Did you ever whilst attending a gig take home a memento of that night? Did you catch a broken drumstick as the drummer threw it into the audience in disgust?
Maybe you caught one of Morrissey’s gladioli.
Maybe you have some record company freebie.
Mine since you ask is a pair of Gong boots given to me by a friend who house sat for Mother Gong back in the eighties.
Share them here.
Musical mementos
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I have a a Dave Mattacks drumstick, monogrammed no less, unbroken but certainly battered into submission. I think he replaces them nightly, that hard does he thump.
I too have drumsticks, from Sean “The Cannon” Shannon from a Pat Travers gig, significantly battered, and some PT guitar picks. There were handed to the then girlfriend who suitably nonplussed. I also have Bernie Marsden guitar pics – he handed me one at the end of the gig and then gave me another whilst I was buying some of his CDs. Pride of place is a Dweezil Zappa card that he autographed at the end of a gig.
Not exactly from a gig, but the meet and greet at Tower Records beforehand…… I have a B.B. King guitar badge and a pick. I guess he gave out millions though. I did shake his hand though, which being the legend he was, is more than good enough for me.
A bit of John Otway’s shirt. A Yesshows ’77 tour programme signed by everyone except Jon Anderson. A bit of green plastic which fell off a light at a Manfred Mann’s earth Band concert in 1976. (If anyone has a more pitiful souvenir, I’ll be impressed.)
I have one single purple confetti (confetto?) from the last Prince gig I attended (2015?)
Impressed?
Mine’s Prince related too. Some pretend dollar bills and plastic flowers which fell from the heavens (NEC rafters) during Lovesexy 88.
Oh, and an Allan Holdsworth pick.
Just one confetto?
Give it to me!
We have a winner!
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening, me!
(Confetto) Confetto. (Confetto) Confetto. Confetto Figaro magnifico-oh-oh-oh
I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me
(He’s just a poor boy, from a poor family)
Spare him his life from this monstrosity!
I have some gold confetti from one of Prince/Symbol/TAFKAP’s 1995 shows, featuring a setlist heavy on – you guessed it – the as-yet-unreleased ‘Gold Experience’. He played none of the hits, but it was one of the best shows of his I’ve been to.
Rick Neilson out of Cheap Trick must have thrown out a couple of hundred picks when I saw them last year in Glasgow. Assuming he does this at every show and he’s been doing the same for some time, there will be a few tens of thousands of lucky catchers out there. I never got one.
I have one, from the 1985 gig at Nottingham when they supported Motley Crue. Yep, he dished dozens out, all over the floor.
My mate got me an “I survived Donington” press kit thing when he DJ’d backstage at the 1987 festival. It was Phonogram thing, they had 3 acts on. Some plastic binoculars, a sticker and a rather fine baseball cap. Probably worth a fortune now. Shame they’re long gone…
(Have just checked and there is one on ebay! £30 to you, chief…)
Your post reminded me I have a press kit from Trick’s induction into the Guitar Center’s “Rock Walk” on Sunset Boulevard in LA. They do the whole hands in wet concrete thing, and they are memorialized just below Queen and Cream, but above the Smashing Pumpkins.
The original band were there, and there were speeches and everything. It was all over in less than 15 minutes and grabbed the press kit at the end. According to Google it was Oct 2nd 1998.
I have half a Hughie Flint drumstick somewhere… presumably one of the Bash Street Kids broke it, right readers?
I have 12″ square poster featuring a sepia photo from the cover of the Hunky Dory LP thrown out by David Bowie at the concert in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on 21st April 1972. So there.
I’ve got a Rick Allen drumstick from the days when the Def Leppard tubthumper used to have two arms, so there’s a 50/50 chance it was once played by an arm that no longer exists.
I’ve also got a Spurs scarf that was signed by Dave Murray, when Iron Maiden did an in-store signing at Ilford’s Penny Farthing Records and I went along on the way to the match.
I shouldn’t have laughed at your 50/50 comment. I just shouldn’t… but I did.
I’m now ashamed to have once said to my mates, on hearing a track from Hysteria, “Do you realise, the average member of this band has 1.8 arms?”.
Fair play to Mr Allen, he must have cojones like watermelons for doing what he did in the first place, post accident, let alone continuing it all these years.
