Has there ever been one of those "who wants to play the drums?" moments in a concert where the guy just trainwrecks?

Or play the bass or guitar or whatever. It seems like these moments are always plants, where, holy shit this guy can actually play! Has there ever been a concert clip that suggested otherwise?

yes! I have an "official bootleg" of a Todd Rundgren show in '94 when he was doing the one-man TR-i thing. at one point he invites people up to play guitar solos on "Secret Society". one of the guys is pretty good but the other two or three are awful. last song is "Bang on the Drum All Day" and he picks an audience member to play drums. dude is like half a beat behind the whole time, it wrecks the song. but kudos to Todd for trying it.

I attended a Bob Mould solo show where he had laryngitis and invited audience members on stage to sing while he played guitar. Most were good.

There is this famous occasion, the guy isn't terrible but he isn't great either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-N8MZ9ilk

yes! I have an "official bootleg" of a Todd Rundgren show in '94 when he was doing the one-man TR-i thing. at one point he invites people up to play guitar solos on "Secret Society". one of the guys is pretty good but the other two or three are awful. last song is "Bang on the Drum All Day" and he picks an audience member to play drums. dude is like half a beat behind the whole time, it wrecks the song. but kudos to Todd for trying it.

― frogbs, Tuesday, June 29, 2021 2:49 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol I want to see this

wow i'd read about that Who gig but never knew there was video, what a document!

To be fair, Scot Halpin hadn’t played drums in six months. His friend talked Bill Graham into letting Scot play, which Scot wasn’t entirely aware of in the moment, but the next thing he knew, he was getting shoved onto the stage. It also didn’t help that one of the songs the Who chose to play, “Naked Eye,” hadn’t been released yet, so it’s no wonder Scot had trouble negotiating the half-time/double-time changes.

Not sure how much of the show is on youtube, but I have a bootleg DVD of it, and Moon is surprisingly — shockingly, even — good prior to his collapse (brought on by mixing horse tranquilizers with brandy; one of those he was drinking with nearly died).

Wow, that Who video is amazing!

I played a gig once where a teenage kid begged repeatedly for us to let him on stage to sing Elvis. Said he had won prizes for singing Elvis at karaoke. He was relentless. We finally let him up against our better judgement and asked what Elvis song he wanted to do. "Any one!" he replied (always a bad sign.) Okay, we told him: "Blue Suede Shoes. What key?" He didn't know, also a bad sign. We kicked off "Blue Suede Shoes" in A.

I wish I could tell you that he blew us all away with his vocal talent, but his lack of any ability to sing on key, lack of any knowledge of the lyric, lack of any timing to be able to stop singing when the band stops playing, and most of all lack of awareness that he was severely train-wrecking was truly astounding. I tried singing along to guide him through the song and that didn't work either, so we cut the song short. His mom came up to the side of the stage to collect him and thanked us profusely for letting him "sing." I don't think she was any more cognizant of the horror of the performance than her son was.

Never again.

Oonglebinky (my band of one day in high school) covered "Jump in the Fire" at our only show, and our lead vocalist didn't know the words, and I assholishly didn't let him take a sheet of paper on stage, so he just kept yelling "YEAH!" during the song instead of singing lyrics.

he invited someone out of the audience to sing after two choruses, and the dude couldn't sing, he just talked the lyrics, but unfortunately he started doing the verse when we were in the bridge. he jumped off stage at the end of the song. it was bad.

Here's a perfect one. I saw Jon Brion once, a rare show here in Chicago, and he asked if anyone could play bass on a Beatles cover. He pulled this guy up who absolutely *nailed* it, plus the backing vocals. I *think* the guy (Packy Lundholm) turned out to be from a Beatles cover band? Anyway, he was so good Brion turned it into a spontaneous medley. Here's a clip I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XIQeK141DE

The coolest thing about this is how Brion segues from "Monkey" to "Revolution" without losing a beat, because he knows the guy he found would absolutely kill it.

The same night, iirc, Brion also asked if anyone knew all the lyrics to "Summer in the City" by the Lovin' Spoonful. Like, *all* of them, all three verses. And someone did!

I guess this is opposite of a trainwreck, my bad.

If a band invites an audience member onstage for any reason, that show is already a trainwreck.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my cocaine dealer.”

I saw this happen at a Lemonheads show in 1991. Dando’s voice was shot so he invited people who knew the songs to come up and sing for the entire show. It was mostly guys from local bands who jumped up and it was kind of fun.

I’m now reminded of what must have been a Frogs gimmick for years because at two separate shows I saw them ask for an audience member to come up and sing “Hot Cock Annie” specifically. The one time was perfectly fine, guy sang well, great. The second show, in Seattle, a much different prospect. The audience bro was clearly drunk and it was unclear if he even knew the words at all aside from a line or two. Eventually Dennis, who had been patiently playing away on drums the whole time, challenged the guy to do something else. This eventually led to drunk guy turning towards him and taking down his pants. Still playing, not missing a beat, Dennis turned, grimaced and stuck his tongue in the universal “Bleah!” way, and then turned back and said “That looks like something you see at the state fair!” One of the greatest live moments I’ve ever seen.

