#Brian setzer real wild child series

A lot of times it comes down to the sound on that stage. “It’s weird sometimes: Some nights you think you had a great show, but for whatever reason, the audience just doesn’t respond other times you might think, ‘I just didn’t have it tonight, whatever,’ and the audience is going crazy. You know, you’re sweatin’ bullets up there you took something that you thought would help, but it ended up making things worse. “Needless to say, the gig was less than stellar. The crowd just looked at me like, ‘What?.’ I got up on stage and the place explodes, and I was about to shout out ‘Hellllo, Calgary!’ You know what came out? A yawn. But I’m thinking, ‘Oh, boy, there’s 10,000 people out there.’ I couldn’t wake up, so I started drinking coffee – and coffee and coffee and more coffee. It was just like taking NyQuil – it knocked me out. “My nose was running and my head was all stuffed up, so before the show I took an antihistamine to dry up. They had us running around like dogs, and truth be told, we weren’t helping the situation back then – not living right and stuff – and I just felt terrible. The Stray Cats had just hit and we made it up to Canada, and I was sick, man. It was the Calgary Stampede in Canada, and it was in this big rodeo circle. “One show pops to mind that didn’t work out so well. (Image credit: Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS) Brian Setzer: my best and worst gigs ever I can hear everybody else – this is gonna work!’ So it always comes down to the sound. But you know, once I get up on that stage and I hear the sound of my guitar and it sounds good, the jitters kind of melt away. “And you know, there’s so many things that happen before you hit the stage: The plane is late, your luggage didn’t arrive – there’s 100 different things that can go wrong. We did a giant show in Montreal in front of 125,000 people. Hats off to U2, man – I don’t know if I could handle that kind of pressure every night. When you’re playing to those large audiences and you’re the headliner, it’s a lot to think about there’s a lot on your shoulders. “The big shows can get kind of nerve-wracking, though. Hearing the strings behind me, I got teary eyed – you know, these guys are playing my songs! Sixty thousand people, 20,000 a night – that’s pretty cool. To do three nights at such an iconic venue with a huge orchestra behind me was just remarkable. We had the fireworks and the 100-piece orchestra and the whole bit. “The other show that sticks out for me was when I did three nights in 2012 at the Hollywood Bowl. But the show was incredible, and the crowd went wild. I don’t even know if they knew what it was over there in England. I couldn’t believe it – it was just the best. So instead of trying to look all cool with a black leather jacket or something, he put on a Massapequa gym outfit. Our school had an American Indian as our logo. Remember those things? They had the shorts and you had to write your name across your ass. And Slim Jim came out wearing his Massapequa gym outfit. “There was a pole in the middle of the stage too, so you had to move around it while you played. They were elbowing each other too, because they didn’t like each other. “Half of the people in the club were punks, the other half were rockabillies, and you could literally draw a line down the middle.

We hit that town and were just knockin ‘em dead. It was of the first shows with the Stray Cats at a club in London called Dingwalls. From an ego standpoint, there’s me as a young guy getting lit up by the audience. “Of the best shows, they go from small to big.

#Brian setzer real wild child series

(Image credit: Dan Harr/Splash News/Corbis) Brian Setzer: my best and worst gigs everĬontinuing our series My Best And Worst Gigs Ever, rockabilly superstar Brian Setzer talks about two shows that stand out in his mind as being the greatest he's ever played – and one that wasn't so much.