A Quote by Rick Nielsen
We played New Year's Eve in Los Angeles, maybe 1978, opening for Kansas or somebody. Driving to the hotel after the gig, we came on KLOS. It was like, 'All right! We're in L.A., we just played a big gig, and we're on the radio!' That was the start of something big.
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I love entertaining people, I love playing music, and I love rocking like an animal. But at a certain point, you're playing gig after gig after gig, in town after town after town, and you're lying down, staring at another hotel-room ceiling, and it's like, 'I want to be home. I'm a dad. I've got kids.'
Early on, before rock 'n' roll, I listened to big band music - anything that came over the radio - and music played by bands in hotels that our parents could dance to. We had a big radio that looked like a jukebox, with a record player on the top. The radio/record player played 78rpm records. When we moved to that house, there was a record on there, with a red label. It was Bill Monroe, or maybe it was the Stanley Brothers. I'd never heard anything like that before. Ever. And it moved me away from all the conventional music that I was hearing.
I get myself a gig somewhere, whether it's in a club, whether it's in a bar, it doesn't matter, and I just work on New Year's Eve because I always feel it's very symbolic for me for the next year, for the new year.
You know, songs like 'Rock'n Me' were actually written to be played in large... for a hundred thousand people kind of gatherings. And a lot of what came out on 'Fly Like an Eagle' and 'Book of Dreams' was music that was put together to be played in big, big venues with big light shows.
A band that we supported called Blackfish in Manchester, played the most insane gig I've ever been to. Everything was set on fire, and then they came on and played one of the coolest gigs I've ever seen.
I always perform live. I've even received a cortisone injection when I was losing my voice before a big gig so I could fulfill my obligation to the promoter. I felt it the days following after the gig in my throat, but it was nice to know I didn't let anyone down. The show must go on.
The second gig I did was New Year's Eve at the Birmingham Anglers Club, and that started with booing.
First time we played in New York was in 2013. It was all very eye-opening. A very bright lights, big-city sort of vibe, and we played the Mercury Lounge.
I think Justin Bieber played a couple of songs up the block from it - and they said that some-one in his camp came and got him a burger. We had been talking about him a lot. Especially actually, last time we came to Australia, C.T. was on a real big Justin Bieber kick. I just thought it was really interesting to finally cross paths with him in New Zealand. And like really - the TV, everyone's just talking about it on the radio - it's a big deal that he was here. I think he just left.
I played with Prince in 2010... the America tour. The one with Misty Copeland dancing on top of the piano! But Prince played the piano on that song. But I played two dates with him on that tour. When we played the gig, every couple of songs, Prince would change his clothes.
My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.
I can't wait to start something up myself that is actually about giving unsigned bands the exposure they deserve, especially when they travel so far to play the smallest gig they've ever played in their lives.
When I played the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve, I got to bring Wiley, my 85-pound black lab. He's responsible for my favorite New Year's memory of all: At the end of the show, he ran onstage and then out across all the tables in the showroom, sending champagne glasses and gamblers flying.
I went in [Sweet Basil band] and played with them, maybe half the gig for almost eight years or more.
In the early days I was on the road 45-50 weeks a year, driving from gig to gig 6-8 weeks in a row. Not everyone can do that. The show becomes the easy part. Tt's the life on the road that is the hardest... and you can't get any good at standup unless you do the road.
My first paying gig was a play called 'The Voice of the Prairie' at a theater that no longer exists in Chicago called Wisdom Bridge. I played a fast-talking radio huckster - a salesman of crystal sets in the 1920s - and I actually won an award. Look at that! And then promptly didn't get hired for a year.
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