Most amazing place you’ve played

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Lkristians

The NY State Pavilion at the 1964 NY World's Fair. We were 12 years old. We were awful, but we played there! Our parents were in the audience. As a matter of fact, our parents were the audience!

So was my wife. She was four years old and in a stroller. They loved to quote her: "Mommy, tell all of these people to get out of our way!"

Her two biggest gigs were when her marching band played before the world series at Yankee Stadium in 1977 and playing the Atlantic City Auditorium.

Bob

[J. Scott]

Sorry, double post

[J. Scott]

The El Farol in Santa Re New Mexico. Not the biggest place but according to the New York Times " one of the top ten bars in the universe". We always had a ball and got paid pretty good for a bar gig

[birkenweg42]

I’m a hobby photographer living just south of Yosemite National Park. Three years ago I planned to do a full moon photo shoot with a couple of landscape photographer friends when I found this guy sitting in my favorite spot playing his guitar. He had the full view of Half Dome, El Cap, Yosemite Falls, Vernal, and Nevada Fall. I took a few pictures of him that actually turned out better than the full moon shots.
His playing was very good and sure fit the mood.
I never got his name. I would have liked to send him the file.

[rokdog49]

A few years ago in a “battle of the bands” in Dallas

[jpd]

Grand Canyon

[Aspiring]

I have had the good fortune to play on the beach in Maui watching turtles swim and whales in the distance.

[L20A]

The Park City Olympic Park for the 2002 Olympics 10 year Celebration,
in 2012.
We entertained the crowds as they watched the American Ski Team performing their Aerials and other Skiing Events.

There were several Thousand people in attendance.
The backdrop was the beautiful Mountains where the Olympic Training Park is located.
Fortunately for us and our acoustic instruments, this was in the summer.
The Aerial Demonstrations were on a synthetic Hill and they skiers would land in a large Pool of water.

It was a day to remember.

[The Bard Rocks]

I was about to mention playing on the edge of a 1000' cliff at the Grand Canyon south rim, celebrating a close friend's birthday - then I remembered a better one: The Widow Jane Mine in the Hudson Valley. This was a natural cement mine, active before they started using Portland cement. The activity was for a regional event for cavers and we were the entertainment. Imagine a 40' tall room 200' in diameter, backed by a large underground lake. Talk about natural reverb!

[generalliamsayn]

Mine's not 'amazing' but 'amusing':

I had landed a gig for a production of the musical 'HAIR' right before going on a family vacation to Ireland. Took my travel guitar to learn the songs while I was there.

So there I was, on a beautiful day, sitting on Greystone beach outside Dublin learning a song called 'Manchester, England' when it occurred to me that directly across the Irish Sea from us was...Manchester, England.

We had a good laugh at that.

[Mr. Bill]

Armadillo World Headquarters- Austin TX
Liberty Hall- Houston TX
Cains Ballroom- Tulsa OK
Buck Owens Crystal Palace- Bakersfield CA
The Pioneer Inn- Nederland CO
Jays Lounge(& cockpit)- Cankton LA
The Final Exam- Morristown NJ

[negriljerry]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

What’s the most amazing setting you’ve ever played in? Today I had the privilege of playing at The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. If you’ve never been there, you’ve got to go.

1) Grant's Lounge, Macon GA. 1975, w/ my band Butch's Brew (Butch Trucks from the Allman Brothers, me & a few others, along with Joe English who went on to play with Paul & Wings for 5 years a few months later. Yup, got pic.

2) Alabama June Jam 1990. 30K folks, biggie for us in our Byrds band. Jeff Cook from Alabama came to our show in Fort Payne and said "I read that you guys were jive, came to see for myself." I said "OK, see on stage - what Byrds song you wanna play?" He jumped in on Feel A Whole Lot Better and later said "I'm going to bring you guys in on the June Jam!"...which we couldn't take that seriously since it's a huge (charity, no $ but max real exposure) gig but others said that if Jeff said he'd make it happen, count on it. Yup. Our agent was ticked off - we had to travel and play and he got no money...boo hoo.

3) On top of an acropolis in Athens, 1989. "acropolis" is a generic name there for a hill peak, it wasn't THE Acropolis with the Parthenon. But it was a way cool place to play.

4) USS Guam & USS Portland, out in the Atlantic off the coast of west Africa (Sierra Leone / Liberia etc). Never had a more enthusiastic crowd, ever. They cheer the beginning of every song. One sailor broke me by saying "You guys are great Americans!" Us? Dude, you're the one serving by sweating out here...I choked up. Slept on the Guam, quite well. Still have the hat and T shirt.

5) NAMM Nashville 1996. My friends Kim and David who make the Zendrum asked me to come up because they needed a guitar player to jam...with their partner Future Man Wooten and Victor Wooten, of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Um, yeah, I drove up from Atlanta, very happily. Even sang a couple tunes. Played my '65 Gibson ES-335 thru a Deluxe Reverb. To this day I say to myself "I called a couple tunes to the Wooten Brothers??"

6) Macon GA, Grand Opera House, 1985 (?), Allman Brothers. My then-wife and I met ol' pal Butchie & followed his limo to the gig, because I had my ax in my trunk...just in case. Dickey, who knew me too well, asked if I had a guitar...of course. Did I know Southbound and did I want to jam on the encore? Duh. Didn't actually know Southbound, ran out to the car to work up the lickety split run at the end and was ready to go. Best memory: Dickey, Warren Haynes, Allen Woody, Jack Pearson (I think?) and me stage surfing at the edge, shoulder to shoulder, all doing one of Dickey's signature repeat licks.

