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Bee my, Bee my Little Baby (strange things that happen on a gig)


steve mac

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Last night just about settled into my set, crowd on my side, new song went down well (Rio by Duran Duran), halfway through Sweet Child O'Mine and a bee flew onto my strumming hand and stung my on the fleshy part of my thumb. At first I thought I had received an electric shock. Hard not to see the funny side of it once the pain and swelling went down.

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Years ago on one of our corporate picnic gigs, a yellowjacket somehow clung to the bottom of my fork as I took a bite of my free lunch...I knew that was no electric shock...my lower lip swelled up...I soldiered on through the gig, though...lots of ice...and some beer...

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No bee or wasp tales for me (luckily).

 

Perhaps the worst thing that happened on a gig was during a song, "Harlem Nocturne". It used to be a standard for sax players, I learned it when I was a young teen, probably played it thousands of times and actually enjoy the song. I like the dissonances in the melody.

 

There is a 16 note long run the sax player plays while the rest of the band is silent. It is in 'muscle memory' and had been for years. Then one night I thought about what notes I'm playing, the muscle memory failed me, and I couldn't play the run. I improved a little (not very well) and got back into the melody. Very embarrassing.

 

Tried it at home after the gig, and couldn't play it. I let it rest a day or two, then determined to play it without thinking. That was the key. Not thinking made the run flow out again.

 

Today when I screw up, if I can't cover it up, I'll joke about it. The audience is always forgiving, and it's better to have them laugh with you than laugh at you.

 

And I'll never try to think while playing "Harlem Nocturne" again. :D

 

Notes

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Actually, I do have a wasp tale. But it's about a day gig, and I'll make it work for a music forum.

 

I had two 'day jobs' in my life. I tested out being "normal" as opposed to being a musician, and both times I discovered that normal is overrated.

 

One job was CATV engineer, and the other was telephone repairman. This one is about telephone.

 

Climbing telephone poles is dangerous. Only about 1/8" of spike dug into the pole separates you from Newton's observation about gravity. And if you are on the "goes down" side, the wear on the pole from other climbers leave creosote soaked splinters pointing up and away from the pole. Not what you want to meet on the way down.

 

One false move can make you fall. There are two kinds of pole climbers, those who have fallen, and those who haven't fallen - yet.

 

Ok, the pole is in the back yard, there are 4 chain link fences meeting at the bast of the pole. If you fall off the pole and straddle one of those fences on the way down, it might affect your sex life for the rest of your life. In addition there were metal garbage cans. All this says, "Be careful".

 

So I climb the pole, open the telephone terminal to discover about 100 paper wasps decided to build their nest inside the terminal, and they weren't too happy about being exposed. Knowing the choice was between being stung or proving Newton's law again in less than favorable circumstances, I decided to carefully and slowly climb back down the pole with heart pounding at "presto" tempo. Thankfully the wasps didn't connect me with the home-wrecking and I didn't get stung.

 

Now if I'm on the gig and somebody requests "Yakety Sax" (for the millionth time and I'm not in the mood to play it), I just think of the wasps and playing "Yakety Sax" or any other song that I may have played too much isn't so bad at all. I picked "Yakety" because besides for being overplayed, it is a lot of work.

 

But funny thing happens, as soon as the music starts and the sax is in my mouth, I forget about not wanting to play Yakety again and actually have a great time playing it. Music does that to me.

 

OK it's not quite on topic, but I think it's at least associated.

 

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Had an outside daytime gig at an out of the way, used car dealership. As if that wasn't demeaning enough, we were situated at the entrance to the lot (with cars trying to run us over) and a multitude of bushes and weeds behind us - AKA wasp central. I have never seen so many wasps in one place. They were everywhere. They were all over my guitar, all over the sax....it was just ridiculous. Had it been my gig I would have packed up and gone home. No one in the band got stung, but that was more dumb luck than anything else.

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