Unexpected concert experiences anyone?

Has anyone ever been to a show that turned out completely differently as expected? For the better or for the worse. These are the stories I'd like to hear...
Here's mine:

I went to a Kate McDonnell(a folksinger originally from Baltimore who played the emerging artists' showcase at FRFF this year btw) show in NYC the week after Falcon Ridge.
The show was scheduled at a small theater on the Upper West Side which turned out to be located in the same building as a Chinese restaurant. Just one storey up on the 2nd floor. I arrived a bit early but still was a bit surprised not to catch a�glimpse of anyone. Almost. A quarter of an hour later some folks turned up who turned out to be friends of Kate's (partly from the US and some from England). So I had to face the fact that I was the *real* audience. How cool is that? (But I felt so sorry for Kate)
I think we were about 10 people. We introduced ourselves, chatted and after that put tables together for a more intimate atmosphere. Facing the 'audience' Kate decided to play rather sitting down than standing up. So we got her a chair and helped her to lower the mike. Then she played a complete show in this sort of house-concert-like atmosphere (with some conversations in between. No need to yell out the requests;-). And listening to her in this oh-so intimate setting NYC ceased to exist.
It was a wonderful show (she even played older stuff I hadn't heard live before).
And I haven't ever been treated as welcome at a concert;-)

r.e.m. playing "shaking through" for the first time in 15 years.

ben folds turning a show into a free-for-all, with a question and answer period, a george michael cover (first time he did "Careless whisper," tho he's done it at plenty of other shows since), and a singalong of "underground." also the first time he did the slow, minor key version of "song for the dumped."

dvn doing an entire set of request-o-rama.

the solo robbie show at jammin' java's grand reopening, where all of efo took the stage for the first time since the maternity leave began.

I've got WAY too many neat concert moments so I'll just chime in with one from over the weekend.� One of my favorite acoustic folkrockgroups, Lowen & Navarro, did a show with an FHDC favorite, Eddie From Ohio, here in Chicago.� The big unexpected thing at the end was that L&N whipped out a novelty song they'd only performed once and pretty much only the fanclub people knew it, it required a female vocal because it was a FUNNY breakup song, so they brought out EFO to sing and Julie did the bitter female part... one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was hyper and wonderful... I'm newly into EFO but wish the longtime fans could have been there to see Julie sing bitter things about a man's... well... "performance" and "endowment" and whatnot... great...

Well, Moxy was something I attendend on a whim, having heard absoluteley nothing...and that was unexpected!

I was injured at a TMBG show once and I waited with ice on my ankle in the coffee shop next door for my friends also at the show to drive me home the Johns came to visit after the show and signed my T-shirt!

I also ended up having a house concert at the suggestion of some internet friends for some Peter Mulvey guy...

Had crap tickets to Paul McCartney and was upgraded when I arrived, for no reason, to center floor row 23!!!!!!!!!!

Yup...I've had a pretty tough time as far as concerts go. (insert sarcasm here)

oh gosh! you really had bad luck as far as concerts are concerned. I really hope you'll have better luck in the future.

I always have this nightmare that a show is cancelled after traveling 3000 miles:(
Never happened until now. Knock on wood:) Once I waited in line for about 2-3 hours only to learn that "the first 15 rows are reserved for the fan club". Go figure...

Talk to Lisa Ogden about EFO cancelling out on Toronto because of the SARS scare, the day before the concert.� She had flown from Vancouver to Toronto for that. :)

Yeah, I was bummed, but the band and I have made up. A well-written, intelligent email does wonders. ;-) And besides...I may get another chance to see them in Toronto if Frucon is the weekend of the 20th this year. *hope, hope, hope*

Good topic.

Seeing an old high school buddy of mine sitting in with the Bosstones at Roseland on piano, and it was Halloween, so he came out as the Phantom of the Opera.

Fireworks during Old Dominion at an EFO show in South Jersey.

American Pie coming up during Dial-A-Song during a free TMBG show in DC.� John Flansburgh gets to lead a crowd of 10,000 swaying people in the chorus.� It was as good for us as it was for him. :)

The DVN "Butt" show in Trenton.� DVN makes much use of a glass window overlooking the street.� Bernie walks off with two lovely ladies walking down the street, the conga line congas right out the door into the street, and�DVN gets mooned.

John Linnell grabs someone's cell phone at Irving Plaza.� ANY John Linnell audience interaction?� Unexpected.

This is why I love live music.

I was at my first (and only) Dar concert at King of Prussia and she was playing something real slow and no one really had any lighters, so what did she tell us to do? We opened up our cell phones, turned them on "backlight on" and swaaaayed to the music. It was awesome.

Something similar happened at my first (and only!) Guster show. It was awesome. Gotta love backlit cells. ;o)

That would have been during Iowa. I think I was at that show (if it was the one this past August). I unscrewed my Mini-Maglite, revealing only the bulb (aka "candle mode") and swayed that back and forth.� That was the most funniest Dar show I have ever seen.� From the kids, ducks, and frog crossing the "line of litigation" on stage to�Dar dancing the Charleston and one of the kids actually mimicking her, and to Dar just spewing more random thoughts than ever, the King of Prussia show was definitely an unexpected treat.

Another unexpected concert experience was seeing Robbie Schaeffer come out and do the girl part to Three Little Words with Da Vinci's Notebook.� Then again, it was alos my first DVN and Robbie solo show, so the whole night was a special delight.

