Gig recording equipment confiscated

Spiggy's hat · 10 Mar 2006, 10:54

Following on from the Leeds05/Anywhere in 06 boot trade request in the trading thread...................has anyone here ever been caught smuggling equipment into a gig?

My two experiences were the Jesus and Mary Chain Leeds Uni 1985. Strangley enough this was the first gig that my brother tried to record with his new walkman. He just slipped it under his jacket using the carry strap, but a search on the way in scuppered the plan. The security let us in with no problem, and he had to collect it after the show.

I then smuggled it in to Manchester Apollo a few years later, where I managed to record a support set by The Bolshoi. One song into the headliners (All About Eve) a bouncer walked over and pulled the walkman out of my hand. He must have had good eyesight as I was standing in thre middle of the row!

After the gig I was taken upstairs into an office were about ten confiscated walkman were just sitting on a desk, and told to pick mine up. If I wasn't so honest, I could have picked any of them up.

Has anyone been ejected/refused entry or anything worse for having recording gear with them?

scotty · 10 Mar 2006, 12:20

Spiggy's hat wrote:
Has anyone been ejected/refused entry or anything worse for having recording gear with them?

Just ask Andrew S

aims · 10 Mar 2006, 15:48

He's worked out how to record audio with a crisp packet? Flippin' genius

davedecay · 10 Mar 2006, 16:05

i think i got nabbed once, just had to turn in the tape.

never ejected. rarely caught.

got a nice Peter Murphy solo show from 1987 that i seeded on DaD, that went over well. also have John Cale, Foetus, Nick Cave, and New Order.

the-happening · 10 Mar 2006, 19:21

Always managed to get equipment into a gig, never once got caught in "possession" in the early days the best device was the SONY WMD6 (used it from 1984 to 1997) a wonderful recorder but a little on the large size compared with todays devices!

Dark · 10 Mar 2006, 19:54

davedecay wrote:i think i got nabbed once, just had to turn in the tape.

"Press the eject, and give me the tape."

eastmidswhizzkid · 12 Mar 2006, 01:55

have you still got the bolshoi boot steve?

Dan · 12 Mar 2006, 05:15

In 20 years of taping gigs I've only been caught twice. Once was Bananarama *ahem* at Birmingham NEC. Outside there were security absolutely everywhere so I was unable to move the tape recorder to a place where they wouldn't find it without being seen and left it in a pocket where it was found immediately. I was given a raffle ticket to claim it back after.

The other time was Sisters Hamburg 1990 where the German security were WAY more touchy-feely than ours and the tape recorder was confiscated and I was given a raffle ticket so I could reclaim it afterwards.

My most daring bootlegging experience was videoing a gig at Leeds Poly without being caught. (NOT the Sisters before any cheeky beggars reach for the PM button.)

I *almost* got to film the Eldritch/Utah Saints gig after getting permission to film La Costa Rasa through a friend of theirs as a ploy to get the camera in but the security didn't believe me and wouldn't go and get someone to confirm it, and they wouldn't let me stow the camcorder in the cloakroom as I'd have been able to go and get it during the gig, so I had to get a cab home to drop it off then have it drive me right back to the gig.

Spiggy's hat · 13 Mar 2006, 11:13

eastmidswhizzkid wrote:have you still got the bolshoi boot steve?

Sadly not mate.

Another one lost in a house move years ago. Disappointing too, as it was decent quality with a cracking version of 'Away' to close the set.