What's the funniest thing you've seen at a concert?

[sheldonm]

...went to photograph a rock show back in the late 70s...Kansas and another band I don't recall. Before the show started, an announcer said that throwing anything on the stage would not be tolerated.......so the lights go out....you can barely make out the band members as they walk out on the stage. One dude in the band had...and maybe still does a pretty long beard. All of a sudden someone flicks a cigarette up on stage and hits the dude square in the beard....before one note has been played. I thought they would walk off the stage but they didn't and the show went on.

[sheldonm]

Around 1976/77 there was free concerts of free jazz organised in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels every friday evening (we have seen there Steve Lacy Sextet, Misha Mengelberg, ICP, Peter Brötzman and alike).

One Evening, during a concert of the ICP, Han Bennink decides to throw on his drums some table tennis (ping pong) balls. Of course the balls bounce in the public who were sitting on the floor around the musicians.

The public was laughing a lot when suddenly two three spectators decided to throw the ball back to Han quickly following by all the crowd, at least by those who could find a ball. Under attack, The drummer take off his cymbal and try to protect himself from the bombing and, also redirecting the balls in the direction of the public with this improvising Shield... A great moment of total non-sense (if not of great music).

...here is a photo I made of Han last year...using his mouth as a drum....fun show!

m

[Alexander]

Not funny or weird, but I thought it was cute or mildly amusing when Bobby Hutcherson (saw him with McCoy Tyner) was pretending to bop a little kid on the head with his mallets during a show in Boston in the early '90s...

[DTMX]

Kinda dumb, but in 1981 at Six Flags Over Georgia some garage band was playing a set, surrounded on all sides by drunken teenagers on "Senior Night". After finishing an AC/DC song the lead singer engaged the audience thusly:

Singer: Anybody got a request?

Drunk Teenager #1: Saaaabaaaath!

Singer: We're going to do that one a little later - anybody got any other requests?

Drunk Teenager #2: Get off the stage!

Singer: Yeah, we're going to do that one later too.

Then they played "Bridge of Sighs" which no one requested, but it was still nice to hear.

[Niko]

Kinda dumb, but in 1981 at Six Flags Over Georgia some garage band was playing a set, surrounded on all sides by drunken teenagers on "Senior Night". After finishing an AC/DC song the lead singer engaged the audience thusly:

Singer: Anybody got a request?

Drunk Teenager #1: Saaaabaaaath!

Singer: We're going to do that one a little later - anybody got any other requests?

Drunk Teenager #2: Get off the stage!

Singer: Yeah, we're going to do that one later too.

Then they played "Bridge of Sighs" which no one requested, but it was still nice to hear.

funniest thing i ever did in a concert was getting rid of half the embarassment at a gig that turned out 300% more teenage than expected by telling the promoter to announce us as "just plain pop music"... he didn't say goodbye afterwards...

can't compete with the scott hamilton story... a local quartet, all in their late twenties, in between sets the pianist tells the trombone player "you know, with all the things you are i'm really through now, it was a good time but now i've absorbed that tune to a point where i can't hear it anymore", trombone player, "ah, and i thought you had just forgotten those eight bars during my solo..."

[Hoppy T. Frog]

I remember a Scott Hamilton gig in a Northern English town in the mid-90s. One got the feeling his heart wasn't really in it, and at one point he rather pointedly inroduced the tune "What Am I Here For?"

I suspect Scott had had a drink or two, and later on he sat down on a chair out front while the pianist took his solo, and promptly nodded off. After several choruses and "what the..." glances between the band, an old man (I think he was the promoter) got on stage with a cup of coffee and woke him up. At this point, Scott shook his fist angrily and shooed the old man away. He put his horn to his lips, then gave a "fuck it" look and fell asleep again.

You couldn't help but be impressed by the panache.

I can.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

Man all of these "funny stories" are rather...depressing.

Thank god for Han Bennink.

[kh1958]

Dizzy's "Let Me Introduce the Band" routine (the band then proceeds to introduce themselves to each other) was funny the first couple of times I saw it.

[carnivore]

At the Festival Hall in London many years ago, I saw Curtis Fuller, soloing with the Lionel Hampton band go to the last 16 after playing only half the bridge. He was greeted warmly by his section mates upon sitting down again....