One of the most enlightening articles I ever read in the old, great Musician magazine was a big piece on Lynyrd Skynyrd. At this point, there’d already been the big plane crash and other disasters, which decimated even the surviving members of the Rossington-Collins Band. I was never a big fan of Skynyrd, but my guitar mate and old friend, John Quincy Nixon, cut his teeth on their stuff. I felt proud of my friend while reading things like the band thinking of themselves as following the tradition of The Rolling Stones and not, as the rock press had assumed, The Allman Brothers.
For the first time in my life I felt a kinship with the band. This occurred while reading a segment on the late Ronnie Van Zandt‘s theories on proper diet before taking the stage. According to one of the surviving members interviewed, Van Zandt felt that musicians should take the stage either ravenously hungry or stuffed to the gills–no state in between. It was a serious choice, in Van Zandt’s opinion, and being slaves to humor, our band soon adopted that guidance, only choosing to eat nothing at all in the hours leading up to a gig or eating more than would otherwise seem wise, especially while burping up an “encore” of a beef burrito platter leading into the second verse of a set’s opening number.
I would like to ask the musicians among Rock Town Hall to share their dietary practices before shows. Do you play hungry? Do you play stuffed? Are there foods you must have leading up to a show or, similarly, must avoid at all costs? Any particularly memorable pre-show eating experiences?
I look forward to your gustatory tales.
Not a musician, but in my past life as a young actor in community/regional theater, I quickly learned that it was a far, far better thing for me to not eat at all until after I came offstage on days when I was performing. I suffered from terrible stage nerves, and at best I was assured of a bad case of the squits an hour or so before curtain.
When I was playing Anthony Kirby Sr. (the heavy) in You Can’t Take It With You, one scene involved having a huge jar of pickled pigs feet placed right in front of me. I kept hearing “That was so funny the way you pretended to gag at that point!” Tweren’t pretendin’.
Eat nothing, drink everything (the Yukon Jack experience is notable), smoke 4 packs Camels.
After show: carne Tampiquena at El Presidente on Lincoln else over to White Castles for the 4a.m. floor show…
Unless it was Yukon Jack night in which case you WERE the ‘Chateau Le Blanc’ floor show and were able to top the ‘nuit du cuisine’ off with the steel bench and dry baloney sammich at the Wood street lockup…
I think I prefer no food, though that’s more the result of not being hungry. Having an empty stomach also forces me to drink less. I usually have a “security blanket” beer on hand, which I gingerly sip from before the show, Prince-like, one pinky extended. As the show gets going, I’ll start to take manly slugs from the brew, but I’m sweatin’ so much by then it doesn’t matter. Yellow, fizzy beer is best.
Mind you, I play out so seldom nowadays this is almost totally irrelevant.
Come to think of it, it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway.
Your beef burrito “encore” terminology is a classic example of “Head Humor.” Funny stuff! On a related note, perhaps one day you could explain “the Land Of Little Horses.”
HVB
One day I will recount our adventures among The Land of the Little Horses. I didn’t know you’d heard that term, Hrrundi.
I prefer to eat before a show. Usually beef and fried carbohydatres work for me. Of course access to a clean bathroom a a half-hour before the show is necessary. I have gotten very good at picking out off-club locations (ie dirty bathrooms)to do my bizness. For the Khyber in Philly, the Sheraton down the street is great.
Since we’re sharing…
I used to get the shits before a show, but not anymore. I think my bowels just got old and tired enough that they… well I was going to say “could give a shit,” but that’s not quite right, is it? I probably do fart a lot, though. Just so you know. And what better place to do that than a noisy nightclub, where you can blame things on perfect strangers?
Ah… this is the scintillating conversation I come to Rock Town Hall for every day.
I’m glad we’ve cut right to the chase of what was probably at the heart of Ronnie Van Zandt’s wisdom. For me, there are shows for which a pre-game dump is a good omen and shows for which it’s not.
If it promises to be a big show with a favorable audience, I like to load up and then “load out” before hitting the stage: GOOD OMEN.
If it’s a show that might have a sparse and/or skeptical audience, I don’t need any other factors to cause me to feel nervous. I want to take the stage hungry and use all my energies to work with my bandmates to win over the audience: STAY HUNGRY.
I usually never eat before a gig. I don’t know if it has anthing to do with being hungry or not, but I like to not “feel heavy” when I’m on stage. Probably stupid, but it works for me.
If I have to drive a while to get to the gig (and I usually do), the diet mostly consists of Cheap Trick’s complete Budokan.
TB
No question, hungry is best. A full stomach just makes me want to stand there and do nothing. Gets in the way of singing too. As for alcohol, the sugar in bourbon helps rev me up, whereas other drinks wear me down.
True story: In 1999, back when I was married, the morning the band is to leave for an overnight wedding gig I came down with some kinda food poisoning. I’m moaning and groaning the three hours to Vermont, I’m lying on the floor of the van in between sets, I’m not talking to anyone. To anyone who doesn’t know what has brought this on, I look and sound like a complete dickhead. Unfortunately, this includes the substitute saxophone player we’ve brought along for the gig, whom I am just meeting for the first time.
Four years later, I’m separated, the sax player calls me up to sub on something, one thing leads to another and we’ve been together five years.