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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:23:

  tormenting randy stonehill! on the road! more nutty road stories!!

on the keaggy-stonehill tour, both phil and randy would play solo sets to open the gig before we did the full band thing. one night we were playing an auditorium that had a very deep and unlit orchestra pit. someone standing in the orchestra pit could not be seen by the audience at all, except by, possibly, someone in the front row. but it was so dark that even in the front row you wouldn't be able to see much.

i convinced both phil and dave raven (the drummer) that it would be a good idea if the three of us snuck down into the orchestra pit during randy's set to simultaneously "moon" him to see if we could distract him and throw him off.

we snuck down into the orchestra pit and stood at an angle in which it would be difficult for the audience to see us, but easy for randy to spot all three of us.

we all mooned him at the same time and i have to say, the sight of guitar legend phil keaggy giggling like a school girl and mooning randy stonehill was one of the funniest things i've ever seen in my life.

unfortunately, because of the lighting, randy never saw us.

but, determined for some sort of satisfaction, i ran backstage, grabbed a large bunch of red grapes from a snack table and ran back to the orchestra pit.

i began to carefully lob grapes at randy, hoping to get one into his open mouth as he sang. the first few completely missed him.

i finally landed one into his big hair (randy had really big hair back then) and randy felt it but didn't know what it was. he tilted his head slightly to the side and shook out his hair in a sort of dramatic way like he was a Clairol hair model and it was all part of the act. he kept singing and playing the whole time.

the next one i threw hit randy in the eye.

randy kind of went "shut de do', keep out de OW!--", stopped playing and singing and started rubbing his eye. at first i was really concerned that i might've accidently hurt him ( i wasn't actually aiming at his eye) but i was also trying to suppress laughter because it just looked so funny.

it became obvious that he was ok and also that he thought someone from the audience (and not me) had thrown the grape when he said these exact words: "as festive as that was, please save what vegetation you have until after the show."

by then, of course, dave, phil, and i were rolling around on the orchestra pit floor.

-------------------------------------- ... ...

one of my other favorite moments came during the aforementioned stonehill/choir tour. everyone probably knows the old last-gig-of-the-tour routine, right? it's become a cliche that on the last gig, the opening and headlining bands play pranks on each other (usually right before or during each other's set.) i was playing in both bands so, whatever happened, i'd get it both ways.

when the choir was getting ready to play, we were expecting the .worst, in part because of that whole Exploding Chocolate Cream Pie On Their Windshield Which Made Them Reflexively Turn On Their Windshield Wipers And Smear The Chocolate So That They Couldn't See And Then Almost Wreck Their Giant Motorhome incident.

as it turned out, they either ran out of imagination, or were afraid of reprisals because the .worst they did was to duct-tape steve's sticks together or something. (no! not that!!)

and of course steve and derri and dan wouldn't tell me what they had planned for randy because i was playing in his band.

when i took the stage with randy's band i could see that the choir had done some of the usual things (vaseline all over the keyboard keys, etc.) but i could sense that they were planning something more.

somewhere into the last half of the set, i saw steve and derri carrying large trays of greying backstage lunchmeat out into the audience. they convinced the audience members that we WANTED them to throw lunchmeat at us, and fairly soon, (what seemed like) a few hundred slices of leftover backstage lunchmeat began making their airborne way up to the stage.

it was fairly spectacular as the whole thing accelerated and lunchmeat filled the air. i tried throwing them back as i was playing but i'm not sure i hit anyone.

(it got completely out of hand from there. the choir guys started emptying sacks of baking powder, or something, into the air over the back of the rear curtain as meat was still flying every which way.)

the most spectacular moment though was as i was standing just behind randy, to his left, and i saw this happen in slow-motion as we were still playing:

some kid stood up with a large wadded-up piece of ham in his hand and launched it at randy. when it left this kid's hand, it was about the size of a golf ball. as it approached the stage, it began unfolding, one tiny flap at a time. as it flew, it began unfolding faster and faster. by the time it hit the stage, it was completely unfolded and it wrapped perfectly around the upper half of randy's face as he kept singing. it just doesn't get any better.

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Posted by baxter on 04-22-2005 at12:28:

 

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:29:

 

hey, bax.

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Posted by joey on 04-22-2005 at12:29:

RE: tormenting randy stonehill! on the road! more nutty road stories!!

quote:

Originally posted by tchandler on the keaggy-stonehill tour, both phil and randy would play solo sets to open the gig before we did the full band thing.

just hearing those words want to make me cry.....






































the rest did make me laugh though....

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:31:

 

hey, joey -- i miss those days too

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Posted by baxter on 04-22-2005 at12:32:



Hey Tim! Those stories are great!!

They almost made me forget about crazy Anette, who is driving me crazy today.

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:33:

 

tell us about crazy Anette!

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Posted by joey on 04-22-2005 at12:33:

 

yeah... it's just i'm listening to stonehill right now... he's great..
but Da is the greatest band in the world...
keaggy and stonehill opening up for you guys should have just been the beginning......
oh well... sounds like it was fun times!

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Posted by baxter on 04-22-2005 at12:35:

 

quote:

Originally posted by tchandler tell us about beeheaded Anette!

i can't. But you gave me a powerful weapon to deal with this ludicrous morning.

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Posted by jiminy on 04-22-2005 at12:36:

 

Tim sir-
write a book-my man.
That was hilarious!!

Yer right, dear PK has a rather high speaking voice already- to hear him giggle..well, it must have been!
Those were too much.....

You De man!!!

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:37:

 

it really was fun times, joey, but it was also sometimes really hard to play. i'd have to keep picking up my jaw from off the floor whenever phil would cut loose. he's just scary.

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:37:

 

hey, jiminy!

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Posted by Eleanor on 04-22-2005 at12:39:

 

I remember that tour!

good times )


of course nothing like that happened when I saw you guys

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Posted by freak on 04-22-2005 at12:44:

  greetings mr. chandler

was this about the time You & Mr. Raven were backing up Ms. Phillips, as well?

oh, and I guffawed at this...

we all mooned him at the same time and i have to say, the sight of guitar legend phil keaggy giggling like a school girl and mooning randy stonehill was one of the funniest things i've ever seen in my life.

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:45:

 

hi, Eleanor!

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at12:47:

 

hey, freak -- the stonehill/keaggy thing was '88/'89 and stonehill/phillips was '85/'86.... ...man, i'm old.

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Posted by freak on 04-22-2005 at12:49:

 

gotcha...

i saw you on the stonehill phillips thing in PA... you had the Byrnes suit goin' on!

that was fun...

ms. phillips was a bit rebellious on that tour... dancin' at no dancing permitted venues?!



~f

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Posted by baxter on 04-22-2005 at12:50:

 

Sam/Leslie?

Are you still in touch, Tim?
She was mildly rude to my wife once.

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Posted by tchandler on 04-22-2005 at13:00:

 

bax, we're not in touch but my wife and i used to run into her (not literally) once in awhile when we were in california. she asked me to play in her sam-don't-call-me-leslie phillips era band once, and i went to "audition" for t-bone and... (the rest of the story i really can't tell... ... good ol' t-bone...

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Posted by joey on 04-22-2005 at13:02:

 

i would pay $100 a ticket to see that show now....