My pal Jason Heath at doublebassblog.org is having a contest for the best (worst?) gig disaster story. While I guess I have published more than my fair share already in Real Men Don't Rehearse, here is one that didn't make it into the book. enjoy . . . cringe . . . :-) – jl
The Battle on the Ice
I started “gigging” in Boston at the tender age of nineteen and a half. Back then there was just enough freelance work in town to support three bass players, and one of them, none other than now Maestro Richard Fletcher, got an unexpected offer to take a conducting class in New York City. So the contractor needed someone quick, called my teacher, the phone rang, and the rest is history, as told in Real Men Don’t Rehearse. ’Tis the stuff breaks are made of.
Anyway, going so abruptly from student to professional mode, I did not own a car the first three years I was freelancing in Boston. Amazingly, I pulled this off… there was plenty of public transportation, and for out-of-town gigs, I just bummed rides from anyone and everyone. Most folks were happy to have someone willing to pay half the gas.
Anyway, one disgustingly cold February night, I was scheduled to play the Brahms Requiem with some choral society up in Concord, New Hampshire. The conductor lived in Lexington, Massachusetts. So to get to the gig, I talked somebody into giving me a ride with my bass out to Lexington, where I was to have dinner with this conductor and her family, and then hop a ride with her up to the gig, which was two hours north. Free food, free ride . . beautiful.
So I arrived at this beautifully appointed Lexington home. I left my bass in the hallway, and their teenage daughter dutifully picked up my suit carrier (which contained both my tuxedo and my black dress shoes), and hung it up in the closet. (This is where you start hearing the low strings tremulo-ing in the back.)
So we have a lovely dinner, and then we realize we’re very much behind in the schedule, as we have to make a two-hour drive in the freezing cold to get up to Concord New Hampshire for this gig at eight o’clock.
So were driving up route 93, happy as clams, when it suddenly dawns on me that, while I certainly packed my bass in this woman’s station wagon, my tuxedo and my dress shoes are still happily hanging in a nice warm closet in Lexington. There was no turning back, we had been in the car an hour or more.
Now this may be hard for your younger readers to comprehend, but this all happened way back when, before the advent of cellphone technology.
So absolutely no “problem solving” could occur until we got to the gig. Bear in mind, the outfit I was wearing was my then standard casual wardrobe . . . And it was not exactly what you might call “sartorially resplendent.” I think I was wearing a ripped pair of blue jeans, a yellow polo shirt and a faded gray sweatshirt. oh– and Adidas sneakers– you know, bright white with black stripes. Not exactly formal attire.
Well, we arrive in Concord New Hampshire with very little time to spare. After a quick discussion, one of the local ladies in the chorus called her husband, and he brought down to the gig a dark blue, broad pinstripe, suit. There’s maybe 10 minutes till downbeat. It was a bit of a snug fit all around, and the lapels were so wide you could have driven a truck over them. But it was better than nothing. And I had to do SOMETHING, as I was the only bass in the orchestra.
One small problem though,… this guy didn’t have a spare pair of dress shoes. Well as luck would have it, in this concert’s configuration, it was in a cinderblock high school auditorium. The orchestra was down in the pit, with the chorus up on stage. So thankfully my my unshod socked feet were out of view of the audience.
But . . . the floor of this pit, and I will never forget it, was unfinished, plain old, concrete. It being February in mid-New Hampshire, I would estimate the average temperature of that concrete floor to be approximately 38 degrees. And I stood on that ice sheet concrete floor with my slightly damp black socks for that entire gig. Talk about getting cold feet.
I admit, this comes nowhere near Jason’s expressway flaming car story (does any story match that one? I doubt it), but in terms of pure angst, embarrassment, and long-drawn-out inescapable physical suffering while cranking out the notes, it was one of the worst gigs I ever played in my life.
How we suffer for our art.
©Justin Locke
