years ago).

Anyway... life goes on...

 

The fake Fleetwood Mac... My friend in the opening band said "it's not really Fleetwood Mac, dont tell anyone". Who is it I asked? Some other guys!! I insisted we hang out for one or two songs. By then the audience was getting angry and shouting "who are you". We beat it....

 

Thanks Steve; performances like that come along rarely and are to be savored.

Cat

 

I watched a couple make love, while standing up, in the front mosh pit of a Van Halen concert.....(he was behind her and she had a dress on)


Evan

 

Saw The Who perform at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on June 29, 1970. It was a sell-out concert and the caravan of grid-locked traffic en route to the show took a detour and broke through the barricades of the yet uncompleted Route 29 running north of the Capitol beltway to drive up this unopened highway to Columbia. Upon arriving at Merriweather there was a riot going on as 25,000+ people were tearing down the chain link fence surrounding the pavilion. The promoter got on the loudspeaker system and declared it to be a free concert, imploring a stop to further destruction. With that, everyone calmed down and it turned out to be a fine performance played to a sea of people packed shoulder-to-shoulder singing and dancing to the music. At the end, everyone left in an orderly fashion. Fun was had by all!

 

MikeT - nice story about the Clash gig, and scans of the programme - i've never seen those before...
There's a boot B&W video/dvd of the Clash show, taken from the theatre's in-house closed circuit tv feed, but it doesn't really convey much of the audience mayhem. I'd known that the concert was videoed cos there's a pic of (I think) Joe & Paul inspecting one of the video cameras during their soundcheck in Pennie Smith's 'The Clash - Before & After' photo book. The caption says that after the soundcheck and when the crowd were being admitted, Topper and Paul got great pleasure from pelting audience members with peanuts and watching their reactions on the closed circuit tv monitors...

 

I didn't know the band were throwing things into the audience. I wonder if they themselves called in the bomb threat??? Actually, the Capitol for as long as I could remember had a closed circuit video feed to two small screens on either side of the stage. It was crude and, yes, black and white, but I guess it helped those in the rear balcony see what was happening on the stage. The Capitol Theater, in and of itself, was small (around 3,200 seats total), so it really didn't need video screens.

I would love to see the video of the Clash show someday. Actually years and years ago, I saw, at a record show, that there existed a bootleg CD of the audio portion of that show. I should have bought it, but it was going for $25.00 and that was back in the late 80's. I didn't think it was worth it.. and to be honest I have never, ever knowingly purchased a bootleg recording at all (expect for a Grateful Dead audience video of a show I attended on 10/16/89 at the Meadowlands Arena in NJ).

As to the Capitol Theater programs, I have almost everyone I remember getting upon attending a show there. I would still have all my ticket stubs to every show I attended, but my wife (when we moved years ago) made me throw them out. I still don't know why I complied??? I got wise, though, so as of 1987 I have every stub from every concert I attended since then, and no one will ever get me to throw them out again!!!

 

I remember that show -- it was broadcast by WNEW so the boot probably sounds OK (I'll bet it's still around, too). I taped it off the radio, but lent it out and... well, you know.

Anyways, there wasn't any mention of the crush down front during the broadcast that I remember.

 

Weird. I don't remember this show being broadcast on the radio - but that might be because I was there.

I do have a cassette of The Clash at the Palladium in NYC that I believe was the tour the year before, which I recorded off of WNEW.

I am surprised that if the Capitol Theater show was broadcast on the radio they wouldn't make mention of what was going on out in the audience??

 

Peter Tork jumped off the stage to pull an overzealous yellow shirted security guy off of a fan, while Micky Dolenz yelled from the stage at the guy to "back off", at the end of a Bloomsburg, PA. Monkees concert in '86.

Squeeze were attacked by millions of mayflies at an outdoor gig on City Island in Harrisburg, PA. in July of '88. The stage was set up in a parking lot, surrounded by woods, which in turn was surrounded by the Susquehanna River, and when the lights came on, the insects went crazy, attacking the stage and band. Glenn Tilbrook called for the lights to be turned off, and the band played the rest of their show in the dark, apart from the parking lot street lights.

