Extremely surreal moments in live music

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Listening to Jay Z unplugged, at the beggining where he makes fun of poetry readings for a little bit, then proceeds to get into the real show... receiting poetry. Really good poetry at that.

― David Allen (David Allen), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 07:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that really "extremely surreal"? When I think of "extremely surreal," I think of that episode when Elton John -- inexplicably dressed in a gorilla suit -- atttacked someone on stage -- Harry Nillsson, maybe? -- as a way of informing them that they'd been signed to his label.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Going to see Dave Alvin on the night he decided that he was not in fact a roots rocker from California but rather the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix. He was pissed at the soundman and at his bandmates so he kept screaming "FUCK" and launching into five-minute psych-metal solos to punish everyone. My wife, a big Blasters fan, is very short so we had to get right up next to the stage just to see anything in the small club. She ended up with an ear infection.

And seeing George Clinton doing an impromptu tango with a hotttt blond 6-foot-tall trustafarian.

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:23 (twenty-one years ago)

A stage full of cheerleaders, greenies, reporters, miming musicians, paperboys, sailors, the support act, Crazy Horse and many more for the finale of Neil Young's Greendale show, 'Be the Rain'

― Joel Kaldasaun, Thursday, 30 September 2004 01:33 (twenty-one years ago)

De La Soul, 1994.

Pos scratched up the intro to "Me, Myself and I" while Trugoy and Mase engaged in the following back and forth banter:

"And we hate this song-"

"-yeah we hate this song-"

"And we hate this song-"

"-yeah we hate this song-"

"And we hate this song-"

"-but Y'ALL LOVE THIS SONG, so here we go!!!"

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Thursday, 30 September 2004 01:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Seeing Fuxa in 1996 at The Green Room in Ypsilanti Michigan opening for either Labradford or Spooky(cannot remember which night was which, my space rock memories are all a little foggy) when a mentally disturbed homeless woman somehow got into the venue. Everybody is sitting down quietly on the floor while she starts dancing in a really odd jerky manner that had no relation to the music. Eventually she gets on stage and gets ahold of the microphone and starts semi-incoherantly ranting insults to the audience. She went on a tear for about 20 minutes while Fuxa did an ambient bongo space jam behind her. Eventually she got tired and casually walked out into the night like nothing happened.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Thursday, 30 September 2004 03:04 (twenty-one years ago)

at leicester university in '92(?) the clock on the wall behind the pale saints stopped and then started going backwards whilst they were playing.

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 30 September 2004 08:54 (twenty-one years ago)

she starts dancing in a really odd jerky manner that had no relation to the music.

dude, it's a Füxa show!

The rainbow which ended on the stage during Belle & Sebastian at Glastonbury this year was pretty nuts.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 30 September 2004 09:14 (twenty-one years ago)

stuart murdoch's guitar smashing, dublin olympia '98

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 30 September 2004 09:18 (twenty-one years ago)

De La Soul Reading fest, just before Carter USM.

Audience to DeLa "You fat bastards!"

Trugoy : "Yeah? Well, you can all kiss ma big black BUTT!" (with a smile...)

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 30 September 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

The Flaming Lips' entire career on stage.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 30 September 2004 12:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I've seen Thor blowing blowing up a hot water bottle live. Unfortunately he couldn't quite manage to explode it like normal so he just let it deflate, a bit like the crowd.

― everything, Thursday, 30 September 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Gary Wilson, dudes, Gaary Wilson.
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0221/sotc.jpg

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 30 September 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Alec Empire at Toronto's Opera House during the disastrous Digital Harcore tour. After mind-numbing sets from the second-tier bands on the label, Atart Teenage Riot takes the stage, though its hard to hear them through the squalls of feedback.
Empire expressed his dissatisfaction by cussing out the sound guy, who, for some reason, is stationed at the left edge of the stage. Sound remains bad. Empire picks up the mic stand and lunges at the sound guy, intending to beat him to death with the metal base. Empire is tackled by security and hilarity ensues.
It was the only interesting part of the evening.

― Bruce S. Urquhart (BanjoMania), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

EdgeFest at Toronto's Ontario Place (another bad show, but my then-girlfriend was a fan of Toad the Wet Sprocket and the Proclaimers).
During the Lemonheads headlining set, Dando is obviously fucked out of his gourd. He seems a touch paranoid, like he's tweaked, but he kind of soldiers on. At the end of the show, this large throng of teenages girls jump over the barriers toward the rotating stage. Dando freaks, obviously, and starts swinging his guitar like a scythe, trying to keep his fans at bay.
But Dando is grabbed by security before he can crack the skull of some 14-year-old girl.

