Best of the Welcome Columns


Best of the Welcome Columns

Author: Rhynes, J.D.
Gigs played fer free that haunt you sometimes

I got to thinkin' here awhile back about all of the good times I had when I was playing with Vern's band back in the 70's, and some of the gigs we played that kinda haunt my memory. Not that they were bad memories, but not the kind you relish telling, or remembering, but memories nonetheless. If you are a musician and you have played for the public, I know you all have these kind of memories of jobs played fer free. I dont know why, but it seems like every time we played a "free gig" there was some one telling us what songs we were supposed to play and for how long, or there was something that would interrupt our performance to the point that we cut short our playing and packed up our instruments and went home. Here's two such stories of gigs that we played "fer free". The first gig was a benefit for a friend of Del Williams that had developed a brain tumor and they had a big BBQ and dance at the town hall in Valley Springs, with all of the proceeds to go to a fund for his medical expenses. There was two or three bands that agreed to do two sets each for the party goers, we being the Bluegrass band, the other two being "country" bands. It started off on the wrong foot right from the git go, when the ol gal running he show instructed us to play nothing but music they could dance to. Well guess what Vern said. They better be able to dance fast, 'cause that's what we play, is FAST Bluegrass music. We kicked off a fast one and the crowd was loving it, and everythang was going good for about half of our first set, when one HELL of a fight broke out among the crowd. They were fighting and started throwing cans and bottles of beer, so we "exited stage left" as the ol saying goes. The fight went on fer about 10 or 15 minutes, and after it was over, the place was a total mess. We were out side and the ol gal that was in charge of the shindig informed us we had to go back in and finish playing our alloted time. I looked at Vern and he looked at me, and we both agreed that our playing fer this bunch was over. Music lover's indeed! My house was only a half a block away so we went there, sat down on my patio, and commenced to pick until the wee hours of the morning. We could hear a "row" break out up at the Town Hall ever once in awhile and the high Sheriff had to send a few of his deputies to quell the festivities. We never played another free gig there again. THEN, there's the time a year er so later that we played a free gig at the Town Hall in San Andreas to benefit a family that had lost everythang in a house fire. A local country band played the first set and then we were on for a 45 minute set. The drum setup was on the stage behind us, and every thang was going real good fer about the first 3 er 4 numbers, that is until the drummer from the first band decided we needed some drums to make our music "sound good". Right in the middle of a song that Vern was singin', all of a sudden here comes a bunch of really loud drums pounding! WELL, you can only guess what my pal Vern said to that idiot! Keith got to him first before I could get my guitar off of me, and said drummer took off like a shot out of a cannon! Keith told him, if that big okie gets his hands on you, he's gonna pull yer arms off and feed 'em to you. Ha ha ha! So, the next time some one asked us to play fer free, we told "em we'd be glad to if they'd jes pay our travel expenses, and that usually came to around $ 2,000.00 a day. Needless to say we never played another "free" gig. Vern and I agreed that there was jes SOMETHING about playin' in a Town Hall that didn't agree with our music.

Posted: 6/28/2011