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Post by johnreardon on Dec 29, 2020 9:10:52 GMT
At our band reunion in 2013, we had 13 people playing on stage. You can see how cramped it was on stage in the video. We had 3 drummers, 2 bass guitarists, 3 guitarists, 3 sax, 1 keys & singer.
Anyway we were going to play some old stuff including 'In the Midnight Hour' & 'Knock on Wood', even though we hadn't really played them since the 60s. But we all knew them 
I always give everybody printed set lists, but they still look at me to see what we are playing next.
As you can see, I was on extreme stage right, or left as you look at the stage. The two songs were second & third in our second set.
As we were running out of time, I decided to skip over 'Knock on Wood' and go into 'In the Midnight Hour'. I shouted this out, however, those on stage left didn't hear me, so they started 'Knock on Wood' and my half of the stage started 'In the Midnight Hour'.
For those that don't know, the opening chords for the two songs are identical, but played the other way round i.e. 'Knock on Wood' goes up and 'In the Midnight Hour' goes down.
It was an interesting sound. I couldn't quite make out what was happening, nor the keyboard player who was on the other side. The singer in the middle could and thank god just started shouting stop. The audience thought it was great. I wish someone had recorded it.
After that mess up, I decided that perhaps we should play something we all knew, so did 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl'
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 29, 2020 15:00:06 GMT
As we were running out of time, I decided to skip over 'Knock on Wood' and go into 'In the Midnight Hour'. I shouted this out, however, those on stage left didn't hear me, so they started 'Knock on Wood' and my half of the stage started 'In the Midnight Hour'.
For those that don't know, the opening chords for the two songs are identical, but played the other way round i.e. 'Knock on Wood' goes up and 'In the Midnight Hour' goes down.
It was an interesting sound. I couldn't quite make out what was happening, nor the keyboard player who was on the other side. The singer in the middle could and thank god just started shouting stop. The audience thought it was great. I wish someone had recorded it.
After that mess up, I decided that perhaps we should play something we all knew, so did 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl'
Oh man I hate when stuff like that happens. Maybe the audience thought it was intentional? |
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Post by johnreardon on Dec 30, 2020 10:48:32 GMT
As we were running out of time, I decided to skip over 'Knock on Wood' and go into 'In the Midnight Hour'. I shouted this out, however, those on stage left didn't hear me, so they started 'Knock on Wood' and my half of the stage started 'In the Midnight Hour'.
For those that don't know, the opening chords for the two songs are identical, but played the other way round i.e. 'Knock on Wood' goes up and 'In the Midnight Hour' goes down.
It was an interesting sound. I couldn't quite make out what was happening, nor the keyboard player who was on the other side. The singer in the middle could and thank god just started shouting stop. The audience thought it was great. I wish someone had recorded it.
After that mess up, I decided that perhaps we should play something we all knew, so did 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl'
Oh man I hate when stuff like that happens. Maybe the audience thought it was intentional? No chance. 90% of the audience were old friends from the 60s so knew what we were like. Anyway, the singer blasted out over the PA that it was wrong.
The chap up on stage commentating was a well known disk jockey called Johnnie Walker. He started on Pirate Radio and now has a BBC Radio show called 'Sounds of the 70s'
He is an old friend of our singer who used to be a 'plugger', in his early days, eventually ending up quite high in Sony Music. When he heard of our reunion he wanted to come down from London and then said he would introduce us. We played the Duane Eddy instrumental 'Because You're Young', because Johnny is a huge fan/friend of Duane.
