The submission date has now passed for the gig story raffle for the Upton bass pickup, and we’ve gotten a bunch of great gig stories as a result! I’ll put the remaining ones out this week and announce a winner (picked randomly from the stories entered) at the end of the week. This is the first of many Upton pickup raffles, so if you missed the entry date for the last one you can hop on board for next month’s raffle (not gig stories next month… I’ll let you know the new raffle topic soon).

Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Greg Surratt:

While loading my gear in, I randomly invited two UGA college girls to the gig. They said they might come. Cool. The gig was in the upstairs of a downtown wing bar in Athens, GA. We showed up to discover the room was packed with students at a beer tasting event. This particular venue was notorious for cover bands, which suited us fine because we were armed to the teeth with classic rock, country, funk, and a violinist from the The Russian Conservatory. Yes, we played “Devil Went Down to Georgia”.

The conditions were perfect and oh were we ready to rock some rowdy fratboys. What happened next was astonishing. People starting leaving. And leaving in droves. We jumped on stage to stop the hemorrhaging. It didn’t help. By the end of the first set, there was no one in the bar…except the two girls I invited. When the singer announced that we were going to be taking a break, the girls started clapping and left. At least we still got paid, both in free beer and money.

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