Rick Tauber (Seven Day Sonnet guitarist):
A few months ago we had a one-off gig booked in Gulf Shores, Alabama. What no one told us was that we were playing at a family friendly outdoor venue/restaurant in a resort town. The band and crew, mostly dressed in black with facial hair and tattoos, stuck out like sore thumbs in a sea of flip-flip, ambercrombie and bikini clad beach bodies. We kept telling ourselves that the night crowd would be different, and perhaps receptive to our hard rock/metal sound. Well, it wasn’t, and they weren’t. We played in front of little kids and old people that were probably expecting to hear Jimmy Buffet covers, but instead got us. No clapping, no booing; Just silence and shocked faces after each song. I remember saying to our sound guy as soon as we got off stage, “I’ve officially lived out a Spinal Tap moment in real life. That was just like the scene when they [Spinal Tap] played ‘Sex Farm’ at the Air Force base in front of the officers and their wives!”
Jon Bodan (Halcyon Way guitarist):
There used to be a venue in Atlanta called 3 Bears Café, which had this hippie kinda restaurant in the front and this great rock venue in the back. Supposedly this place is on the list of ‘most haunted’ locations in Georgia. We played a couple of shows there before it closed, and both times my amp died before the show….one time for no apparent reason that we could ever figure out. One time a tube blew up. One time we ran a video slaved to our click track, and the battery in the thing died. It was metal!
Louis Abramson (Jolly drummer):
Jolly was almost named “None More Black.” And Anadale’s guitar amp goes to 9…
Sylosis:
We were on a headline run in the UK, way back when this neuro-virus was doing the rounds around the whole country. Our Guitarist Alex, and our drummer Rob both got it bad and it had them, would, and should have been bed-ridden through at least a week of the tour, but they decided to carry on and get through the worst part. We were playing in a shitty venue in High Wycombe that’s a seedy strip club by day, and a venue by night. During the show, Alex had to run off stage to throw up. So he ran through the crowd and outside, got on his hands and knees and as he went to throw up, realised his hand was on a rat. He threw up, got back on stage and just about finished the set.
Matt Fox (Shai Hulud guitarist):
Despite our band having gone through drummer after drummer, and the fact that I do indeed “Break Like The Wind,” my greatest and most true Spinal Tap moment was when we were on tour somewhere in the midwest (probably not TOO far from Cleveland), circa 2003: the other guys were on stage, and I couldn’t figure out how the hell to get there, lost, bumbling about in the multi-level labyrinth that was this venue’s backstage area. And just my luck, neither a kindly minotaur nor skeevy club manager in sight to put me on the right track. There I went, guitar in hand, heart palpitating, from floor to floor up and down any new staircase I came across in hopes of hearing some semblance of crowd or stage noise, or finding a scrap of masking tape from decades back that might have scrawled upon it “This way to stage, asshole.” No such luck. In the midst of an all-consuming panic attack (one I probably never fully recovered from) I opened every unassuming, unlocked door I could find until… Eureka!
That venue can “Lick My Love Pump.”
Greg Burgess (Allegaeon guitarist):
So last tour we were in Dallas, and being way more metal then everyone else in the band, I require every instrument I play to have points. Well the bottom fin on my Xiphos ripped right through the crotch of my shorts second song in. So here I am rockin’ out while the audience could stare up and inspect my goods.
Allegaeon:
Here’s one, more of a funny story really. On our way to a last second show in Salt Lake City, our guitar player Ryan had to go to the bathroom super bad but we didn’t have time to stop if we were to make it on time. So he found a gallon water jug that had been half empty in the back and just unleashed into that, without anyone knowing of course. Well, after the show all the bands were leaving from the side of the venue where the vans were parked when all the sudden we hear this loud pop or boom come from the van in front of us and liquid was sprayed in all directions like one of those log rides at amusement parks. Un-aware to anyone else, Ryan had put his piss jug under the tires of the bands’ van in front of us and when it exploded (all over the venue, van in front of ours and our van and everything else) he started laughing hysterically, it was at this moment everyone realized what had just happened. A mixture of urine and old stale water had just exploded in all directions and all over everything.
Seven Kingdoms:
On the Uniting the Powers of Metal tour we were using our Van for the first time on a 2500+ mile trip. We honestly didn’t really know what to expect but knew it was a good vehicle. Before we even got to Jacksonville (roughly an hour north of our hometown) the van just DIES in the middle of rush hour traffic. OMG we need to be in NYC tomorrow. Cops come, Rednecks toe us with their truck to a local ford dealer where they try to get us for everything we have. Needless to say we fixed it with a Fuel Filter in the parking lot of the hotel we stayed at. We had to use this cable guy’s flat bed trailer to lift the van up so we could get under it. Ran like a champ after that, screw you Ford dealer. [And here’s video of the incident]
Andreas Allenmark (Cipher System guitarist):
This was a couple of years ago when the old drummer Pontus was still in the band. We were traveling to a gig and had a pause to take a leak. Johan, Henric and Pontus stood next to each other outside and all of a sudden Johan farted. Pontus, who didn´t want to be outdone, gathered all his strength to make an even louder fart. Right after that we saw his body getting tenser and he said “I pooped myself!” He then had to walk more than 300 feet over a parking lot to a gas station to wipe up what presumably was in his pants. When he came back he had a big smile on his lips and said “I didn´t spill anything!”
