Describe a memorable Musical Moment

I played drums in a warm-up band for a Beach Boys Concert.


Rick

Keep on Rock'n

I have been to a lot of concerts over the years - some good, some bad, some more memorable than others. My most favorite moment happened when I was about 14 - so long long ago :-). We were visting Denver for back to school shopping (lived in Western SD at the time). We stayed at a motel (I think it was a Ramada) out by Red Rocks that doesn't exist any more. My brother and I had been playing in the pool all day with a couple of young kids and their mother Annie. Late in the afternoon their Dad came to visit and have dinner with his family. He invited my parents and us to dinner. I was shell shocked to say the least because their Dad was John Denver. He was really nice and seemed to really love his family. Another memorably moment occurred as an adult. I spent 10 years working for MDA back in the 80 in South Dakota. John Bon Jovi had a concert on the weekend of the telethon in Rapid City. He invited about 6 or 8 of us (the core group of staff/volunteers that ran the local telethon) to be his backstage guests at the concert. He then made an announcement/plea just before the end of the concert for his audience to donate to MDA as they left the venue that night. He had his staff stationed at each exit with garbage cans to collect money. We then counted everything and he wrote a check to match what his audience had donated.

I've had a few musical moments, my hour or so with John Lennon being by far the best.
Had an intersting moment with this now departed artist back in the 1990s.
I had just signed to open my first niteclub and made some rookie mistakes. I'd booked Laura Branigan to appear for the grand opening. It was a few years since her time at the top but she was still pretty popular. The bar opening was delayed by all sorts of construction issues and I honestly didn't think we'd be able to open that night. somehow we did, but the sound engineers were working on the system even after we opened and what was supposed to have been the bands dressing room was filled with construction debris and tools. The front of the club was covered with scaffolding and the front doors weren't even up but we opened and Ms Branigan performed like a real trooper. After several breakdowns with the sound system, she ended up playing a stripped down show with just an acoustic guitar and a small drum set as background, with no backing tracks. She went way above what her contract called for and helped ease the disaster the opening otherwise ended up being.
Fast forward nine months and Laura was performing at the Queens Festival, the largest event free event in Queens County, with some 150,000 people partying at the former site of the Worlds Fair.
I was a volunteer organizer/staffer for the event and ended up backstage with Ms Branigan just before she was to do her set. I introduced myself and reminded her of the gig and thanked her for her help. I think she only vaguely remembered it but asked me the name of the club and where it was. She went out to perform and as her set ended, she invited the crowd to come back to the club and announced she would be doing a set there later that nite, and how she always partied there when she was in the neighborhood.
Sure enough, she showed up later, did a short set using our kareoke machines and we had one of the best nites ever as many, many people stopped by. For years afterward, people would ask me if Laura had been in lately and if she still had any connection to the club.
She left the music industry shortly afterward and spent the next few years caring for her ill husband. She, herself, died in the early 2000s after suffering a persistant headache for several weeks.

It was a Saturday in the Fall of 1981 and naturally, I was having Marching Band practice in Montclair, NJ. During practice, one of my band parents stopped by and asked me if I would drive a number of the students to NYC that evening for the Simon and Garfunkel Concert at Central Park. She was supposed to do it, but wasn't able to. Naturally, I agreed and drove the students in her VW Minibus (remember those?). I always had a great relationship with my students and their parents since I spent so much time with both. Well, who knew that I would be attending such a memorable concert. We just sat on blankets on the lawn and enjoyed an incredible musical moment. The highlight had to be "Late in The Evening" where everyone was on their feet dancing around. Of course, being a musician and H.S. Band Director, I've had many memorable experiences including:

Playing a Bar Mitzvah at Giants Stadium with my HS Marching Band
Performing with Marie Osmond at the Pound Puppies National Bark off with the HS Band in NYC
Marching in the NYC Thanksgiving Day Parade twice
Having my HS Band hired to perform in a Japanese TV commercial filmed at South Street Seaport
During my Army Band days we performed all over the East Coast and on a specific windy day, we were performing at an event in Delaware. Standing next to me was the Governor of Delaware who was getting ready to speak. While we performed, he was actual holding down my music so it wouldn't blow away.
And of course, in Las Vegas I was sent to the airport to pick up Marvin Hamlish and take him to Red Rock. Well, we had a wonderful music conversation on the way to the hotel. However, I was shocked (I guess I'm getting old) when in my excitement I was telling the other drivers and bellmen that I had just driven Marvin Hamlish and they said "Who?". My goodness, he's got Emmy's, Oscars, Tonys and these people had no idea who he was!

Larry from Las Vegas, NV

This is my memorable...... almost musical moment from way back around 1974.
There was a recording studio that backed onto the baseball diamond of my elementary school.
There was also a laneway there that we used as a shortcut from the schoolyard to a local street.
I had just come out of the laneway and turned onto the street heading to my friends house
when I was approached by an older man. He asked me if I was interested in singing on a record.
I declined the offer and hurried on my way assuming he was just a creep, I was eleven years old at the time.

Well, it turns out Alice Cooper was there recording his (imo) classic album "Welcome to My Nightmare".
Track number six is "Department Of Youth" on which you will hear the kids. I think they might have used a choir for it in the end, I don't recall.
Alice Cooper says, "Who's got the power?" and the kids scream, "We do". Then he says, "And who gave it to you?" And the kids scream, "Donny Osmond!!" which gets a "WHAT??" from Alice Cooper.

This would have been a memorable musical moment -
Our local arena in Kelowna BC, like many, is sponsored. It was called Skyreach Place and the sponsor ran out of funds and didn't pay.
So the city started looking for a new sponsor and we all still called it Skyreach Place.
They printed a notice in the newspaper asking us not to use the name, and instructed the media to refer to it as "The Facility formerly knows as Skyreach Place"
I suggested that they might consider having the artist formerly known as Prince play at the facility formerly known as Skyreach Place.
I guess they couldn't book him - We never heard back!