Incidentally our singer is also good mates with Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne. In the 70's he worked for Sharon's dad, Don Arden and ended up being romantically involved with her, in fact he's credited in her book as 'taking her virginity'
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 30, 2020 14:49:51 GMT
Oh man I hate when stuff like that happens. Maybe the audience thought it was intentional? in fact he's credited in her book as 'taking her virginity'
quite a claim to fame! |
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Post by johnreardon on Dec 30, 2020 15:24:56 GMT
in fact he's credited in her book as 'taking her virginity'
quite a claim to fame! She's proud of it
Her dad was rich. Apparently a bit of a crook, regarding bands, but a millionaire. Adrian would have struck lucky, but she came one day early from work and caught him in bed with his hairdresser
He's the chap standing up
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 30, 2020 15:51:14 GMT
She's proud of it
Her dad was rich. Apparently a bit of a crook, regarding bands, but a millionaire. Adrian would have struck lucky, but she came one day early from work and caught him in bed with his hairdresser
Love it! |
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Post by johnreardon on Dec 30, 2020 19:05:00 GMT
She's proud of it
Her dad was rich. Apparently a bit of a crook, regarding bands, but a millionaire. Adrian would have struck lucky, but she came one day early from work and caught him in bed with his hairdresser
Love it! That's not all. When I joined the RAF in 71, I lost touch with him for most of my 22 years, so knew little of his music life.
I went across to his house in Spain back in 2014, to spend a few days writing stuff.
Anyway I noticed a lot of pics hanging up, including ones of him with Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Luther Van Dross, the Osbournes & many others.
I hadn't realised he mixed with these people. He got out a DVD and played me this woman singing happy birthday for his 60th.
It was Celine Dion. She was going to attend his party, but was touring, so sent him a DVD instead.
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Post by infant on Dec 30, 2020 20:24:34 GMT
Awesome stories John! It’s amazing who we get to know and meet over the years.
I kinda did the same as you one time back in high school where we were playing at a church picnic. Our band in high school did a lot of horn related stuff and I picked up my 12 string acoustic and started strumming the intro to Beginnings by Chicago not realizing that I still had the capo on the 2nd fret from a previous song. The bass came in and we started looking at each other like “WTF”? Then as soon as the horns came in I realized that I was the culprit making a mess of the song. Everyone was playing in Amaj7 and I’m strumming away on a Bmaj7. So we had to stop and start over...very embarrassing for me. My current sax player, who was in that high school band, reminds me of that whenever we play that song nowadays.
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 30, 2020 22:12:26 GMT
Awesome stories John! It’s amazing who we get to know and meet over the years. I kinda did the same as you one time back in high school where we were playing at a church picnic. Our band in high school did a lot of horn related stuff and I picked up my 12 string acoustic and started strumming the intro to Beginnings by Chicago not realizing that I still had the capo on the 2nd fret from a previous song. The bass came in and we started looking at each other like “WTF”? Then as soon as the horns came in I realized that I was the culprit making a mess of the song. Everyone was playing in Amaj7 and I’m strumming away on a Bmaj7. So we had to stop and start over...very embarrassing for me. My current sax player, who was in that high school band, reminds me of that whenever we play that song nowadays. I don't use a capo so that never happened but I remember playing Caravan once and the first chord was supposed to be a C7 spanning 12 measures. It just didn't sound right however. I look down at my hands and I am playing the same pattern but each of my fingers were shifted over by one string in the barre, playing an Fm7. Embarrassing. |
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Post by zontar on Dec 31, 2020 4:44:00 GMT
Awesome stories John! It’s amazing who we get to know and meet over the years. I kinda did the same as you one time back in high school where we were playing at a church picnic. Our band in high school did a lot of horn related stuff and I picked up my 12 string acoustic and started strumming the intro to Beginnings by Chicago not realizing that I still had the capo on the 2nd fret from a previous song. The bass came in and we started looking at each other like “WTF”? Then as soon as the horns came in I realized that I was the culprit making a mess of the song. Everyone was playing in Amaj7 and I’m strumming away on a Bmaj7. So we had to stop and start over...very embarrassing for me. My current sax player, who was in that high school band, reminds me of that whenever we play that song nowadays. I’ve had a similar experience playing bass but the guitar player forgot he had his capo on I saw he had it on the second fret so I just played everything two frets higher The keyboard player used the transpose button quickly & the other Guitar player quickly clamped on his capo |
