Here at Gigseen, you know we love our concerts, gigs and all things live. We like to give you the best live footage and let you reminisce about those happier times as you remember standing with your mates watching the concert by the band you were crazy about. We want you to relive those moments and wish you were there once again. Hear the crowd chant along, uniting with their love of music. Feel the energy and passion that can only be found in the context of live music. Get goosebumps down the back of your neck again.But, often unbeknown to the crowd, things aren't always plain sailing for the band or artist on stage. While they are delivering your favourite anthems, incidents can happen. However, like true professionals; the show must go on, as they say.
To celebrate the arrival of next week's Gig of The Week - Jethro Tull's Nothing Is Easy, I've found this amusing but sad article about Ian Anderson's worst gig he ever played.
Shea Stadium, New York, 1976
"I stood with the rest of the band at the top of the ramp leading down to the field of Shea Stadium. As with The Beatles Shea show 10 years earlier, this was not to be an artistic success, to say the least. Commercial jets on final approach to the adjacent La Guardia airport drowned out the sound, when it wasn't being drowned out by the firecrackers, whistles, hoots and hollers of the crowd. In those final moments before walking out on to the field, I was suddenly drenched with warm, sticky liquid from high above, where some of the rowdy, 50,000-strong audience looked down on to the players' access ramp. Only as I began the inaudible first verse of Thick as a Brick on acoustic guitar, did I realise with resigned horror that the liquid I assumed to be beer, was not, in fact, beer at all. It was urine. The unmistakable pong wafting from my then-ample head of damp hair and freshly laundered stage-clothing would remain for the duration of the show. An unholy baptism from above".
"I could have picked the gig at Denver's Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 1971, when riots and police tear gas threatened to stop the show. Or being hit hard in the larynx by a baseball at Philadelphia Spectrum arena. Or anointment by the freshly plucked but seriously used tampon hurled with uncanny accuracy at another enormodome. Or the 10in steel spike impaled in the stage next to me at soundcheck when "fans" climbed into a roof gantry over the stage at soundcheck. Or the live rounds of automatic pistol ammunition thrown on to the stage during a show. But no – the bucket of piss, delivered with loving precision, wins out every time. You have to laugh. And count the money".
So remember, being a rockstar isn't all that glamorous....just relax, sit back and enjoy some of the great concerts we have in the comfort of your own home, in the knowledge that you'll steer clear of bodily fluids..we hope!
Source: The Guardian