As the title suggests, I want to read about your most memorable moments on stage. Things that were improvised, things you did to win over a tough crowd...anything that created a standout performance.

I played bass in a thrash/death/groove thrash (we just called ourselves metal) band called Chemical Holocaust in the early '90s. The two guitarists and I (I played bass) shared vocal duties...it depended on who wrote the lyrics for which song.

I related a story about one of the worst nights we ever had in the "embarrassing mistakes on stage" thread...and it was bad, but three weeks later, at the same venue, we had one of our best nights. That night the crowd was really into what we were playing and our playing was just about the best it could have been. About five songs into our setlist we got to the song I had butchered three weeks earlier (one of "my" songs) and we cut into it perfectly...played it perfectly. The crowd response was really strong...so when it got time for the solos, I could contain myself no longer. The excitement of the crowd had affected me. I turned the knobs down on my bass, set it down on the stage...and dove into the crowd. Then I got into the pit and moshed for my own band! It was a rush. I got out of the pit just to look at my own band (who had extended their solos in my absence) and one of my guitarists is looking back at me mouthing "F*CK YEAH!" over and over. Then I got back on stage, finished the song and went on to have one of the best gigs I've ever played.

Yeah, i always thought it would be quite kickass if at a thrash/groove concert the band members would just go down in the pit and mosh or something.

anyway, a memorable moment for me would be when we were playing The Green Manalishi by Priest and i put the guitar on my shoulder over my head and played the melodic riff at the end, and i had only practised the move once or twice before. also, that gig generally went good, even though our drummer's monitors sucked big time and couldn't hear anything aside from himself most of the time, so those whole 45 minutes went quite good given the conditions.

Let me do this by band:

Burning Shadows
We had scored the single opening slot on the Virginia show of the PaganFest North America II tour a few years ago. Apparently, though, the promoter didn't tell the tour manager we would be playing. They decided to let us do it on the condition that we played through the touring bands' gear. Between that and the sound guy that night, we sounded fantastic. Our drummer had decided at that show to engage the audience a bit: standing up to direct the headbanging, starting claps and fists in the air, etc. It really helped get the crowd into our songs. When we closed with "Valhalla" Blind Guardian people went nuts with it! Great show!

Division
I'm relatively new to the band, so I'm sure the other guys have better stories. We absolutely crushed one show recently. Everything just seemed to fall into place. We played extremely tightly. I guess the crowd noticed, too, because when we finished, they wanted high fives and picks. That was a first for me. Side note: I don't really like the picks I've been using, but I have a million of these Division ones, so the quicker I can be rid of them, the quicker I can get some better picks.

Recently Vacated Graves: True Zombie Metal
This one is a tie.
1) We were on our DIY tour and playing up in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. When we rolled into town, we saw they had plastered the whole town with our flyers. Tons of people came out to the show. We played our usual 30 minute set. They demanded an encore. Since our drummer is a CD player (MP3 player these days), we played half our set over again, and they went even more nuts!
2) We were playing another show in North Carolina in a living room at a house. The crowd didn't stop moshing the entire time. My guess it was the alcohol involved. At one point, a guy was thrown into a wall and broke through the drywall, leaving a person-shaped hole in it. After the show he got us to sign one of the drywall chunks.

Upon rereading this, it's obviously the crowd that makes for a good show. You have to engage them. You can't just stand there and play. If the conditions are right, they will return the energy back to the stage.

Written by NyarlathoTim on 25.05.2011 at 20:20


Upon rereading this, it's obviously the crowd that makes for a good show. You have to engage them. You can't just stand there and play. If the conditions are right, they will return the energy back to the stage.

That's what I always found too. The energy exchange between the band and the crowd is what makes the show. I would never have jumped into a crowd during a performance if it hadn't been for the response that the crowd was already giving us. It's like you said just standing there usually doesn't send out the energy. After I did what I did, the response was huge. It spawned the biggest circle pits I'd seen (up till that time) at one of our gigs.

@Valentin B...how did the crowd react to your over-the-shoulder riffing?

Written by Ghostdancer on 25.05.2011 at 20:52

@Valentin B...how did the crowd react to your over-the-shoulder riffing?

pretty good. it was only something like 30 people, most were family and friends who weren't all into metal, so no, no wall of death was formed.

Written by Valentin B on 25.05.2011 at 22:52

Written by Ghostdancer on 25.05.2011 at 20:52

@Valentin B...how did the crowd react to your over-the-shoulder riffing?

pretty good. it was only something like 30 people, most were family and friends who weren't all into metal, so no, no wall of death was formed.

Most of our gigs were that way too. Usually we played parties at the house where we rehearsed. We played other little dives where the stage was floor level or just slightly higher...and one time we played on a flatbed semi trailer at a farm where one of our friends lived.

These gigs we played at this other place were nice because the stage was actually a decent height and there were larger crowds. Everytime we played we were the opening act and there were always four or five bands. Most of the crowd came to see some band from Juarez. It's too bad things didn't last. By the end of that year (1992) the band was dead and that particular venue was shut down by the fire marshal. lol That band was together for four years and was probably the best band I've ever been in. It sucks that it ended, but I did end up with some pretty decent memories.