― Bruce S. Urquhart (BanjoMania), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I missed my chance to see them, but I heard Lovage had quite the odd live show.
Dan the Automator and Mike Patton dressing in smoking jackets, sipping brandy & handing out chocolates, Patton licking chocolate syrup off women in the crowd and the bassist (dressed as spiderman) giving piggy-back rides to random audience members.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Internation Pop Underground Convention, Olympia, WA, 1991.
Saturday afternoon in the park, The Melvins open their set with the then-unreleased "Charmicarmicat". Sound like the amps are blown, but the band soldiers on for 15 min or so. Across the way, a classic wedding is letting out of a church, with rice throwning and everything. Perhaps not the march they were hoping for...

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

You guys must remember the original drummer from Pavement, Gary Whatsisname, making cinammon toast behind his kit for handing out to the audience. In fact he was always up to strange antics. I remember him standing on his head for whole songs instead of playing along. They lost a lot when he left.

― everything, Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw a Kid Koala show at the Science Centre in Vancouver in support of the illustrated book he'd done.
Not a thing about this show was normal.

This includes:

• him doing a track with a Phonograph & one of those Playskool record players that played those square plastic records

• his grandma handing out cookies to everyone (it was a small room)

• a fire drill mid-set

• playing a game of bingo

• him locking P-Love out of the room as a prank

• the presence of children at this 3pm show; causing the opening dj to try (unsuccessfully at times) to edit swearing out of some of the hip-hop tracks he was spinning

All in all, one of the best shows I've been to.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I have to recommend that new documentary coming out soon called "DiG!" about the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Dandy Warhols' relationship.... the director captured some amazing moments, like the frontman of BJM daring a kid to come up to the stage so he can kick his head in, and then that exact thing happening. And BJM's meltdown at a showcase at the Viper Room for some major label execs is pretty surreal.

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Thursday, 30 September 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, i saw a bjm meltdown and it was in fact quite surreal.

― todd swiss (eliti), Thursday, 30 September 2004 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Inside Ov A Butcher's Shop (Leicester all-stars supergroup, feat. Mick Prolapse) at Rough Trade. My memory is rather hazy, and I'm sure there are better accounts of it elsewhere, but it was something like:

Band in bloodied aprons and animal masks. 500 hour song that goes "Carnage! Carnage!" a lot (it's available on CD, buy buy buy!). Bemused indie-types shuffling amongst record racks. Extremely strange man claiming to be Pope John Paul grabs mike and starts threatening to shoot Mick, er, whilst they play 'Fiery Jack' by The Fall. I actually don't think I saw if he had a gun or not, and Mick is never _entirely_ believable in his recounting of tales, so it mayhaps not be the brush with death all claim it to be, but it was pretty hairy and extremely surreal.

― emil.y (emil.y), Thursday, 30 September 2004 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

(it's available on CD, buy buy buy!)

Wasn't it limited to a number in double figures?

― DJ Mencap0))), Friday, 1 October 2004 08:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Even better, it was Iggy and Iggy was on acid at the time and freaked out and thought it was a real gorilla

― Jedermann sein eigener Fussball (Dada), Friday, 1 October 2004 08:59 (twenty-one years ago)

bomb disneyland when the supported nitzer ebb at the astoria in 1990. their drummer was hit in the face by someone in the audience throwing a loaf. fantastic.

― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Friday, 1 October 2004 09:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Heh heh. The Dandys. I saw them take 15 one night to "get more fucked up, then we'll be right back." Exactly 15 minutes later, they returned, noticeably more fucked up, and played gorgeously and powerfully for another half hour or so. Finally Courtney ended the evening with a 10- or 15-minute speech about the differences between drugs and alcohol. One of the greatest shows I ever saw.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 1 October 2004 09:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I once saw James Brown delivering one of those name-checking tributes to All The Dead Music Stars I've Survived. Apparently believing the man was no longer among the living, he introduced a guitar solo with "If B.B. King were here tonight, I think it would sound something like this!"

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 1 October 2004 09:12 (twenty-one years ago)

At another point in the show, the Godfather responded to some feedback by holding four vocal mikes in his hands and announcing "Sometimes I wonder about schoolin'!"

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 1 October 2004 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

He also did the cape thing in the middle of the set, rendering the rest of it kind of anticlimactic.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 1 October 2004 09:16 (twenty-one years ago)

im going to get SO made fun of, but...

In the begining of last summer's Greendale tour (neil young) when he wasnt bored by the songs, right around a quarter way through the album it got really good, the audience was settling in (most hadnt heard the new album, so it was all new to their/my ears), the solos got really expressive, and everything just worked really well.

and at the last Decemberists show in Boston when they turned off all the electricity and played sans amplification.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 1 October 2004 12:09 (twenty-one years ago)

it was really really hot at that neil young show, if i recall correctly, and that always helps makes thins surreal.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 1 October 2004 12:10 (twenty-one years ago)

ten years pass...

NATO foreign ministers sing 'We Are The World'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_wfMrz9_mY

― meisenfek, Friday, 15 May 2015 22:22 (eleven years ago)

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