Tonyrob

I felt very fortunate to meet Rafael Mendez after a concert. I was a trumpet player and my horn was a top of the line Old’s musical instrument named after Rafael Mendez. At one time Rafael was considered the best trumpet player in the world. Years later I learned my BIL was playing saxophone in the orchestra accompanying Mr. Mendez.

I had some good friends that were in a band and I ended up being a roadie/sound guy for them on occasion and sat in on some recording sessions when they needed some brass. I was with them on a gig when they were the opening act for the Left Banke. After they played we were backstage when the concert promoter came in frantically asking if they could do another set. The Left Banke had come down with “food poisoning”!

My friends agreed to do another set but since we had been in the backstage room with the Left Banke they were pretty sure there may have been more ingested or inhaled beyond contaminated bacterial organisms. There were two rules for the opening act which limited amplifier power and don’t play any material associated with the headliner. My friends gave me a nod to crank it up and they opened with “Walk Away Renee”. They blew the doors off the place and got great response from the crowd.

One of my most memorable musical moments was in Hawaii. I was in a band playing a convention for a week in Honolulu. This group did a lot of community events and charitable concerts. We did a concert for the residents and family members of a retirement home that was established for people who had to have some original Hawaiian ancestry. The place was built with the proceeds from the sale of the crown jewels belonging to Queen Liliuokalani which were earmarked to care for the needs of the island natives.

We played our concert in the garden area surrounded by lush green foliage and flowers with intoxicating fragrances. Our audience was totally tuned in to our performance and when we finished we were rewarded with freshly squeezed tropical fruit juice, home baked cookies and desserts. Most of the ingredients of the food we were given was grown on the grounds of the facility.

While we were munching our delicacies a spokesperson for the residents announced that it is an Island tradition to return a kind deed as soon as possible with another kind deed. We were then treated to a concert of traditional Hawaiian music and dance. The Island people are very talented and most had worked the tourist resorts for years entertaining visitors. It was one of the most heartwarming and wonderful events I have ever been fortunate enough to be a part of. One gentleman who was blind since December 7, 1941 had the best tenor voice I have ever heard. Wow, I still get chills remembering that event. It is not often that we are rewarded with something that touches our soul as deeply as this did.

I spend the majority of my 20s working as a sideman for various touring country artists, mostly playing piano and doing some background vocals. That's how I discovered Vegas, as a matter of fact.

Anyway, I've had several "moments" on the road, some of them musically-related. I've gotten to play places ranging from complete dives, to interesting clubs (Filmore West, the Bottom Line, Billy Bob's), to stadiums (Astrodome, the Tacoma Dome), to enormous outdoor festivals (Jamboree in the Hills), to "unclassifiable" venues (the Corn Palace, Eurodisney, a Swiss curling arena...)

One moment comes to mind. I was playing for a well-known singer whom I will not name--let's call the unnamed artist "UA" for short. UA was a talented performer, but also known for not being very reliable. We had a gig outside of Atlanta, which isn't far from Nashville. So the band and crew rode down in the tour bus that morning for load-in and soundcheck. The plan was for UA to arrive just before the show via private plane.

Well it gets to be about time and no UA. The opening act--a tall, deep-voiced artist who had a couple hits at the time (and went on to have many more)--goes on to do his set. Still no UA.

Word comes in that UA is unable to make it at all "due to weather". Never did find out if that was actually the case. Meanwhile there are several thousand people sitting out there in audience.

So the road manager goes out on stage and explains the situation. "We'll reschedule the performance for a later date and your ticket stubs will be good for that show. If you still want to hang around tonight though, the band is going come up here and sing and play some for you."

And that's just what we did. We busted out some old-school country and the somewhat miffed audience slowly started to enjoy themselves (no doubt helped by the beers most of them had had by then). We did Haggard. Jones. Cash. Hank Sr. You name it.

Meanwhile, the tall, deep-voiced opening act singer is still backstage and hears us playing. Turns out he grew up listening to all that stuff and knows every word and every chord to every song. So he grabs his guitar and comes back onstage to join us on a couple of numbers. The audience goes nuts! Everyone one stage is having a great time. Everyone in the crowd is having a great time. And it's made all the better by the fact that it's completely spur-of-the-moment and unplanned.

- Jeff

Some cool stories.

I dated a guy named Timo Laine when I was 16. He had already put out one album through A & M and was in the process of making a second album. I got to spend a bunch of time in the studio while he was recording one side of that album. It was educational (and fun).

The guy was total OCD, though. It didn't make for a very nice long-term dating experience and we broke up after a few months. Looking back now, I can't believe I was allowed to date him. I was only 16 and he was something like 29 at that time.

Again, no scanner to post my own pictures, so here's one from his website (he's still recording, I guess).

Sue, I'm surprised by your experience w/Reba McEntire. My dad used to be the security supervisor for the Nutter Center at Wright State Univ. (near Dayton, OH) so he met many performers. He said of all of them there were only a handful that he thought was genuinely nice. They were Reba McEntire, George Jones & his wife and Red Skelton. This would have been in the 90's.

My dad was also the security supervisor at The Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, OH. To be so close to someone that could help us meet a star but yet so far! My dad never over stepped his bounds by giving his children the extra privilege of meeting any of the stars, getting us tickets or better seats. We always had to stand in line just like everyone else. At times I wished he would bend the rules a little but I respect him for it too as it told me he took his job seriously.

My dad passed in '97 unexpectedly of a heart attack. So the next time any of you are at the Nutter Center - look for my dad's memorial placque on the wall next to the door of the Security Dept.