That's awesome...
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Never had a backyard problem on stage.. not yet, anyway.. fingers crossed..
My 3 most painful shows - I know I've posted about them before, but I'm bored:
Friday night in 1984 I debut my famous "exploding guitar while playing the guitar" act during the second encore.. that was by design as I was concerned about being burned up and decided I could make it through 1 last song, if I had to.. Turns out I had to..
Pyro technician set the guitar off at the wrong time.. I had my left hand near the neck position pickup where the charge was stored.. the blast blew across my left hand causing second degree burns on all my left hand fingers.. second degree burns on my right index finger and thumb.. Crowd went wild, there were little fires everywhere on stage - including me, but things were pretty blurry to me.. stage hands put out the fires and we launched into the last song.. I don't remember a lot of that as I was already going into shock.. after the song I threw the guitar down, went the dressing room and stuck my hands in a pitcher of beer..
I got a ride to the ER at 2am in full stage gear.. Sat for two hours waiting, with my hands in a toilet because they hurt so bad - in full view of the hospital staff.. Doc finally gets me and is freaking out that I wasn't brought in earlier..
Next day we had two shows - a matinee and a night show.. I had 1" tall blisters on all my fingers and couldn't bend my left hand fingers at all.. band was going to have to cancel.. I told everyone to leave the dressing room and told the singer, who was the biggest A hole of the bunch, to stay.. I told him to take my left hand and force it into a fist and not to stop for ANYTHING - even if I kicked him in the johnson.. he did.. and I can't tell you how bad it hurt.. but it gave me enough flexibility to do the show.. Later that night we repeated the fist process to do the night show.. Those were my TWO most painful shows..
The third show was easier.. we were playing in Dallas.. the day before I got a package and used a razor utility knife to open it.. it slipped and I slice my left index finger on the tip all the way across, width-wise.. Bad, bad cut... bled like a pig.. Well, left index finger gets the most workout for a guitarist, and the cut was on the tip, parallel to the strings..
Next day I super glued the cut several times - an old guitarist's trick.. We started the show and all was going well.. it hurt like hell, but it was going well.. about 6 songs into the first set, the cut opened up and the strings kept getting caught in the cut.. Holy crap that hurt soooooooo bad.. and became soooooooooo bloody.. by the end of the first set, the guitar, me, my outfit and much of the stage was covered in blood.. it looked like Charles Manson was playing there... totally disgusting.. the cool part was the blood would dry on the guitar strings and create a kind of "false harmonic" when I was playing.. pretty cool - extremely painful and SUPER messy.. But, back in the 80's blood was the in thing.. people thought it was part of the show, but it was actually really part of me..
Friendship is like peeing your pants.. Everybody can see it, but only you can feel the warmth..
My 3 most painful shows - I know I've posted about them before, but I'm bored:
Friday night in 1984 I debut my famous "exploding guitar while playing the guitar" act during the second encore.. that was by design as I was concerned about being burned up and decided I could make it through 1 last song, if I had to.. Turns out I had to..
Pyro technician set the guitar off at the wrong time.. I had my left hand near the neck position pickup where the charge was stored.. the blast blew across my left hand causing second degree burns on all my left hand fingers.. second degree burns on my right index finger and thumb.. Crowd went wild, there were little fires everywhere on stage - including me, but things were pretty blurry to me.. stage hands put out the fires and we launched into the last song.. I don't remember a lot of that as I was already going into shock.. after the song I threw the guitar down, went the dressing room and stuck my hands in a pitcher of beer..
I got a ride to the ER at 2am in full stage gear.. Sat for two hours waiting, with my hands in a toilet because they hurt so bad - in full view of the hospital staff.. Doc finally gets me and is freaking out that I wasn't brought in earlier..
Next day we had two shows - a matinee and a night show.. I had 1" tall blisters on all my fingers and couldn't bend my left hand fingers at all.. band was going to have to cancel.. I told everyone to leave the dressing room and told the singer, who was the biggest A hole of the bunch, to stay.. I told him to take my left hand and force it into a fist and not to stop for ANYTHING - even if I kicked him in the johnson.. he did.. and I can't tell you how bad it hurt.. but it gave me enough flexibility to do the show.. Later that night we repeated the fist process to do the night show.. Those were my TWO most painful shows..
The third show was easier.. we were playing in Dallas.. the day before I got a package and used a razor utility knife to open it.. it slipped and I slice my left index finger on the tip all the way across, width-wise.. Bad, bad cut... bled like a pig.. Well, left index finger gets the most workout for a guitarist, and the cut was on the tip, parallel to the strings..
Next day I super glued the cut several times - an old guitarist's trick.. We started the show and all was going well.. it hurt like hell, but it was going well.. about 6 songs into the first set, the cut opened up and the strings kept getting caught in the cut.. Holy crap that hurt soooooooo bad.. and became soooooooooo bloody.. by the end of the first set, the guitar, me, my outfit and much of the stage was covered in blood.. it looked like Charles Manson was playing there... totally disgusting.. the cool part was the blood would dry on the guitar strings and create a kind of "false harmonic" when I was playing.. pretty cool - extremely painful and SUPER messy.. But, back in the 80's blood was the in thing.. people thought it was part of the show, but it was actually really part of me..
Friendship is like peeing your pants.. Everybody can see it, but only you can feel the warmth..
