Talk about playing shows

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Played a show recently? It sucked? Whine about it here. It rocked? Brag about it here. Played a dreadful/amazing show ten years ago? Reminisce about it here.

Basically just talk about playing shows. I'm willing to bet this forum has a fair amount of good stories waiting to be uncovered!

[Benn Roe]

I was in a band called Pyramids for years. A year or two after our first record came out, a much better connected recording project began also using the name Pyramids and putting out records on Hydra Head. I spent years expecting to see a cease and desist letter that never came, but I suppose that's neither here nor there. Eventually, my Pyramids was asked to play a show with Converge and Doom Riders, which I thought was a weird fit, but we obviously didn't say no. The other bands were great, and I thought our set was okay too, despite taking place on a big stage in a big room, which never really suited us, but I did have two funny interactions with the singer of Converge. Before the show, while he was setting up merch, I was in awe at the number of shirts they had and said to him "damn, you guys have a lot of shirts", which was really just meant as small talk (however poorly executed), but he immediately jumped down my throat about how this was his full-time job and shirts paid the bills and so on. I'm sure he gets people talking shit all the time, and I'm sure it's tough deflecting bullshit as a professionalized punk band, but I really wasn't trying to give him a hard time, which I think he realized pretty quickly from my facial expression, and almost immediately backed down and apologized. Then, after the show, all the bands were packing up, and he came up to me again and was like "you guys aren't the Pyramids on Hydra Head, are you?" Turned out the promoter had told us Converge was maybe going to play when he asked us, but also told Converge that Pyramids was maybe going to play when he asked them, only he didn't specify which Pyramids. Dude didn't outright say it, but I'm pretty sure they only agreed to play the show because they thought they'd be playing with the Hydra Head Pyramids. It was kind of a surreal night.

[retinal orbita]

Fuck!! That’s great!! I don’t have anything that could top that. One time my old psych band was playing a show to twelve people and there was a guy in an elf costume (it was a week before Christmas) taking a leak on the bar while we were trying to load out and then he came over and did the typical “what kinda music you play?” thing and our drummer was like “fuck off you shitty elf” and he got all belligerent and tried to fight him until we broke it up but the drummer ripped his elf hat off and threw it in a puddle.

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Yeah, that's sick Benn Roe. You were in the skramz Pyramids I take it from your other listed former bands? I used to talk to Tom from ifp. CMHWAK, baby!

@retinal orbita OF COURSE it was the *drummer*!

[Benn Roe]

Haha, I remember CMHWAK. That's great. Tom's one of my favourite people on Earth. I don't see nearly enough of him now that he lives in New York state.

You were in the skramz Pyramids I take it from your other listed former bands?

Guilty.

I'm trying to think of other good show stories. A Petal Fallen played a show in Dallas once... in a garage... in the middle of August. That was the show where we met the Catalyst, which I remember distinctly because it was so absurdly hot that the drummer of the Catalyst had to puke into a bucket after every song to counteract the exertion. Also on that tour, we played a string of shows with Sinaloa, one of which was in an old converted theatre in Detroit called the Trumbullplex. The room was huge, so all the bands decided to set up simultaneously in different parts of the room to eliminate the time between sets, which resulted in a three or four band mega-jam after everyone's set was over, during which the rad hippy dude that owned the theatre broke out his saxophone and joined in. Years later, when Pyramids toured with Capsule, that show served as inspiration for Pyramids joining Capsule for the droney ending of their last song each night, and just descending into a cacophony of too many amps.

[Benn Roe]

Oh, we also played in a giant botanical greenhouse in Des Moines (I think) on that A Petal Fallen tour, which I'm pretty sure sounded awful, but looked so cool!!