Elephant in the Room - Saltimbanco Blooper

Expecting the unexpected during a live show is a good rule of thumb. So when you don't expect the thing that you might not be expecting to happen, and an unexpected event unexpectedly occurs, it could show up in the most unexpected way.

Take for example my sometimes-problemactic keyboard setup that I "inherited" upon joining this show which I mention in the previous post. There are intermittent occurrences that I experience on it, i.e. sounds mysteriously being erased; a ton of reverb/echo may all of a sudden appear somewhere; and my favorite one: the wrong sound at the wrong time which is what happened the other day.

In our double-wire act, the music starts with some powerful taiko drums. Then I slowly bring up in volume a drone played with my left hand. Following that, I wait for our horn player, Paul Hanson, to turn on his talk-back microphone and count "1-2-3" as he and I begin the melody together (he plays electronic drum pads in the intro). Lately, Paul's been turning on his mic earlier than normal, and since he's had a cold and the Big Top has been very dusty, he tends to cough, hack and make other non-human-like screeching noises before counting me in which the entire band enjoys. He knows it's gross but it makes us laugh.

So we're playing the melody, I'm changing chords in my left hand when I hear what I think might be Paul coughing up a hair ball in our talk back mic. Our bassist, Marc Soheir and I both look at each other confused, then look back at Paul who is shaking his head as if to say, "Nope! That wasn't me!" Hmmm...then what the hell was that sound?

Then we hear it again and I realize it happened on the same notes I played with my left hand. Was it a scream? Was it some animal noise. I grimaced as I was about to hit the same octave D in my left hand, and sure enough, there is was - the elephant sample from the previous act - the clown act...blasting at FULL VOLUME for everyone to hear. This 3rd time I hit the D and it sounded and I quickly let off the note so it was only half an elephant. I knew it would, but I just had to check again. I'm one of those people that sees a "wet paint" sign as can't resist touching the paint to see if it's still wet. Everyone on stage and backstage had a good laugh.

Check out the clip: