Around 1990 I was working for a sound company in Cleveland Ohio, and my first day on the job, we did a show with Murphy's Law, The Dwarves and The Exploited. Murphy's Law plays, nothing out of the ordinary happens. Perfect. We do the set change and out come the Dwarves. I remember the singer wearing a tutu, but the guitar player was naked. Wearing only his guitar and some beaten up tennis shoes.
This created several issues. One was the fact that the club had minors in it, and the sight of the guitar player's anatomy had the potential to warp fragile little minds. Also, the club was unable to sell liquor with nudity. A strip club crossover law.
So now as the club and the Dwarves tour manager are all on the side of the stage talking about this, another situation is developing.
Naked guitar guy ( NGG ) was standing on the very edge of the stage. Now you have to get the picture that this place was packed, and the mosh pit was swelling back and forth.
Well, when the pit was surging forward, this crazy guy in the crowd would reach up and grab the most accessible part of NGG's anatomy. NGG kicked him in the face. The crowd cheered, and the crazy crowd guy ( CCG ) swelled back with the crowd.
This was funny stuff. Then our man CCG came back and grabbed him again! This time the cops were there, and they wanted to arrest him (NGG) for public nudity.
Just as the cops were asking me to turn everything off, we were amazed to see CCG crowd surf right to the edge of the stage and grab everything NGG had hanging.
NGG took off his guitar and cracked that kid's head open with his Gibson Flying V like a 1980s comedian hitting a watermelon.
Well, by then, the crowd went wild, and the cops rushed the stage to arrest NGG for the assault, and the ambulance guys went after the anatomy grabber with the broken skull.
The crowd rushed the stage to defend NGG from the cops, and one of the cops pulled out his mace and just held down on the button with mace soaking one poor kid who was trapped under a pile of people at the front of the stage.
I ran to the front of the stage and pulled the mace-soaked kid and two of his friends up, and got them backstage to the nearest bathroom. I told them to get those wet mace clothes off of him, and wash him down.
I ran out of the bathroom to get the paramedics and I told them what I just did and where the kid was. The paramedic told me, "You can't use water with mace on him, its going to burn!" At that moment, we all heard that poor kid screaming. I felt like sh*t. I thought I rescued the kid, but in reality, I gave them crappy advice.
After we got the place under control, The Exploited came out. The show didn't last two minutes before that asshole singer threw his mike at me, jumped through every speaker on stage, and when he finally hit me with a beer bottle, I came around the monitor console, and now me and this maniac punk from Scotland are fighting onstage.
The crowd rushed the stage again, and some cop (I can't say if it was the same one) started spraying everybody onstage with mace.
With all the mayhem, I started choking on the mace, and before I knew it, I was on the side of the stage throwing up. My clothes, hair and skin was soaking in mace. I couldn't open my eyes, and I felt somebody pulling my arm and telling somebody else, "We have to get him in the bathroom right away and wash this stuff off him!"
A near-perfect first day on the job…