I sort of think that a lot of people over here have some Iowa related�stories to share. Here's mine. It happened in a very small venue in Glasgow about 2 years ago. During Iowa the audience was so shy that the sing along didn't work out at all. Dar stopped singing explaining what it was all about and after some "training" we had a great sing along. (IIRC she started all over twice)

During the most insane LFNY show�I've ever been to -�towards the end of the show -they started to cover each others' songs. Not only did Teddy Goldstein cover Anne Heaton's "Black Notebook" but he imitated her demeanor and her voice while introducing the song. I died at least three times:)

Seeing the good father play piano on stage at a fru concert?

:)

yeah, but that whole weekend was just full of surprises on stage & off.

*sigh* i can't believe it's been 5 years since those shows. :-(

... which also means that my avatar is 5 years old.

Dude, we like need a 5-year "Noho '98" anniversary show or something. Where are those quotelists?

it's on CK's page... here.� but those are just Fr�car Buffalo quotes.�

Two-thirds of the way through the set, Glenn started talking about the Hoboken Memorial Day parade that happened earlier in the evening, and said we should have a parade of our own. So, he comes down from the stage, walks thru the room, and out the back door. And everyone follows! I'd never seen anything like that before and I'm sure the staff at Maxwell's were thinking, what the hell is going on here. (I suppose if the police had noticed a crowd walking up the street, many carrying their drinks, they could have lost their liquor license.) Anyway, so everyone follows Glenn down the street to a small podium that had been set up for the Memorial Day parade where he sang Melody Motel off-mike and off-amp, with the crowd singing along. Then, everyone walked around the block back to Maxwell's singing Goodbye Girl. The staff at Maxwell's let us all back in, and he played a while longer. Very bizarre.

I went to go see Moxy Fr�vous and I spent the day in Noho.� Much to my surprise they were having the Taste of Northampton Festival.� I sat down for lunch and on stage there was a great irish rock� band on stage.

Later I go to the Iron Horse and Low and behold the same Irish Group was opening for Moxy Fr�vous.� They blew me away!� As soon as they were off the stage I ran over and bought "Late as Usual"

one of my favorite concert memories/surprises was my very first DVN concert for shell/care con weekend{when the other kids were in TO at schmoo con} which was a co-bill with robbie solo.

he called mike up for one number, mike -and- eddie up for one, and the madmen up for 'candido', -then- the madmen had -him- do julie's part in 'pull my finger'{for which he donned a skirt} and they ended with robbie, mike, -and- eddie on stage with them for the encore and they all did 'seven bridges road'. which was -amazing-.

DEFINITELY made up for the 4 hour trip getting lost in MD/VA

{plus it made us realize certain adorablenesses ;) }

Luxor. Omg. Still can't believe that really happened. I looked up the setlist on FDC just now and went "Woah."

They opened with That's Any Good, then 2 different Bowie songs in a row! Did Pork Tenderloin for the first time (well, the first time since the cooking show), Poor Napoleon, then Vance Gilbert came out and they did When Jimmy Falls in Love with him, then this reggae version of KOS that they called "The Big Black King of Spain". This segued into a 20-minute long jam with The New Pollution, Fame, Golden Years, and a bunch of other songs. Then Signed, Sealed, Delivered, which I love... with Vance on lead vocals.

I was sitting in back with my jaw in my lap. Woohoo!

*gah*
Until you had mentioned that, I had managed to forget about the dancing pregnant woman with raw pork

*brain melts*

Most of these experiences seem to be positive, so I thought I'd add something negative to the mix.� When I saw Camper Van Beethoven at the TLA in Philadelphia earlier this year, someone sprayed Mace on the stage, and it apparently hit David Lowery right in the eyes.� They were only going to play two songs after that, and the rest of the concert was excellent (CVB was a band I had never expected to see live, after all), but that someone would do that is scary and infuriating.

...Erin McKeown lobbed an orange from the stage (Stage Murray, actually) into the balcony and hit someone who wasn't paying attention. It was the Three Song Circus show with Jian and Andy Stochansky....

....And then seing Dar come out and sing harmony on "Jennifer Falling Down" with the Nields was pretty cool - it made it onto their "Live From Northampton" double-disc album....

hahahah!
Yeah, that thing with erin was hilarious. I'd forgotten about it.
:D

Well, she should have yelled "FRUUUUUUUUIT!!!" like the guys told her to :)

Brian proposed to me last night at the WA9 show minus Pat. That was certainly unexpected.

i'd say.
but i still think that if he really loved you, he would've taken you out for po-tay-toes.

I know I was so hurt, Katie is coming between me and my man.

ON tuesday I wnet to see my friends band A Day Left play a little gig at a local pub, I've been to some before and there is ussually about 50-60 people there..I was going to go see the band and then head home as I was very very tired.� I got there and there were 7 actual audience members without the other bands and A dAy Lefts publicist and we had all gone to see the local band (A Day Left) who were only the openers for the other 2 bands on, so instead of skipping out and going to bed or to this free hip hop thing accross town, I stayed and watched the other two bands who were actually quite good little punk bands and i had a good time and missed the hip hop was in bed at 1am not 11pm and it all went well.� The othewr two bands are called BRAT and DUFFUS (pronounced doofus) by the way...if anyone was interested in any o that....I found The Darkness really dissapointing though I liked their chants

Give me a "D"

"D"

Give me an arkness

"arkness"