 

Phil Alvin showing up late for a show at a 400-seat club. He drove through the pouring rain and came in with his guitar in hand - and his mouth dropped open when he saw there were just 7 people in the audience. He stood there for a minute, then said "Well, all right!," went backstage, dried off, then came out and put on a great show.

Rolling Stones arena tour 1999. Man and wife directly in front of me start making out, standing up, groping each other. Stranger next to them starts getting bumped by the gyrating woman. He gets aroused, she notices, and she starts groping him too. He's in heaven. This goes on for a good 15 minutes before the husband notices he's not getting as much attention as he was previously. He notices the stranger now groping his wife and punches the guy.

 

Not sure why, but that story really made me laugh.

It also reminded me of an Allman Brothers show at the PNC Bank Arts Center a few years ago. We were in the 3rd row on the left side, and all of a sudden two guys start beating the crap out of each other in the front row because one of the "gentlemen" (very heavy set) was dancing and getting in the other guys way. This was directly in front of Gregg Allman who looked over to see what was going on. The sad thing was that the heavy set guy was trying to enjoy himself and he got plastered by the other guy. Blood was everywhere and they had to take the heavy set guy out on a stretcher (while his wife became hysterical), while the other "gentleman" was not so kindly escorted out of the venue by security.

I agree that sometimes people get a little overzealous at a show and ruin your fun because they can't control their dancing, etc to their seat/space. But to get beat senseless over it is un-called for.

 

That is one of the most disturbing stories I have ever read.

 

Ever seen someone videotaping a show with a camcorder? Usually, they are pretty clandestine about it, but at this Rush show at Jones Beach, NY in 2002, I saw a guy with one of those Sharp Viewcams, the kind with an ENORMOUS viewfinder. It had to be 5 or 6", and designed to be seen without needing to hold it up to your eye.

Anyhow, this guy was holding it ABOVE his head(in order to get a better shot? What was he thinking?)! Suddenly, about a half dozen security goons "extracted" him(best word I can think of) and dragged him off. A few songs later, and the guy returned to his seat, sans camcorder, and visibly shaken.

Is it wrong to laugh uncontrollably at something like that?


Dan

 

Classic!

 

I don't know if it happens esewhere, but it is quite common to see girls walk into the men's room at the end of concerts in Spain when the line for the women's toilets gets too long for them to wait. The interesting thing is to see how nonchalantly they walk by all the guys pissing on their way in and out of the men's cabinets.

 

A few:

Queen - ANATO tour - seeing Freddy Mercury PRANCING around in a totally filthy white body suit. He looked like a complete idiot. People threw things at him.

Jefferson Starship 2nd tour - At the begining of the show there was a guy in the men's room wearing a leather Gestapo trench coat that had (literally) hundreds of little leather loops sewn into the inside lining, each just large enough to hold a syringe. He was bags of cocaine (a free syringe with each), and the whole restroom was filled with guys trying to shoot up, and girls trying to get to the men's toilets cause the wonmen's room lines were so long. It was a real circus. Near the end of the show the guy was still in there making deals. Most of the syringes were gone, and he had huge wads of cash. Always wondered how that guy managed to keep from getting arrested (or robbed).


Bob Dylan w/ Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - The guy standing next to me started arguing with the guy next to him, got shot in the stomach, and almost knocked me over as he fell. The guy with the gun ran off into the crowd, and we had to keep people from stepping on/falling over the wounded man till the medics came.

 

That's common all over the place - it happens all the time at US concerts. I always thought it was hypocritical - if guys started to use the women's room if OUR line got too long, the women would have a fit. Seem to recall a guy was arrested at a football game not long ago for that reason...

 

How's that for sexual discrimination

Although, coming to think about it maybe it's because they don't want the ladies room to end up too crammed.