The third installment in this saga of simple pranks escalating into mayhem follows two other "Nightmare" installments: "The Game's Afoot" (Aug. 2011) and "Bottle Rockets and ‘Snow'" (Sept. 2011). The grand finale will be next month. (Hint: It has something to do with superglue.) -ed.
Arriving as we did just after the headliner's soundcheck, we dutifully set up our stage gear including the two sets of Ampeg V-22 stacks on either side of the stage with two sets of bass rigs, one on each side, between them and the drum riser. Now one of the things we didn't have back then was a lot of channels on mixers. We also didn't have a lot of mixes. Monitor mixers back then were generally FOH boards with a couple of auxes that someone had either modified to turn them into pre-fader mixes or, as the case was most of the time, someone had set the fader on the channel to full output and left it. So to compensate for this shortcoming, we ran cross-stage lines from the -10dB output on the back of the stage right and stage left amps to the -10dB input of a corresponding amplifier on the opposite side of the stage. This allowed the two widely-separated guitar players to hear each other, and saved on precious monitor mixes and inputs.
Generally speaking, when we had finished setting up, it was time for doors, so all we'd get was a headphone line check. Hard to believe, right? Well, remember, that's the way it was back in the day, and you were lucky to get anything other than a few of the wash lights to do the show with as well. Effects for FOH? If you didn't have your own – and almost no one did – you didn't get to use them – even if you were under the same management and label. There were a lot of dry mixes back then.
Anyway, after the so-called line check, we scooted off to catering to get some food. Five minutes before the show was to start, we'd be back in place and everything would be as it was intended, except for one thing: The miscreants weren't at dinner that evening. No, they were out on stage changing the cross-stage line that went from the lead guitar player's amp on stage left to the cross-stage amp over on stage right by moving the jack to the speaker output. This had the effect of hitting a fly with a two-by-four on the amp on the far side of the stage, but we were not to suspect anything just yet.
House lights go out. The "Barker" calls the name of the band, and a red spotlight hits the lead guitar player as he starts the intro to a song aptly named "Trouble." There are three police car lights, one on either side of the stage and one atop a Genie lift built into the back of the drum riser that raised up with a huge clear Plexiglas sign with the name of the band in mirror-balled letters. But tonight, all attention is over on stage left instead of stage right, where the guitar player was playing the intro to the song.
Everyone should have been watching the lead guitar player, but they weren't. How could they? Over on stage left, the cross-stage amplifier had just gone up in flames the instant the lead guitar player on stage right hit the first chord. Unfortunately for him, the rhythm guitar player just happened to be leaning up against that amplifier when it blew. The fireball was so big, it looked to the audience like a pyrotechnic charge had been placed inside the amplifier. The punters thought it was part of the show and cheered as the amplifier went up in flames. Those very self-same flames enveloped the back of my rhythm guitar player's head, and in an instant, all the hair in back of his ears was removed. Before he could get away, the flames provided him with first and second degree burns as well.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the amplifier, then literally dragged the rhythm guitar player offstage, as he was still thinking his wounds were not that serious, to where a cooler full of drinks and ice were. He was starting to go into shock, and I needed to pull some of the heat out of the burns on the back of his head fast. While the band continued playing and constantly looking in our direction, I treated him as best I could, given the circumstances, and had him transported by ambulance to a local burn center for treatment. The edges of his ears had suffered the most damage, as they kinda stuck out anyway, and it made them more susceptible to the heat from the flames.
When the show ended 35 minutes later, I loaded the gear offstage and got the cases started when my roommate comes up and starts accusing me of having engineered the whole thing by way of some stupid mistake. That's when I told him about seeing our two miscreants on the side of the stage when the show started, and they left just after the amplifier blew, looking like they were having some kind of celebration. The road manager wanted to have them fired this instant, with no airplane ticket home. "Leave their asses on then side of the road to fend for themselves!" he said.
The soundman and I had other plans…
Coming next month: the Superglue Saga Part 4: The Ultimate Payback
