Townsman Saturnismine raised this topic in an earlier thread, suggesting it be brought to The Main Stage. Definitely!
What are some homespun/cheap stage show effects in you’ve seen used in arena and club shows?
When Saturnismine asked this question I was quickly reminded of seeing Hugo Largo at JC Dobbs in Philadelphia (circa 1988). Singer Mimi Goese, who probably weighed 90 pounds but looked like she weighed 110 when the show started, wore at least a half dozen layers of clothes. Each time she took off a dress, as she does at the beginning of this video, another dress was waiting beneath it. Her pretentious act, which also included feigning stabbing herself during one song, wore on me so greatly that the removal of each layer of clothing quickly lost its luster and sense of anticipation.
Then I thought about some goofy punk band we played with at CBGBs. They closed their set with a song called “Putt-Putt Golf,” during which the singer took out a plastic kid’s golf club and Whiffle golf balls and hit them into the crowd. Cheap. Memorable.
Finally I thought of Miracle Legion, for whom we opened at Dobbs in 1987 or so and could not get in a soundcheck because the singer, Mark Mulcahy, spent an hour setting up his puppet show. Yes, we opened for a puppet show, and it was as lame as you might imagine.
If you’re a musician who’s appeared on a stage of any size, have you ever been involved in this practice?* Budget-conscious Townspeople want to know!
*I’ve done a few cheap effects in an offshoot bands. We gave the soundman a tape of wild crowd noises compiled from classic live albums and an album of Mussolini speeches and had him run the tape over the PA system in between each of our songs. Not everyone enjoyed the bad joke as much as I did, but my enjoyment was more than enough to go around.
