Longest Night?

RobTheDrummer · Post by **RobTheDrummer** » Saturday May 27, 2006

What's is/was your longest night anywhere playing?

EyesOfAnguishbassist · Post by **EyesOfAnguishbassist** » Sunday May 28, 2006

Probably for us it would've had to be when we played a show in New Jersey at this bar called the Pirates Den....6 of us crammed in one car with nothing but our guitars and some of the drum cymbals (they had house equipment there luckily) for probably about a 3 or 4 hour drive, talk about miserable.....

Or the time we played the Trocadero in Philly and our frontman's car actually caught on fire in a parking garage cuz it overheated and that whole block of Philly was actually shut down and there were firetrucks everywhere. The car was a total loss, but luckily everyone was alright, talk about crazy lol.

HurricaneBob · Post by **HurricaneBob** » Sunday May 28, 2006

3 shows in one day at different places........cant even remember what they were.

jangel · Post by **jangel** » Sunday May 28, 2006

Like Hurricane 3 shows 1 day this is yrs ago....2 wedding receptions and a club same night, reception at 2 pm tear down move 4 miles setup play 6 to 9 reception no 2 and take a short break and play a club that night 10:30 to 1:30. Thats when we were young and dumb.
also the band I was with decided to go on the road....got a booking agent and he sent us to Troy NY (upstate NY) first job. Got there and the club owner mgr whatever gave us the news that we would play from 9pm to 3 am (40 on 20 off)...it was thee longest night in one place ever and it went for 6 nights in a row.

YankeeRose · Post by **YankeeRose** » Sunday May 28, 2006

Hurricane wrote:3 shows in one day at different places........cant even remember what they were.

?, End of Summer Jam and then I believe y'all were going to the Ferris Wheel, but I don't have any idea what the first gig was.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Sunday May 28, 2006

I'm not sure of the longest actual gig, but I remember one time we played at Pellegrine's. There was a Steelers game on, so everyone's attention was directed at that. Harry said to just wait until after the game was over. When we finally got up on stage, we just went and played over 2 and a half hours straight without any breaks. I was a little exhausted at the end.

cruseaudio · Post by **cruseaudio** » Sunday May 28, 2006

working two shows in a row with a jonesin meth head.

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » Sunday May 28, 2006

We played a prom in lower NY state. Then drove to Upper PA to play an all night after glow type party. (I'll have to ask Civil for the names of the towns). We had fun though...played Heart of the Sunrise as the sun rose behind us in a huge wall to wall , floor to ceiling, plate glass window.

Then we drove home. No sleep.

Oh to be young again.

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Sunday May 28, 2006

Some time in the mid-70s, when I was around 18 and Forces was just getting started, we had a party gig in Ski Gap.

If you are familar to southern Blair county, you would immediately recognize this as that little slice of Appalachia known as Bull's Creek.

We arrived on a bright summer evening before dusk to unload the equipment and were greeted by a brightly colored sign above the bar: ACID $2...Ok....

While we were unloading, a few of the local boys started arguing and one of them produced a hunting knife and put it thru a car windshield. The car's owner jumped in, fired it up and took off.

We continued unloading and had just arranged the big-assed Sunn Magna 2-15 PA cabs when a gunshot rang out. The car owner had returned with his .22 and was shooting it like a madman. The Sunns made for good cover and we hid behind them while the locals wrestled the gun from him. They gave him a beer and told him to behave. This seemed to work fine.

We started playing at dusk to a packed house and everything was going great. We played a set and took a break to party a bit. I went outside and saw a crowd of people around the front of a car. I went over and there was a local man laying next to the front wheel. He had passed out in front of the car and the car owner had accidently run over his chest. They called for an ambulance and apparently, he survived.

We went back for another set and were suddenly interrupted by the owner who was frantically telling us the house was on fire. There was a fire in the bedroom which the eager and willing partygoers put out. The bedroom was totaled. We continued playing into the wee hours until somebody stopped us and said that the house was on fire again...this time they caught the owner setting the matress on fire.

With this news, it was obviously time to pack it up and head home. One of the locals with a broken leg was going to hook us up with some rope if we gave him a ride home. As we left the area, there was a distressed girl thumbing a ride home. I didn't have any more room, but I stopped and she was crying and wet and cold. We gave her a ride in the equipment truck and left. My local passenger started in with a decidedly appalachian accent "Yep, she was up there rolling in cowshit". "Took on 7 of them she did"..."up there rolling in cowshit"....

We took this person to his house and waited in the driveway for him to return with the rope. While waiting, a really nice Camaro came flying down the road, followed by a big Ford. The Camaro went into the guy's yard with the Ford behind. They did some do-nuts, got back on the road with the Ford in hot pursuit of the Chevy. A few minutes later the guy came back out with the rope and as we were transacting, the Camaro came flying down the road, went broadside and the Ford plowed into the side of it....

Well, we got our rope and booked it on out of there...got home just around dawn.

Just another uneventful night in Ski Gap.

NEXT EPISODE: Sinking boats at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » Sunday May 28, 2006

I forgot about the night we were thrown out of Oil City. We played a concert in a theater. Next to the theater was a funeral home parking lot, where we had to unload from. The funeral home owner came out and ordered us to leave or he would call the cops. We moved after we finished unloading.......whiched pissed him off. And where we reloaded, which had him screaming.

As we left town, Robby went the wrong way down a one way street. ["carrying" in the glove compartment] The police pull us over, and the van following us. And ask us to follow them to the police station. Funny, but the funeral home owner was there waiting for us !

To make this short, they didn't check the glove box. But after questioning each of us, they agreed to let us go if we never came to Oil City again. We exhailed, and then laughed all the way home. I mean Oil City,..... who wants to go there again anyhow ?

Atomic Jim · Post by **Atomic Jim** » Sunday May 28, 2006

Our longest night lasted two weeks. We were touring, and our agent booked us at a Hilton Hotel in Mancon, GA. It was a big old hotel, about 20 stories high and kind of reminded me of the Overlook in The Shining On the final night of our engagement there, the local union reps came in to make sure that we got paid, because, Unbeknownst to us, the hotel had filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, for two solid weeks, six nights per week, FIVE hours a night, we played for the Waitress and the Bartender. In two weeks, maybe 20 people total came into the bar. Most places we played on the road had at least one or two big nights and the rest were slow or absolutely dead. But most of those places would let us quit an hour or even two hours early if it was really dead. NOT THE HILTON.

We had a bar manager from India named Mr. Bud, who barely spoke English, and who insisted we play all five hours, and actually tried to re-write the contract for six hours. A call to our agent put a stop to that. The Hotel manager was a German who sort of reminded me of Henry Kissinger.

The only good thing that happened those two weeks was a tour of Capricorn Studios. It was a real thrill walking into the studio and seeing good records from the Allman Bros., The Marshall Tucker Band, and a lot of other great bands hanging on the wall.

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Monday May 29, 2006

Damn, LoneWolf, I have some good'ns but that one should get some sort of award.

-------->JMS

DMFJ03 · Post by **DMFJ03** » Tuesday May 30, 2006

For me, ABATE parties are always long.

You basically start working (and drinking) at Sign Ups (not to mention all the preperation that goes into getting the party ready and all the beer that has to be consumed while making those preperations

)

After sign ups, you go on the run (and drink some more) and then make your way to the party (and drink some more). After a few drinks and some food, it is time to set up the equipment (and drink some more) so by the time you are ready to play you are exhaused to begin with, and have drank yourself sober three times already.

Those prove for long gigs, but they are fun as hell.

Right, JP?!