7) This past Xmas at our Gilmer County animal shelter, with Marine Corps Santa and Mrs. Claus, doing my acoustic gig for tips (which all went to the shelter). Much opp to do my few kid-type songs for the young 'uns ("The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things...")

8) My 23th birthday, 1974. Band: Jam Factory, a 90% original mutant-funk group originally from Syracuse (Joe English on drums) but by then we had relocated to Daytona...but ran back to NY for gigs that year. Opened for Earth Wind and Fire at Oswego State U. Some of the other guys in the band tripped after our set and our bass player lost his mind when EWF's bass guy went flying up in the air on his harness. That was Gig One, then we hightailed it east toward the Adirondaks to a ski lodge where my guitar brother's band was playing, to do a set and crash there on the floor. They gave me a cake...I grabbed a huge handful and smashed it in my face, shouting in caveman voice "I EAT IT LIKE THIS!!!" My guitar brother back then was Pete Heitzman, who's still doing it along with soulmate Karen Savoca - check 'em out!

9) Someplace on Viaques Island off Puerto Rico, 1996. Military tour, definitely not USO (tiny gigs, scary pay). Sailors took us out after our gig, first to their favorite bar where they did their best to get us hammers, then to the legendary Phosphorescent Bay. I jumped in first and watched the water glow as it ran down me, then flopped right in. Jumped back up and looked on shore and the other band guys were all totally slack jawed...and the air all around me was glowing bright green from all the phosphor-stuff I'd stirred up.

10) A club called Muddy Waters in New Orleans, 1992. Got schooled on the proper way to eat crawdads, very important.

11) Someplace in Aspen CO, 1974. Our band (Jam Factory) was ready to split up due to lots of jive-isms but that 2 week stint made it impossible - we were on fire and just had a ball, so had to stay together for quite a while longer. A young pesky guitarist showed up, Jerry Groom, claimed to be Duane Allman's protege and wanted to jam. He seemed way too mosquito-ish to be someone Duane (who I never met, he and Berry were before my time in Macon) would hang with. The last night, we're all mildly buzzed on 'shrooms and figured why not? So we get him up on stage for the last set and...oops, he wasn't BS'ing. Holy moly this guy could play slide, which I was weak at back then - he sounded like Duane X3. Back home on the ABB farm Butchie told me "Yeah, he used to follow the band and pester Duane to give him lessons, finally Duane felt sorry for him and actually took him under his wing." Lesson: Can't judge a book by looking at the cover.

12) For years I played with a mostly original band called Tall Dogs, our keyboard guy Mike Ewbank was the songwriter. So many great (and sometimes miserable) gigs but I especially remember a triumphant homecoming (for me & trombone player Earl Ford) in Syracuse NY where we played at The Firebarn, which was just that - the old firehouse. The place was always packed and after every single song they hurt our ears cheering. It was awesome.

13) What wasn't awesome was our gig at a trendy club called Trax in Manhattan. Going in with no record deal and no road manager, we were primo targets for abuse by the surly staff, especially the sound guy. I politely asked for mics on the electric trombone player's amp ("Just for a bit of high end") and on the smallish bass drum ("Just to add some more bottom") and he snarled "We don't mic instruments, get it?" and then he went around the room ranting about how he, a truly talented musician, had to run sound for these "ignorant rednecks from Georgia", never mind that only one of us was originally from GA. We all thought about drawing straws to see who kicked his butt, but...nah.

BUT - as we were driving in to town the night before, about 10 min away from the tunnel into Manhattan, we heard on the radio that the lights were out in almost all of the borough. New York looks really ugly at night with the lights out. We checked into the legendary Chelsea Hotel and they gave us each a candle and explained that the nice old blind lady would lead us to our rooms. Ultra live acoustics with the marble everything - floors, walls, ceiling - so I just had to do spooky faux theramin type sounds.

The next day I ran into a cool young lady who happened to play bass in a punk band and she said "Have you checked out the roof?" No, but I did right away...WOW. A maze of multi levels, with gardens, goats and many nekkid peoples. Fun was had. The power came on later that day so we got the gig in, which was a snoozer - the crowd ignored us, instead watching the entrance to see which celebs might wander in.

14) Italy, 1989 (with Michael Clarke's Byrds) and 1996 (with a band on a Department of Defense Overseas Shows tour). DOD Overseas Shows was the opposite of USO, we were barely-paid volunteers who were given actual honorary rank and we stayed on base when possible. My Italian on this 2nd trip was good enough that in Sicily I was able to rent a little Spanish Seat car for $30 for the day at the tiny kiosk where Italian only was spoken. We all went up to Taormina, an amazing touristy town on the coast.

There's a lot more of course...

[Ryan51]

One that comes to mind is playing the original Bethel, NY Woodstock site in 1994. Many original Woodstock acts were there. Richie Havens, Country Joe McDonald, Canned Heat, Melanie plus Soul Asylum (w/Winona Ryder), Eddie Brigati, and Sid Bernstein.

Although I can't be seen I am on the stage behind Havens here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CgDbcddM5Y

[Nymuso]

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1Q...0Sz7K1B4OJwFfx

This place was pretty nice.

[Rudy4]

The most amazing place I've played?

The all granite rest area 20 miles outside of town on the interstate. It sounded like I was playing inside the Taj Mahal. Really.

The second most amazing was Gus's Bar (town name withheld) where all of the customers had a can of beer in each of their blue jean back pockets and one in hand (the other hand was busy holding a cigarette...) and ALL of them became terribly irate if we went more that two songs without playing a Lynyrd Skynyrd selection. We only knew Gimmie Three Steps, Sweet Home Alabama, and a stumbling rendition of Free Bird. That kept them happy, though. The amazing part was getting home in one piece.