Life in the concert business is never dull. As owner of the Georgia Theatre, Wilmot Greene has acquired a collection of stories that showcases the ‘finest’ moments of stupidity, drunkenness and disaster that only an old concert hall can provide. Here are five of the best tales, recounted by Greene himself.

“Let me start by saying that things usually went really smoothly at shows. We did a good job at spotting trouble early and diffusing the situation, or preventing people from being over-served and losing control of themselves.”

1. Crazy, Cute Luke Bryan Fan

“This girl showed up completely hammered. She was really good-looking and was therefore given the benefit of the doubt by the mostly male security staff. It was painfully obvious that she was going to hurt herself or somebody else, so I got one of the door girls to escort her out. The girl left without incident, but had no intention of staying out. She struggled to stay on her feet and stood outside the building, leaning against the wall for several minutes as the opening band finished their set. As soon as Luke came on stage, the girl stumbled towards the front door saying ‘I gotta see Luke.’ I had already replaced the door girl with another security guard so my female employee could devote all of her energy to controlling this one girl. The drunken fan would try to get in only to get rejected, then she would try to bribe us, then she would get violent, and finally she would get sweet. This pattern repeated itself for about 30 minutes. The girl stopped, opened her purse really wide on the ground below her, crouched down and started making a strained face. She was going to the bathroom, through her jeans, into her purse, on the sidewalk. I called her mom on her cell phone, she hit her friend, then she finally got in a car only to jump out at the red light and run back. Eventually two bike cops came riding up and she was taken away, wet pants and all.”

2. Keep It in the Family

“I can’t remember what band was playing, but it was pretty early in the night when a fight broke out between two guys on the dance floor. Several security guards were restraining the two men and we were getting them close to the front door, but these men were hell bent on fighting. They would break free from our grasp and fight some more, then we would restrain them, and they continued to attack each other. Neither of the two men were very big, but they were both very determined. Finally we got them outside and the police arrived. Both men were bloody and beaten when the police asked for their driver’s licenses. The officer said, ‘You two guys have the same last name. Are you related?’ It turns out they were father and son.”

3. Plumbing Nightmare

“All of the sanitary sewer lines (dirty water) ran underneath the dance floor out the right side of the basement. The floor drains that were right beside the stage were the last drains in the system. So, if things got backed up, those floor drains became the point at which things came back up. One night during a Robert Randolph show, our worst-case scenario happened. The drains were completely backed up and the Theatre was full of people who continued to use and flush the toilets. The floor drains right beside the stage became little geysers of nasty stuff. They were bubbling up, and sometimes literally shooting up several feet. We had three teams of men on either side of the stage with mops and buckets and stoppers trying to stop the little geysers. Unfortunately, like ‘old faithful’ they were not stopping. I was in the alley at the main plumbing clean-out frantically poking the clog with a plumbing snake, trying to get things moving again. We were also trying to force the clog down with a hose, which was only adding more water to the mess and making things worse. Eventually ‘the dam broke,’ the drain made this crazy gurgling sound, and everything started flowing again.”

4. Niagara Falls

“The less gross, but equally dramatic, plumbing story happened at a Perpetual Groove show. We had just finished gutting the old bathrooms and fixing that whole level (when we switched the boys’ and girls’ rooms). Perpetual Groove had played a great show and the night was almost over when one of the service lines carrying clean water exploded through the wall in the ladies’ room. This water is pressurized by a 50-gallon reservoir tank. The entire 50 gallons of water immediately emptied between the front wall and the marquee so it was literally raining everywhere near the front door area…inside the building. Water was pouring out of the seams—above the front doors, out of the marquee, through the plaster in the lobby, everywhere! Luckily the show was over at this point so we just got everybody out in a hurry and started mopping. We stayed and mopped for a long time that night.”

5. Two Appetites for Destruction

“We had a Guns N’ Roses cover band called Appetite for Destruction playing one night. Some guy snuck past a security guard, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and then snuck back towards the front row. He pulled the pin out of the extinguisher and shot the lead singer right in the face. The dust that comes out of those fire extinguishers is really fine and toxic. The band, their equipment, our equipment, and everyone near the stage were covered with that dust. The band took it pretty well considering the damage it caused to their gear. It took us a week to get all the dust out of everything, and it cost a lot of money to repair some of the gear. We were never able to catch the evildoer. I wish we could find that guy, what a jerk!”

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