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Musicians Name Some of the Weirdest Places They’ve Played Shows

Musicians Name Some of the Weirdest Places They’ve Played Shows

Bands have named some of the weirdest places they’ve played shows online after someone shared a video of The Cramps‘ 1978 performance at the California State Mental Hospital on the Punk Reddit page.

A user on the Punk Reddit page wrote a new post yesterday (Feb. 11) titled, “Weirdest place you’ve ever played a show?,” and shared their own experience in the body of the post.

“Sadly, my band was never able to play in a mental hospital, though we did play at a kindergarten once (after hours, but it was still fun towering over all the little tables and such), and at several video stores while on tour (yes, I’m old),” they shared.

“I wouldn’t count redneck bars because in some parts of the USA that’s basically all there was to play at (hi, Montana!), though it was funny to get paid in beer, bar snacks, and free pinball, officially (the pinball was theoretically for our bassist, since he was underage, but he drank my share of the booze and I just had regular sodas, since I wasn’t a drinker at the time).”

The top comment was written by someone whose band allegedly played an event called United Help Festival, which took place in Petrozavodsk, Russia in 2014. The city police apparently threatened to shut the concert down, so the performers moved the show to an abandoned building that was extremely cold.

“With no heating at all the organizers tried to boil water in an electric kettle to no avail and the only hot thing was a barrel fire outside the venue that had 50 people around it at all times so you couldn’t even get close. Our guitar player drank vodka and passed out and we found him 5 minutes before our set. He wasn’t moving and completely frozen, but he was just very drunk,” they elaborated.

“He left his guitar in the van, so I rushed to bring it and tossed it on his neck. He immediately got frostbitten from the frozen steel strings, so we took him and the guitar outside to the barrel fire so we could start the show. I remember it as a very cool show, considering the people who stayed already weathered hours of the worst conditions just to see us.”

Some of the following comments mentioned their bands played in a rollerskating rink in Ohio, a Dr. Martens store, a CrossFit gym, a Days Inn motel and an indoor jungle gym for kids.

“We got booked to play a kid’s 18th birthday party. Got there, turns out his family and friends are full-on conservative Christians,” another comment read. “No alcohol allowed either. We did our thing and the kid having his 18th loved it, sang along to all our songs and moshed on the dance floor by himself. Everyone else at the party fled outside for 45 minutes. We played to just that kid who had a ball. We suspect he was a closet atheist. We got paid our $200 and went to the pub.”

All of the discussion on the post inspired someone else to ask the same question on the Hardcore Reddit Page, so the post was re-shared there.

READ MORE: 11 Music Venues That Are Reportedly Haunted

“We played a mariachi bar in El Paso overlooking the border. The house mariachi band opened and played for several hours,” the first comment stated. “Then we played 20 songs in 18 minutes. It was great. Nobody there spoke English or was under 40 years old. We didn’t speak Spanish and were like 20 at the time. Sold like 20 shirts and had a great time.”

An abandoned pizza joint, strip club, warehouse, thrift store, donut shop, bowling alley, church, laundromat, bus garage and a barn were a few other locations mentioned throughout the rest of the discussion. Check out the full conversation by clicking either of the linked Reddit pages above.

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Gallery Credit: Loudwire Staff

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