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Post by johnreardon on Dec 31, 2020 9:17:31 GMT
Awesome stories John! It’s amazing who we get to know and meet over the years. I kinda did the same as you one time back in high school where we were playing at a church picnic. Our band in high school did a lot of horn related stuff and I picked up my 12 string acoustic and started strumming the intro to Beginnings by Chicago not realizing that I still had the capo on the 2nd fret from a previous song. The bass came in and we started looking at each other like “WTF”? Then as soon as the horns came in I realized that I was the culprit making a mess of the song. Everyone was playing in Amaj7 and I’m strumming away on a Bmaj7. So we had to stop and start over...very embarrassing for me. My current sax player, who was in that high school band, reminds me of that whenever we play that song nowadays. With us it's always keys. Our other guitarist is quite deaf in one ear and the bass player is a little bit deaf. They are always on the opposite side of the stage to me and in spite of me giving them printed set lists with key, they always ask me. Our singer does a lot of stuff in 'G' but also does a few in 'C'. 'C' can sound like 'G', 'B' or 'D' on a noisy stage. I sometimes wonder whether I should change the names of chords to a numeric system, but the would cock that up as well I do love them though |
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 31, 2020 14:37:58 GMT
Awesome stories John! It’s amazing who we get to know and meet over the years. I kinda did the same as you one time back in high school where we were playing at a church picnic. Our band in high school did a lot of horn related stuff and I picked up my 12 string acoustic and started strumming the intro to Beginnings by Chicago not realizing that I still had the capo on the 2nd fret from a previous song. The bass came in and we started looking at each other like “WTF”? Then as soon as the horns came in I realized that I was the culprit making a mess of the song. Everyone was playing in Amaj7 and I’m strumming away on a Bmaj7. So we had to stop and start over...very embarrassing for me. My current sax player, who was in that high school band, reminds me of that whenever we play that song nowadays. With us it's always keys. Our other guitarist is quite deaf in one ear and the bass player is a little bit deaf. They are always on the opposite side of the stage to me and in spite of me giving them printed set lists with key, they always ask me. Our singer does a lot of stuff in 'G' but also does a few in 'C'. 'C' can sound like 'G', 'B' or 'D' on a noisy stage. I sometimes wonder whether I should change the names of chords to a numeric system, but the would cock that up as well I do love them though Although numeric system is how a lot of guys think about chords |
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Post by johnreardon on Dec 31, 2020 14:43:51 GMT
With us it's always keys. Our other guitarist is quite deaf in one ear and the bass player is a little bit deaf. They are always on the opposite side of the stage to me and in spite of me giving them printed set lists with key, they always ask me. Our singer does a lot of stuff in 'G' but also does a few in 'C'. 'C' can sound like 'G', 'B' or 'D' on a noisy stage. I sometimes wonder whether I should change the names of chords to a numeric system, but the would cock that up as well I do love them though Although numeric system is how a lot of guys think about chords Anything harder than 1,2,3,4 etc would be difficult for them |
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 31, 2020 16:45:44 GMT
Oh boy B is a crappy key for me, I hope you don't have to do too many songs in that key. Although Cb is a lot easier for me read, despite the keys being only different in name.
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Post by zontar on Dec 31, 2020 21:38:40 GMT
Oh boy B is a crappy key for me, I hope you don't have to do too many songs in that key. Although Cb is a lot easier for me read, despite the keys being only different in name. Didn’t you start a thread for that? |
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Post by Die Bullen on Dec 31, 2020 23:22:00 GMT
Oh boy B is a crappy key for me, I hope you don't have to do too many songs in that key. Although Cb is a lot easier for me read, despite the keys being only different in name. Didn’t you start a thread for that? Indeed |
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Post by johnreardon on Jan 1, 2021 9:52:37 GMT
Oh boy B is a crappy key for me, I hope you don't have to do too many songs in that key. Although Cb is a lot easier for me read, despite the keys being only different in name. We don't actually do any, but I remember having a guest singer up and he did something that was in B |
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