The Craziest Show I've Played

This is a story about the craziest show the band has ever played, and let me tell you, it was a wild night.

Okay, so this has been a few years ago. We were playing under the name “Whitetail Junction,” and it was a time when Craigslist was only partially creepy (my first clue). I would look through the website searching for shows for us to play, and I found a post for an Independence Day party needing live music. Score!

So, we got into contact with the lister, and the guy agreed to let us play. It was exciting because it was our first private show! We practiced a lot of different country and southern/classic rock music and were ready to go and play some music and meet new people!

We had the address, so we put it in Lee’s phone (I still had a flip phone), and we started driving to the house. We drove, and we drove, and we drove. We went through the city we were told it was in, then we drove down a side road, and then we drove down some road that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere to find a driveway that was pretty long and off the road in the woods (my second clue).

We pull up, and this really nice guy meets us. We look at each other like, alright! We go around back and see this amazing two story deck with a built-in bar, a pool, and a HUGE garage. We are told to set up in one of the bay entrances of the garage.

This is going to be alright!

We get set up, and we go and talk to the people hosting. It turns out they have their own moonshine still nearby and made their own product. This is setting up to be an interesting night!

The party starts, and we’re rocking out! We’re playing all of our songs and taking requests, like we do, and the people are having a blast and getting a little rowdy, but that’s to be expected!

Then they start the fireworks show. They had a professional setup with thousands of dollars worth of explosives! It was going to be amazing! (This should have been the third clue.)

Then, it malfunctioned.
​And daggers of fire came straight toward us.

The band took off running and hiding; there were others who just stood still and laughed. It was total chaos. This was not in our contract!

We survived (obviously), and we continued playing for a while longer after the fireworks disaster ended. The time finally came for us to wind down, and they gave us our payment: a jar full of money, and a jar full of moonshine.

We split the money between everyone, but I don’t know where that moonshine ended up!

That’s the story of the craziest show that I’ve played. If you liked this story, let me know in the comments below! Maybe if I get enough response, I’ll tell you about the time we played “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” in the Methodist church! And if you find that moonshine, be sure to get the ashes from the fireworks out before you drink it!