By 
by Mark McCausland
I recently got asked what the weirdest gig I ever played was. I couldn’t think of anything there on the spot. There have been too many weird gigs. Like that time someone took a heart attack in the front row in the middle of the show. We got instructed to keep playing and act normal, while the unlucky soul got wheeled out on a stretcher. (Don’t worry, they survived… It turned out it wasn’t a heart attack at all; they just had a bad reaction to the copious amounts of alcohol consumed.)
Or the time I showed up to open for Pete Doherty. Everyone was there, his band, the crew, the audience.
Everyone except Pete.
Word finally arrived that he wouldn’t be showing up as he got attacked by a hedgehog (sounds like BS but it actually turned out to be true – it was a vicious attack that left his arm badly injured).
Speaking of injured arms, there was that other time, probably 25 years ago. Our band, The Basement, got a last minute call from Tim Wheeler of Ash to open for them in a secret London pub. We loaded the van and hit the road from Liverpool. The gig actually went great. It was peak Ash fame, so to catch them doing an acoustic show in a room of 100 people was a gift.
It was after the gig that things went pear-shaped. Lots of drink had been consumed by this stage. The vibe was high. Our singer, John, decided it would be a great idea to perform his party piece, which was opening a bottle of wine using nothing but a yellow pages. Not sure where he learned this trick, or if he just made it up there on the spot. But he was confident. He took bets from everyone at the table.
He placed the yellow pages against the brick wall and the idea was if he bashed the bottle of wine bottom first against it, the book would absorb the impact and the cork would pop out like a bullet with the pressure. Simple physics. It didn’t quite work like that… The bottle smashed with the full force of all his might behind it, and ripped his arm to shreds. The party atmosphere in the room instantly turned to horror and gore, people fled in fright, someone puked at the sight of the carnage. Pandemonium.
We huddled him into the van and drove around looking for a hospital. This is before sat nav or smartphones in a town we didn’t know. He was beginning to pass out, blood gushing from his gashing wound. The back of the van was looking like a slaughter house or a scene from texas chainsaw massacre. We finally found a hospital, where we all spent the night. They saved the arm, but there was no more gigs for a while.
There is also that other time (also in London) where the Kings Of Leon opened the show for us.
Again, we were too drunk to be playing, and in true punk fashion we had a fist fight on stage, which continued into the dressing room where the Kings Of Leon thought this was the best thing they’d ever seen.
We all kissed and made up and spent the entire night partying back at the Columbia Hotel. The Kings said they’d had the night of their lives and would happily open for us any time. They haven’t returned my calls since.
