Best gig I ever played was a Special Olympics dance and wrap up party. In the first 4 bars, the dance floor was full, and I have never seen such joy and abandon at a gig before or since. It was GREAT!

I was playing heavy metal in 1984 and we played with some big names. Maybe the coolest was playing with Metallica when they came back from their first European tour. Their manager said they couldn't play because their stuff was in NYC and they were going to do a big tour across the country culminating in a big show in San Fran. Well, they wanted to play (imagine telling those guys they couldn't do something) so they used our stuff. We played the Fab Mab on a Friday night. There were people surrounding us on stage, people hanging from the ceiling somehow and the floor was packed. I had the flu and could barely stand up. Good thing I play sitting down%) The place was wild that night. I used to break about one (2B) stick per song back then. I only had two left when we were done, and some guy wanted my sticks. I went to the side of the stage and hit the couch. One of the guys came and grabbed me to do an encore. I had to go back and ask the guy for my sticks back, and had to be very careful with them.

Another great story!!

My friend Pete has a massive collection of old drum stuff that we were rummaging through a couple weeks ago.

As we were loading stuff into the truck my wife mentioned the gig with Metallica (whom Pete has never heard of ). Pete turned around and said "Don't get too swelled up, I opened for Elvis TWICE using that snare drum you're holding in your hands."

Elvis even autographed the head of the drum, but that head is long gone. He sent the autograph to some girl he was trying to impress.

> He sent the autograph to some girl he was trying to impress.

Shoot, that's the reason most of us became drummers in the first place! :p

John

Yes Sir Yep! But at my age, I'll take a roadie over a groupie any day.

Hey, I love these "old stories" threads!

I'm too lazy to retype it all, so I just did the copy-and-paste thing from an old thread (http://vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=36415 ):

My biggest "brush" with the big time was spring 1974 in Hays, Kansas.

The local band I was playing with (simply called "The Eric Vaughan Show") was the local front band for what was to be the first of several "Big Time" country music shows, this one headed up by Del Reeves and the Goodtime Charlies (yes, the same name as his hit song). One of my band-mates was a fellow music major by the name of Gerry Miller -- who later went on to play with a pretty well-know regional 50's group called Jimmy Dee & the Fabulous Destinations (or something like that) and Eric later went on to record an album in Nashville with a group called Judy and the Kosmic Kowboys. Nothing big, but kinda interesting.

Anyway, Gerry claims Linda Ronstadt was on that Del Reeves ticket at the time, but I don't specifically recall that myself, so I'm just not real sure...

Most memorable part of that show: Actually a part of setup that afternoon.

As we were setting up our stuff (including my Ludwig pink champagne Rock Duo set), the Goodtime Charlie's drummer (I have no idea what his name was) approached me and ask if he could save some time & hassle and just use my set for the rest of the show. I was elated! (only 19 at the time and very impressionable, you know!) He wanted to sit down and get a feel for the way I had them set up (no drum techs then!) and was playing around on them when all of the sudden a strange and loud "reeling" type of noise got eveyone's attention -- followed by a very large crash. One of the stage lighting rails (suspended by cables & a pully system) had come loose and came right down to the stage, landing about as close to my drums (and the drummer) as possible without any injury to him or damage to my drums! In fact he said he heard the noise and felt something graze the back of his shirt, but it happened so fast he had no time to react in any way.

Literally guys, had we set up 1 inch ****her back, he'd been DEAD.

But like I said, no injury (they did check him out) and no damage, and yes the show went on as scheduled.

The promoter of the show was impressed with us (which is why we got the gig in the first place anyway -- it was nice to know we were being "scouted"), and we were supposed to sign contracts and go with that same show in July... but he suddenly died of a heart-attack, and with his death it seemed my one shot died, too.

That fall I hooked up with a road band from Topeka (AJ Mooney & Co.) and played the smaller club curcuit throughout the midwestern part of the country (had an agent in KC but can't remember his name), and later I did go on to form my own band along with Gerry and one other, and we played literally as much as we wanted throughout central & western Kansas & western Nebraska.

"Retired" from playing around 1980 after I had gotten married and started a family... still married to the same woman (the "vick" part of billnvick) and do have a nice, grown family!

Bill