There's always "Beyonce let's fan sing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SCDM08G1vI

so he just kept yelling "YEAH!" during the song instead of singing lyrics.

― cancel culture club (Neanderthal), Tuesday, June 29, 2021 2:47 PM

i'm picturing you up there giving him the death stare from across the stage while he's just "YEAH" all sarcastically. actual lol.

it started that way, and then his devotion to the "yeaaaaah" got to be so funny that I started giggling and screwing the riff up.

perfect form!☺

i saw some random dude make his way onto the stage at a jurassic 5 show and attempt to commandeer charli 2na's mic. security grabbed him by the belt and literally carried him out. that's the closest i've gotten to seeing something like this in person. completely different deal tho.

Some guy in a wolf costume repeatedly invaded the stage and hijacked His Name is Alive's set at Bowery Ballroom, I think Psychic TV was the headliner. Each time, he grabbed the mic and took over as the frontperson, doing (apparently) his own material, and the band seemed happy enough to back him. Until security violently removed him from the stage, only for him to return minutes later. HNIA must have been in on it.

At one point he was going around asking everyone in the audience their age, and whatever number they said, he would announce "that's much too young, you're going to die!!"
Only part i remember

Oonglebinky (my band of one day in high school) covered "Jump in the Fire" at our only show, and our lead vocalist didn't know the words, and I assholishly didn't let him take a sheet of paper on stage, so he just kept yelling "YEAH!" during the song instead of singing lyrics.

he invited someone out of the audience to sing after two choruses, and the dude couldn't sing, he just talked the lyrics, but unfortunately he started doing the verse when we were in the bridge. he jumped off stage at the end of the song. it was bad.

― cancel culture club (Neanderthal),

I had this friend in high school who had been to guitar camp, we used to do a rendition of a certain classic rock standard (which i won't name) with him on guitar and me singing as horribly as possible, just to try and massacre that song. He wanted us to do it for the school talent show, but I didn't want to, so on the night he got me to drink revolting malt liquor until i agreed to it.

So we entered the talent show, I was wasted, and the folks in charge were none the wiser. We needed a terrible drummer, though. There was this kid in the year above ours walking around backstage in swim fins and a diaper, so i figured he'd be perfect and asked him to play the drums. He thought I was under some mistaken impression that he actually played the drums, but I assured him it wasn't an issue. He obviously thought that was the end of the duscussion, though. Before we went on, we asked him again and he reiterated that he does not play the drums. I don't think we'd actually let him in on the joke, that we were planning to annihilate the song.
So we played the song with the kid in a diaper cluelessly bashing away, it went really well (i.e. horribly), so we decided to do a second number. As i was announcing the next song, someone closed the curtain.

THE ARISTOCRATS

Yeah so there's a door to door salesman, he knocks on the door and a kid answers. The kud is wearing swim fins and a daiper and holding a martini. So the salesman says, "Hey kid! Are your parents home?" And the kid says, "what do you fucking think?"

in our band, coincidentally enough, we hired some dude to play drums day of, but he actually did know how to play and learned his parts on the fly. he was the guitarist for the other band.

no diaper though

See, the daiper is key. Part of it was, the kid had a look and a vibe a little bit like the "disco sucks" kid from that 70's show, i knew he'd be down to play some classic rock. Probably why i didn't tell him we were going to do it badly.

That is a funny coincidence tho

Some guy in a wolf costume repeatedly invaded the stage and hijacked His Name is Alive's set at Bowery Ballroom, I think Psychic TV was the headliner. Each time, he grabbed the mic and took over as the frontperson, doing (apparently) his own material, and the band seemed happy enough to back him. Until security violently removed him from the stage, only for him to return minutes later. HNIA must have been in on it.

At one point he was going around asking everyone in the audience their age, and whatever number they said, he would announce "that's much too young, you're going to die!!"
Only part i remember

this is the best live music story i've ever heard

All gigs should be like that. Why aren't all gigs like that

-I remember seeing Common once, and he had a segment where he'd pull someone up from the crowd to freestyle with him. He brought up a little kid who was incredible, but I'm sure it must have backfired sometimes (although it's a good idea to choose a kid, because it's cute even if they choke).

-the famous Lars-less Metallica gig is also the opposite of this, where everyone got to live out the thought experiment of 'what if Metallica had a different drummer?'. Would have been amazing if Dave Lombardo had done the whole show.

-I have seen wack horn players sit in with New Orleans brass band countless times, but they generally can't do too much damage since there are enough people covering the parts for real.

feel like the next step is for Metallica to have a Metallica-less gig

four random dudes show up at show time and start playing, at various skill levels

That's arguably a description of the first Last Exit show.

...although they weren't playing Metallica songs.

-I remember seeing Common once, and he had a segment where he'd pull someone up from the crowd to freestyle with him. He brought up a little kid who was incredible, but I'm sure it must have backfired sometimes (although it's a good idea to choose a kid, because it's cute even if they choke).

i saw ghostface do a lazier version of this like 15 years ago, where he just invited people from the crowd to come up and rap on their own while he sat out, he may even have gone offstage. every one was terrible and it was like 20 minutes of his 45-minute set, felt like a ripoff.