The average member of Oasis had 1.6 eyebrows. After Bonehead left.
In the days when they were still Tyrannosaurus Rex I sat cross-legged on the floor along with another hundred or so hippies watching them play their songs of elfin fun. Marc took off his fabulous green velvet scarf at one point and laid it in front of him. He left it on the stage for me (well I got there first) and it was my most treasured possession for several years.
Then some robbing thieving hippy bastard nicked it from me…. that’s when the music died my friends, right then.
Hey… property is, like, theft, maaan.
Unless the property was mine which really it wasn’t but really it was cos Marc “gave” it to me and anyways I bagsied it first. All together now
I drove my Chevy to to the levee
Then some robbing thieving hippy bastard…
More drumsticks. Rick Buckler, The Jam, Sheffield Top Rank 1978. Still got it and occasionally use it to hit the electronic drum kit at home. Unfortunately it has no ‘Billy’s Boots’ aptitude to turn my drumming into anything you’d want to listen or play along to.
Todd Rundgren’s plectrum from his second night at the New Victoria, 1976 – it was a Manny’s Heavy (I assume from the musical instrument shop in New York) and the only one he threw that night, unlike years later at the Forum where he showered us with them.
To date, the only souvenir I’ve picked up at a gig but I live in hope
Naught but a humble guitar pick, dropped by Kim Richey at The Great Northern Railway in Hornsey.
Not much other than some setlists and posters lifted from doors post-show. I did once ask a roadie for the set list from a music stand after a The Gilmore gig and he handed over the few sheets of paper. They turned out to be her crib sheets as well as the set list – scribbled lyric prompts, who was to leave or join the stage and when and so on. I might have felt guilty if it hadn’t been the last of a short string of Christmas gigs, so it’s not like she would have needed them the following night or anything.
Somewhere in the warehouse, I’ve got the Electronic Press Kit for The Beatles Love album. I exchanged the “Love” wristband for the album and EPK on the way out. Sometimes I wish I’d kept the wristband.
When I used to do work for EMI, the woman I dealt with had an office crammed with every freebie every given including some really great posters. The funniest one was a Subbuteo sized stadium with Kiss on stage.
I used to have a life sized Elvis Costello from a record shop display…This Year’s Model with him behind the camera. The FPO made me sling it years ago.
I have some freebies that were on the seats at a Who Christmas show at the Hammersmith Odeon around 1976..mask, blower that sort of thing.
I found some old posters recently that I had completely forgotten about…a fabulous Cortinas one from Bristol 1978/9 vintage which is bloody huge!
Usually the expression “FPO” makes me cringe, but in this case I’m thinking the cap fits…
Quite a useful security device… no worse than those cardboard policemen you see in some shops.
A brown wolly hat borrowed from me by Eddi Reader when she cut a gash in her head on backstage scaffolding en route to the stage at Warwick uni. She wore it for the whole of her set. When Jurrasic Folk Singer Park come calling, I can reconstruct her from DNA.
An old Citroen car seat with a stain caused by a melted Mars Bar. I was giving Boo Hewerdine a lift home after a gig and he fell asleep half-way through enjoying his confectionary choice.
I have a drumstick from The Pirates’ Frank Farley (severely battered) and (prize possession) a harmonica used by Lee Brilleaux.
Anyone got Sir George Ivan’s?
Pawwww!!
Keep that item in one of those sealable freezer bags.
Bows in respect to the Brilleaux harmonica
Most of the gigs I’m seeing these days are small enough that I’m buying CDs from the artists themselves at a merch table. Some of them (Austin Lucas, Case Hardin, Bob Collum) are signed. Does that count?
I have treasured for years the plastic flagon of piss I managed to catch, unburst, when Bruce Dickinson booted it back into the audience. It sits on our mantelpiece to this day.
I have several hand-crafted-by-the-artist CDs in my collection. From various performers at Daylight Music shows.
And a yellow plectrum (printed with a Rank Bajin emblem, almost worn away from the force of his twanging and strumming) used by El Hombre Malo at a recent Primevals gig.
I have quite a lot of stuff signed to me – White Man by Topper; Malpractice and Stupidity (a long dedication about our schools which were on opposite sides of the same road) by Wilko; a Chuck Berry photo; Gotta Getaway by Henry Cluny; Paul Cook’s setlist from an Edwyn Collins gig signed by everyone including the roadies; a pile of Edwyn and Roddy Frame backstage passes; Walk On The Wild Side signed by Lou Reed; half a dozen Lloyd Cole items; and a stack of books.
