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I dive on the keyboard, covering it with<br />
my face-down body, when a few hundred<br />
cups of Coke hit me square in the back.<br />
are beyond help; two of them have some<br />
good parts. One is in fair condition, but<br />
will not tune. (This was back in the days<br />
when there was actually a separate tuning<br />
voltage generated by the power supply).<br />
Much to my dismay, the manufacturer had<br />
not included that circuit diagram on the<br />
schematics.<br />
The lead tech and I are running around<br />
like mad trying to get one keyboard to not<br />
only work, but to take the programs required<br />
for the show and remain in tune. As<br />
this was back in the pre-MIDI days, this involved<br />
a cassette tape player dumping the<br />
note-on/note-off info into the keyboard<br />
through a 1/8-inch cassette deck input. The<br />
road manager gets a music store and an<br />
electronics store to reopen, is getting us<br />
the required repair parts and has rented<br />
an OBXA from the music store so we can<br />
do the show. Murphy is cracking up.<br />
The OBXA arrives, but it won’t take<br />
the programs. A newer version of the<br />
operating system is what I figure to be<br />
the culprit. In front of the road manager<br />
and the storeowner, I grab the<br />
side-cutters and remove the power<br />
supply board, which was hard-wired<br />
in place. It goes into the band’s surviving<br />
keyboard in hopes of fixing the<br />
tuning problem, but now all we have<br />
is one that will take the programs, but<br />
still won’t remain in tune. I will have<br />
to crouch behind the keyboard setup<br />
onstage and hit the Auto-Tune button<br />
every time it drifts out of tune. A plan<br />
is set, and it is show time.<br />
Now the audience (bless their collective<br />
hearts) has tried to be patient<br />
with this two-hour changeover from<br />
one three-piece band to another, but<br />
the 14,000 raging maniacs have grown<br />
A couple minutes into the breakdown,<br />
everything goes silent. I look<br />
out to <strong>FOH</strong> to see why the preprogrammed<br />
music has stopped, only<br />
to see mushroom clouds rising from<br />
both the <strong>FOH</strong> and lighting<br />
positions.<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
quite restless. As a matter of fact, groups<br />
of them are counting down, pointing at<br />
me and yelling “Three, two, one, You ASS-<br />
HOLE!”<br />
I become aware that this is happening<br />
just as the adrenalin wears off, the pain<br />
returns and I realize that the bleeding —<br />
which had stopped — is now back with a<br />
vengeance. Someone gets me one of the<br />
paper cups (usually full of soda) crammed<br />
with crushed ice and water in an effort to<br />
stop me from crying like a bitch. It is now<br />
one hour and 45 minutes past my dental<br />
appointment and that, as they say, is that.<br />
As all this happens, enter the promoter.<br />
He swaggers onstage across the<br />
white shag rug and takes the stage-right<br />
mic. Did I mention the headliners played<br />
on a white shag rug that covered the<br />
whole stage? Well, they did. He begins<br />
by complimenting the audience for their<br />
patience and gets booed big-time for his<br />
effort. The punters don’t want to hear any<br />
of that. He continues, “I know you are all<br />
upset, and I’m sure everyone has something<br />
they want to throw…” Murphy’s<br />
having hysterics.<br />
About this time, several people start<br />
running for the stage-right mic position.<br />
Mostly burley lighting types, as I am too<br />
much in shock to even move, as the promoter<br />
continues, “On the count of one,<br />
two…”<br />
Just as he was about to say three, the<br />
two closest of the guys running toward<br />
him make a tackle that would have made<br />
Redskin Hall-of-Fame linebacker Sam Huff<br />
proud.<br />
It’s way too late. I see the arc of the<br />
rising missiles and slap the lid of the keyboard<br />
closed. Others are running with<br />
guitars as the missiles reach apogee and<br />
start their descent. From the looks of it,<br />
more than a quarter of the cups will land<br />
onstage — and most seem to be aimed directly<br />
at my newly repaired keyboard and<br />
me. I dive on it, covering it with my facedown<br />
body, when a few hundred cups of<br />
Coke hit me square in the back. The oncewhite<br />
shag rug is now a sea of brown. Over<br />
on stage right, there are fists flying as I<br />
raise my head to see the hapless promoter<br />
being beaten within an inch of his life by<br />
at least five individuals. The fire marshal<br />
stops them, arrests the promoter on the<br />
spot and charges him with inciting a riot.<br />
Murphy laughs so hard he falls out of<br />
the truss and disappears into the Cokecovered<br />
stage.<br />
The show goes on. I sit out of sight behind<br />
the keys, playing button pusher and<br />
dealing with the pain in my jaw. Then we<br />
pack up and haul-butt for Salt Lake City.<br />
But that’s another story.<br />
Dave Fletcher<br />
Tampa, Florida<br />
P.S. — I hereby certify and affirm under<br />
penalty of punter-torture that the<br />
aforementioned is true and accurate in all<br />
respects.<br />
Recently, I went to see the band when<br />
they played in town. As I was being met<br />
at the backstage entrance by the Denver<br />
lead tech, now stage-manager, he was relating<br />
this story to one of the new guitar<br />
techs, who then asked me if it was true.<br />
I showed him the two still-missing teeth<br />
and the gold crown that covers the remains<br />
of number three. I’m not sure he<br />
believed it even then. Now the rest of the<br />
world knows why I would rather not go to<br />
Denver or relive that night ever again….<br />
2007 OCTOBER<br />
37
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