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I thoroughly enjoyed the various stories of wedding gigs posted here last week. Since our nation is about to turn a year older and many of us are preparing to perform for the community fireworks extravaganza, I wonder if any of you have great stories to share about past July 4th mishaps. Outdoor concerts are musical comedy waiting to be unleashed. Wind, fire, darkness, drunkenness, and fervent patriotism don't mix too well. So, let's here about your experiences!

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Eric B wrote: So, let's here about your experiences!

A few years ago, I played a July 4th concert in a small town in Alabama. The entire town was gathered at the holy church of Alabama - the town football stadium. The audience was seated in the stands and there was a stage set up in the middle of the field. Various bands played throughout the afternoon and early evening. *WE* were supposed to play before, *during*, and after the fireworks.

All went well until the fireworks started. It seems that the fireworks folk knew that the fans would be in the stands, but were not completely clear about who would be ON the field during the fireworks.

"incoming!"

There is safety in numbers, and when your quintet is playing patriotic music just before the fireworks, and have been told to set up on the city park basketball court, it's somewhat challenging to convince the pick-up B-Ball crowd to switch from full-court to half court mode -- especially since there are AT LEAST twice as many of them currently on the court as a quintet, with other "quintet-sized" teams waiting off-court to take their turn at the winners .....

We shoulda tried one end of the tennis court -- only 2 players to tick off ... (of course, they are armed!)

Cheers,

tofu wrote:About 15 years ago a really swanky upscale suburban hotel pays my municipal band to travel out of town

I dunno, but that sounds kinda funny.

About a decade ago, I subbed in a very good regional orchestra for their 4th of July performance. I was playing bass trombone.

Everything went great until the end, when we played the Stars and Stripes Forever. It had been a very calm evening, but at that point the wind started blowing. We had clothespins, but because it had been calm until this point, we had just put a couple at the top of the page as a precaution. Well, as the wind blew from behind us, it flipped the music, still attached, over the stand. I quickly tossed my wallet at the bottom of the music, and was fine. Of course, it was easy for me to lay out, as this particular orchestration had the trombones in unison throughout. The tuba player, however, had the same issue with his music, and didn't have the same luxury as I did. Instead, as his music flipped over, he decided to play from memory. Interestingly, this particular orchestral transcription is pitched in G (instead of the original band key of Ab).... so, although he had played the tune a zillion times, he now had to transpose as well. He'd do great for awhile, and then end up in the band key... stop, flip his music, find his place and start playing again... the wind would blow, and the whole process would start again. In retrospect, I should have assisted him in some way, but the whole thing was so surreal, and so humorous, I just played my part and enjoyed the show. After the third or fourth disasterous attempt at performing it by ear, the tuba player finally gave in, put his tuba down, properly attached his music, and then picked up his tuba again. The next note he played, his tuning slide fell out of his horn. That was it for me... Luckily, the trombone bell partially covered my face, and the part was in unison, because I was laughing so hard I couldn't get another note out.

Several years ago the now-defunct muni band that I played with decided to start a tradition of doing an INDOOR July THIRD concert in an old local theater. This was mostly a fantastic idea because we were not dealing with rain, wind, small stages, etc. nor competing with other July 4th events. This particular tradition lasted several years and turned into an amazing money maker for the band.

Anyway...

We were doing 1812 on the program, and during the dress-rehearsal we were told that we would have recorded canons. The gentleman who was running this digital cannonade was not able to be at the dress rehearsal but was, apparently, quite experienced with this sort of thing. We get to the gig, and all goes swimmingly for the first 1.5 hours--the crowd is enjoying themselves, the band sounds good, and we are all loving the fact that we aren't dealing with heat, humidity, and clothespins. So, we finally get to 1812. I fake my way through the runs well enough, and the band gets to the last blow with very few casualties. Then the canons start. Our stage manager neglected to tell the band (and specifically the tuba section which was up on 3ft risers in the back) that the speakers for the sampled Howitzers were going to be sitting right underneath our risers. Pretty much everything you can imagine happening in this situation did happen. I, personally, about swallowed my mouthpiece; the band members that managed to keep the horns on their faces; stumbled through next 4-5 bars; and the conductor suddenly found himself about to fall off the podium and stage. True professionals that we were, we managed to get things back together after about the third "shell" and finish in rousing, FFFFFFFFF muni band style.