Also a John Spencer Blues Explosion drumstick, but my favourite item is a Joe Strummer roach.
Thanks to glamorous rock n roll connections I was invited into Joe’s dressing room after a Mescaleros gig in Brixton. I was standing next to the man himself in a circle with various former members of The Clash and the Pistols enjoying a post-show beer and trying very hard not to be star-struck.
Now, I don’t don’t like smoking dope at all, but Joe was relentlessly skinning up and passing them my way so I had a puff or two and when everyone wandered off I picked up a butt as a keepsake of one of the great nights of my life.
James Dean Bradfield’s G string
(from his guitar)
I’ve got a setlist from a Yes symphonic gig. Also a signed note from Robert Plant following a chat I had with him around some of his inspiration for his ‘Fate of Nations’ album.
I have always made a point of collecting onstage setlists. I have a few framed and sometimes even signed – Patti Smith, Love, Leonard Cohen – but I have a big folder full of them. Some are neatly printed and some are really tatty. The Be Good Tanyas one is on the back of a cornflakes packet. I had a chat with Bob Dylan’s soundman one night requesting a setlist. He politely and reasonably declined, explaining that that they were collected up and counted after each show. Losing one was a sackable offence. Presumably Bob didn’t want his DNA getting in the hands of a Juju man…
I was sold a Fotheringay teeshirt by Ashley Hutchings once.
But, despite all these gew gaws and setlists pride of place goes to the gig flyer I picked up at the Toby Jug in Tolworth on the night of the first ever Spiders From Mars show. See my avatar top left.
I’ve got a poster advertising a Lilac Time gig at, I think (and can’t be bothered to go up and check!) the firkin pub in Bristol, which Stephen Duffy signed and crossed out the ‘Tin Tin’ from the bit that said ‘featuring Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy’ on the poster.
Bjork’s DNA. 1994
She handed me her unfinished vodka and cranberry as she left a Count Indigo gig at Madam Jojos in Soho. She was with Goldie, (not Simon Groom’s pet, the Metalheadz fella).
An old mate swears it was himself that the leftfield Icelandic songstress passed her leftover drink to. I beg to differ.
I gathered up a handful of the yellow confetti printed with the Tennyson poem that was sprayed out to the audience at the thrilling opening of the ‘Ninth Wave’ section of Kate Bush’s already legendary ‘Before The Dawn’ shows. And, of course, I have the lovely memento of the specially designed tickets.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bynjau1IAAA26Ye.jpg
http://www.katebushnews.com/wp-content/uploads/ticket.jpg
Where are those Gong boots, then? You said you’d share them!
Friend of mine asked the late Ted Hawkins for his harmonica after a gig in Dublin (around ’86 or so) It was duly handed over – don’t know if it’s still in his possession.
As for me – only a couple of signed ticket stubs – Steve Earle and most of the Dukes and another by Nils Lofgren.
Two items both courtesy of the same not so careful owner.
A piece of the headstock of a no doubt cheap Fender Strat copy after it had just be violently destroyed by it’s owner and thrown into the raging crowd (I suppose we would now call it the ‘mosh pit’).
Almost exactly a year later, same Hammy Odeon venue but promoting the ‘Rising’ elpee, the guitarist had just finished an epic slide solo and held the slide enticingly before flicking it into a mass of grasping hands. Guess who’s hand it landed in?
Mr Blackmore was a very angry man.
A signed Larry Miller CD…..from the night I famously (I tell eveyone) played slide on his strat with my pint glass during his crowd walk.
3-d glasses from The Kraftwerk shows last year
A copy of a Bernard Sumner biography vandalised by Peter Hook, who has drawn a picture of a willy on Bernard’s forehead.
Hah!
Here is the young man with the knob on his forrrrreheaaaad.
One or two torn t-shirts. Grumble grumble.
Update.
I took some of my wife’s cassettes to recycle yesterday. Putting them in the bin I found a signed Donovan’s Greatest Hits signed by the great man himself DONOVAN.
I brought it home, collectors item (possibly).
Oh will photograph the Gong boots as it looks like we can add photos to the site.