The Craziest Gig I Have Ever Done In My Life!

A month ago I was approached by a local night-club to play at their new themed event called "WTF" - full of crazy, quirky, nonsense things happening at the night simply because "why not?!" And Zebra playing the classical piano at the club night seemed crazy enough to give it a shot. Now frankly enough - when you go for a mad idea and have an open mind, suddenly you get a mind strafe of even more ridiculous and insane ideas... I had no clue what I signed up for! 

To begin with the weather - it wasn't one of those pleasant and lovely nights by the sea. Complete opposite - the rain was hammering down like a machine gun and the wind raging up to 80mph was not a joke at all!  Especially when you get to push a trolley with your piano and all the electrical equipment on it. Can't have an umbrella either - it will be blown away in seconds. Just watch where you going, add to your pace and pray your piano won't get soaked under the cover. 

Only 10-minute-walk down the North street, straight through the Old Steine and take right after the traffic lights to get to the Revenge club. Seems possible when you plan your journey at home with a warm cup of tea. Not that much of a fun journey when you actually get out there. Running through the rain with a heavy load, swearing at myrself for not thinking this through enough, stopping to adjust the straps of my trolley now and then and almost crashing into the girl who slips in front of my trolley at the end of the North street - what an adventure! Honestly...

Got to the club around 11:20pm all soaking wet, at least piano seems fine under the plastic cover. Security guards very helpful, quickly let me in and help carrying the gear to the second floor. I can now catch my breath while they are looking for Steve, the guy who runs the night. The music is banging through the space, lights are flickering around the hallway where I am supposed to setup and play. "Too loud though, not sure if people will be able to hear anything I play..." - I thought to myself. Steve comes around and I can see from his hesitation he now thinks the same. "There might be a better place upstairs..." he says and takes me through another set of stairs to the third floor, past the arcade machines to the narrow hallway leading straight to the glamorous Unisex Toilets. I'm laughing to myself thinking this is one of the craziest ventures of my life and at the same time it all makes perfect sense: it's way too loud downstairs, despite the actual purpose of the space, it seems more peaceful in here, the room has great acoustics and relaxing piano music would be a nice background for what people are meant to be doing in here... 

Steve is looking at me with a great hope in his eyes, but not trying to push me into it. I say: "OK, let's do it! It's going to be one of the craziest things I have ever done, but that's what this night is about!" I see relief on his face and once again he is all excited about the whole night. We get the gear into the toilet, I quickly set up, change into my Zebra onesie and do a quick sound-check before I start. The man working in the club toilets looking at me while I put my mask on, hit the piano keys and go for it like never before! The toilets fill up with the sound, surprising everyone present; Steve is laughing and I hear him saying "This is great!" 

The next two hours have been as random as "zebra playing the piano at the toilets" itself. As the night picked up, more and more people were entering the toilets every time totally amazed by what they see. Mostly youngsters - some of them confused, some of them laughing openly loud, girls in short dresses taking selfies with me; crowds going in and out the toilets constantly changing, constantly talking, laughing, shouting to one another. Some girl cries and her friends calming her down, then her boyfriend comes in and they hug. I switch to wedding march and make them laugh. Someone asks me to play something they could sing to and I play Adele. The whole toilet is now singing - both people waiting to get in and people doing their business... Same with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", same with Emeli Sande and theme from Frozen.

Some girl wants to play the piano, she sits next to me and tries to remember the chords of her favourite song. Suddenly more people want to play, six hands touching the keyboard, sound's awful - I turn everything off. No talking - zebra's don't talk. Just waiting for them all to leave and going for it again. And people take pictures, some of them leave me tips, some of them ask for Beatles, others lean over my keyboard screaming for ABBA... It's a bit of a mess, but everyone's having fun! A girl says it's her birthday and I play "Happy Birthday" song. The toilets singing again. Then it gets packed, security guards patrolling the toilets kindly ask some people to leave. The place is buzzing and a tall guy oddly asks me to play what I feel by looking at him. I'm a little confused at first, but make a joke out of it and play 50 cent "In Da Club". He's happy laughing...

Later on I switch to classical piano, playing romantic, beautiful music; it's not that packed anymore and I ease off. Security guard comes in to interrupt me - "You've done 2h now," he says. I take my mask off and take a gulp of "fresh" air. Relief! ...

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2:15am I am walking back home and my head is still buzzing from the club noise... The wind is strong and it's still raining. I walk through the empty, wet streets recalling the whole experience and thinking to myself: "This must have been the most crazy gig I have ever done in my life!" 




Photos by Scott Mains