Tell me about it... opening for Foghat. Great band.
It was part of a lineup for Bikelahoma about 8 years ago. To be honest, I was in one of 3 other bands opening for them so I don't have any great stories.
The great opening band story I have is from the time we opened for REO Speedwagon when they played at GUTS Tougher than Hell Rally in Tulsa about 7 years ago.
My drummer in that band (Blackwood) was the drummer at GUTS Church and had an in for us to open for REO, and as luck would have it, my wife (our lead singer and the poster known as
@GlowPoke ) went to high school with Bruce (REO's bassist) Hall's wife. So between those two contacts, we got the gig. Guts hadn't planned on an opener so the deal that was struck was that we would play a show for free on Friday night so we could open for REO on saturday. We agreed because this was a resume show not a money show.
Well about a week before the concert, GUTS tried to pull the opening slot out from under us and said there would be no opener because REO didn't want one. Well, GUTS didn't know we actually had a contact in REO, so we checked with them to see what happened, and they were PISSED that GUTS was pulling that bs and said nobody from REO had said they don't want an opener. Their tour manager called GUTS and straightened them out, and the show went on. They told us promoters do sketchy stuff like that all the time and probably realized they had to pay their sound crew more to cover an opener and were trying to save a buck. They said 99% of the time, promoters get away with that by blaming the headliner but not this time.
Me with REO's backline behind me.