You can imagine the conversations at the post-gig beer and pizza hang. In subsequent years, we always checked to make sure that the speakers were placed in front of the band.

Kyle

Well, last night our community orchestra played the fireworks show. The rain started when we were just setting up on the patio of the big mansion.

Of course the string players weren't happy. The sponsors finally moved us into the hall of the mansion, with conductor in the doorway and the audience outside in the wind and rain.

We were happy: no clothespins, no bug spray, no soggy pages.

Bob1062 wrote:

Barney wrote:the Stars and Stripes Forever.... Interestingly, this particular orchestral transcription is pitched in G (instead of the original band key of Ab)....

I've played that; frankly I think it's a crime against humanity.... brass players... musicians.... eh someone...

Try it sometime in reverse... after playing the orchestral version for 20 years, play the band version on your CC... and in the "Be kind to your web-footed friends" trio try not to step all over yourself while bringing out the "Boom-dah-dah-dah" tuba break as loud as you can...

I had an hour and a half long concert underneath rock and roll stage lighting (leftover from the previous act) on the banks of the Red River. Firework mortars were blasting off about 50 yards from us while smoke filled the low canopy we were under. I felt like I was at a Deep Purple concert. When it was all over, my gig bag was filled with soot.

I have two stories involving fireworks: one at a bowl game and one on the 4th of July.

When I was a sophomore in high school, the Tahlequah High School marching band competed at the Holiday Bowl. We didn't win our competition, but all of the competing bands had the "wonderful" opportunity to do the block mass band stand still deal at half time before the U of Iowa and U of Wyoming bands took the field. At that time our school only had Tupperware sousaphones, so our directed borrowed some silver sousies from Tulsa Union High School. The theme for the music that night was "Beach Party USA" and we played a bunch of cheesy bleacher trash like "Wipeout". We were clothed in matching t-shirts and JAMS shorts of our choice (puke). We were freezing half to death. I had no idea how cold it gets at night in San Diego in December. Following our 10 minutes of noise, they had a big fireworks show. My section dismounted our instruments and enjoyed the show. I could feel spent shell fragments raining down on us; it was like gun powder in texture. Once they turned the stadium lights back on, I could see clearly the nitrates in the fireworks had reacted with the silver on our sousaphones (silver nitrate) and left buckshot-like spots all over our bells. I never did hear how the conversation went when our band director had to return the instruments to the Tulsa group.

The other story occured a few years ago. First Baptist Church Texarkana always puts on a great firework show, with several concerts before hand. They always assemble an orchestra with musicians from their church, Texarkana, and strings from the Shreveport, LA Symphony. Two funny things happened that night. The wind started blowing fairly hard. I had a boom mic over my tuba bell. They had strung red, white and blue balloons together above the orchestra. The wind kept blowing the balloons into the boom mic which kept crashing into my bell. So, I managed to perform half the concert with on hand on my tuba, one hand on the mic stand and lots of prayer each time I had to turn my music. The next mishap is they placed the shells way too close to the stage. We closed the concert with Stars and Stripes Forever and the fireworks began at the break strain. Following the stinger, they everything went to black at which time I could see flaming shreds of firework paper floating down upon us. One landed right on the conductors stand. Unfortunately, the conductor was able to put out the fire. It would have made for a funnier story if his scores would have gone down in a blaze of glory. Fortunately for me, I was playing a lacquer tuba this time too!

Advice: If there is a thunderstorm on top of the assembled masses, don't wait until the band has schlepped all the equipment, set it up, and sat down to play, before canceling the gig and sending them home.

We've been canceled because of lightning twice in the last 7 years, and both times we had to endure significant risk.

And never slide a chair on an elevated stage. Trust me on that one.

Rick "who has faced more severe weather on July 4 in Virginia than in decades of living in Texas Tornado Alley" Denney

We play outdoors on 4 July, sheltered only by the overhang at the entrance to the basketball palace (which makes a passable band shell). The audience is on lawn chairs.

Only once in the past 10 years have we actually been interrupted by the thunderstorms that march across the Deep South. With plenty of warning from radar, everyone repaired to the inside of the arena and we waited for 20 minutes.

And then...back to the music.

Now...we've been RAINED on more than once - but we don't stop for rain. Nur der Donner und das Blitzen.

As for elevated stages....for once, the low brass is happy to have percussion behind us. If you've seen ONE Wenger Sousaphone chair go over the back (fully loaded), you've seen more than you need to.