Unplanned moments that make a gig special...

CaseOfAce

Played a busy country pub last night - good crowd somewhat worse for wear.

End of the night we'd finished and 2 girls came up to singer's mic and decided to do a drunken rendition of Kenny Roger's The Gambler (a song for some reason much like Sweet Caroline that seems to have come back in vogue recently).
It could have been awkward but I started to accompany them on guitar (after figuring out they're singing in A major).
It's a simple 3 chord I IV V country song - modulating up a half step midway.

Bass player see's the chords and drummer does a bass drum beat - we'd never played it as a band before.
We pulled it off and whilst not the greatest rendition you'd ever hear the punters went away happy...

Ever have moments like that?

Tannin

The lads up the back will all have been saying "Oh, it's all fake. See that one on the left? I know her, she's the drummers sister-in-law".

Gassage

One moment that will live with me forever.

2004 or 5 Finn Brothers- Albert Hall- literally on the day Paul Hester had committed suicide.

Neil put a hat and a snare on front of stage all show.

At the encore he came out- he spoke about Hessie then played the C/F intro to Better Be Home Soon and stopped.

The crowd sang the song from start to finish, unaccompanied, without Neil or Tim touching their instruments or singing at any point- perfectly, beautifully and wonderfully.

I actually choked up typing this. It was an incredible moment.

Gassage

Couldn't find BBS but this was his close of the night....

Don't Dream, no amps.

Don't Dream it's Over RAH - lights turned off & no mic. Finn Brothers - YouTube

EricTheWeary

I remember when our singer jumped, hit his head on the lighting rig and knocked himself unconscious. Memorable for me, he doesn't have much recollection of it. 

DefaultM

Was once playing a wedding marquee at night in the middle of a field and the power went off. It was pitch black and could have been a nice funny moment where people turned on their phone torches and we played acoustic or something, but no one seemed to remember them, a load of people started screaming and running around in a panic and it was absolute chaos. 

NickB

Gassage said:

One moment that will live with me forever.

2004 or 5 Finn Brothers- Albert Hall- literally on the day Paul Hester had committed suicide.

Neil put a hat and a snare on front of stage all show.

At the encore he came out- he spoke about Hessie then played the C/F intro to Better Be Home Soon and stopped.

The crowd sang the song from start to finish, unaccompanied, without Neil or Tim touching their instruments or singing at any point- perfectly, beautifully and wonderfully.

I actually choked up typing this. It was an incredible moment.

I was at the same gig. I seem to remember tears in my eyes. That’s the thing about music…

HAL9000

Clapton at the RAH. I don’t remember now if BB King had died that day, or if it was a day or day earlier but when Clapton started wringing BB King licks out of  his Strat it was one of those very emotional moments.

flying_pie

I did a gig recently. At the break I guy I know complained we weren't playing metal and that we should do You Suffer! by Napalm Death. He also said that he can do the vocal.

I told him that we knew he was going to be there and were actually planning on doing that to fill a few seconds while our keyboard player was doing a complicated setting faff but as he'd just volunteered he could do the vocal and it's key him know when to come up. Fair play to him, did it in his stride. Didn't really fit within the set but it went down well enough

lustycourtier

I’m lucky enough (some may argue that) to play in a few oasis tributes as Noel, and to sing Don’t look back in anger and hear sometimes 2000 people singing with you…..pretty special. 

the_jaffa

On an Oasis note, I was at two gigs at the Newcastle Riverside that were memorable both involving Oasis.

The first, 13th December 1993 was Verve headlining with Oasis third on the bill. This was well before they released anything. We watched them and thought they were going to be pretty good but what made it memorable was that the power cut during Verve's set but Bonehead and a couple of the roadies came out and played She'll Be Coming Round the mountain. Bonehead was on spoons!

The second was 9th August 1994 so just as Live Forever was released. Some nobhead got up on stage during Bring it on Down and punched Noel and it all kicked off. I was not entirely convinced by the band's hard man act until that night but there was no hesitation at all and they all dived in. Was pretty annoying though as the gig, understandably, ended very early.

Gassage

NickB said:

Gassage said:

One moment that will live with me forever.

2004 or 5 Finn Brothers- Albert Hall- literally on the day Paul Hester had committed suicide.

Neil put a hat and a snare on front of stage all show.

At the encore he came out- he spoke about Hessie then played the C/F intro to Better Be Home Soon and stopped.

The crowd sang the song from start to finish, unaccompanied, without Neil or Tim touching their instruments or singing at any point- perfectly, beautifully and wonderfully.

I actually choked up typing this. It was an incredible moment.

I was at the same gig. I seem to remember tears in my eyes. That’s the thing about music…

Another Neil moment- on his solo tour around 02....

He played Bham Symph Hall- came out for the encore and said "I hear this place has the best acoustics in the world- let's test them!"

He unplugged his acoustic, sat on edge of stage with his feet dangling off and delivered a flawless version of Don't Dream completely unamplified either vocally or guitar. Absolute goosebumps. His voice is one of the greatest of all time.

DannyP

I saw Wilco at the Forum once and there was a power cut or some such technical failure.

The whole crowd shut up and listened to Jeff Tweedy do a couple of unplugged numbers until they sorted out the problem.

digitalscream

Played a battle-of-the-bands type thing back in 2012 (I think) - the semis were at The Asylum in Birmingham. Quite by chance, another band had been in all the same rounds as we had.

Anyway, the acoustics were pretty terrible in there, and we were resigned to going home, but...we started our set and a good 70% of the crowd was made up of our fans and theirs (more of the latter than the former, but probably a few hundred people in total). We got going and the crowd seemed to be sort-of into it, but obviously not wanting to show too much support to another band. Then we hit one of our anthem songs, and...for the first time ever, the whole damn crowd was singing it with us! And, to top it off, there were people coming in from outside to see what all the fuss was about, and they joined in too.

Sure, it's small-fry. But when your band has only ever played tiny local gigs where nobody's really interested and only showed up because you guilted them into it, it makes you feel like a rock star for a few minutes.

Gassage

Just on Neil F

This is exquisite- a man so ridiculously musical it's scary.

Frame and Gouldman are just in awe.

Longtallronnie

Just before covid, I was played my first solo acoustic NYE gig. It was going ok but nothing special until a large group of scousers came in. It must have been 2019 (the year LFC won the UCL) so I quickly sussed the chords to a Allez Allez Allez and began singing - they all went mental and lifted the atmosphere of the pub. The rest of the night was probably the best solo gig I've ever done. Helps that I'm a Liverpool fan though!

hassleham

When the bassist smacked our drummer on the head with lighting T bar by accident, slapstick ladder style! Very amusing and quite satisfying cos the drummer is a tw*t

ScreamingDave

Our drummer’s very drunk sister-in-law fell into my mic stand and then onto me while she was dancing.  She then did exactly the same a few min later

LionAquaLooper

I remember once after a gig in Slough, me and mates getting involved in a car chase with some very angry skin heads because my idiot mate in the backseat flipped them the finger at a stoplight. 
Luckily it was dead of night and no traffic, I was driving a Golf GTi and they were in a Ford Fiesta.  But I did have to run a couple of red lights on the way to the M25 where I eventually lost them.