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MONTANA WORST GIG
From: Greg Boyd of Greg Boyd's House of Fine Instruments

In about 1981 or so I was in a band here in Montana, called the "Spring Thaw" band.
We fancied ourselves as "progressive", but also played a lot of really hardcore traditional Flatt & Scruggs, Monroe, etc.

We toured around for a year and a half, playing bluegrass as our only income...

We landed a pretty good paying gig in the town of Gardiner, Montana, which has it's city limits butting up against the north entrance to Yellowstone Park.

Our band vehicles were a 1953 Plymouth "Cranbrook DeLuxe" and a 1960's GMC pickup truck for the sound system.

We were actually trying to "make a living" playing Bluegrass music in Montana... which is a real stretch to begin with.
We were all fresh out of college... between 21 and 23 years old.

We couldn't afford good tires for the vehicles, and our specialty was loading the trunk with several extra $5 spare tires to make it anywhere we were headed.

Well... on this particular trip we had a couple of big blowouts along the 5-hour drive to the big bar we were hired to play for the weekend.
We were beginning to run late and really had to hustle to get there.
Everyone was talking about it being a big weekend, as it was slated to be the big official opening weekend for Yellowstone Park.

We were promised rooms for the weekend as part of our band pay, and were looking forward to getting all set up and then relaxing in our rooms before the show.

We barely got to the gig in time to load in and set up everything.
The bar was a noted old bar - cavernous, with old stone foundation, big stage, etc.
After setting up we asked where our rooms were...

The owner was a crusty old cowboy, who looked like the stereotype range-rider, with a fancy big Western belt, elaborate buckle, Stetson hat, snakeskin boots, and a cigarette hanging off his lower lip.
He took us through some catacomb-like hallways into this isolated area of the basement to show us our rooms.

The "rooms" were actually just some old tourist attraction "props" that had been stored down there. They were of a miniature old west "ghost town", with several small buildings pushed together. These little buildings did have beds in them - old swaybacked iron beds with bad springs...!!!!!
The whole basement was cold and damp and the area was poorly lighted with no privacy at all.

We were very disappointed with this set-up, but only had time to quickly change clothes and hit the stage...

When we came out for the opening set of our 4-hour gig, we quickly noticed that there were NO CUSTOMERS in the huge bar...!!!!

Where was everybody??? What happened to the big tourist weekend???

The bartender and barmaids were great to us, breaking the news that at the last minute the National Park had delayed the official opening for a week due to too much snow...
Then they dropped the news that not only was it Prom dance weekend for the local high school, but that the employees of Yellowstone Park had decided to hold a huge blowout keg beer party about 12 miles away and had invited everyone from town.... YIKES!!!!!!! Nobody to play for...!

The owner was looking surly and pacing around, but told us to go ahead and start playing.
* Everytime the old cowboy/owner came by to talk with us he would sort of fondle his big elaborate western belt buckle, that had a very real-looking derringer in the middle of it... looked strange, but we didn't have time to think about it, we had to play.

A few people came in set by set, and we had just an "ok" crowd by the end of that Friday night.

We felt pretty good about it, and sat around talking to the bartender and barmaids after they closed up... but the owner just sat away from us looking surly...

When we went to our terrible "rooms" to get ready for bedtime, the owner quickly appeared in that area, saying he had bad news.
He started fooling with his belt buckle again, fidgeting with it again and again...
We soon all realized that the derringer in the buckle was a REAL derringer 5-shot .22 gun...
When he fidgeted with the buckle, he was pushing a release button and the derringer was popping out into his palm, then he would push it back into place...
He was slyly making a show to us that he had a gun that was easy to grab!!!

As he was doing this, he was saying, "sorry boys, but just can't pay you for tonight and won't need you for tomorrow night, neither... You just as well load on up and clear out...!"

One of the guys in the band brazenly asked what he had in his hands.
He just chuckled and said it was a fine little derringer, and held it up for us to see.
Then he made the point of telling us he always kept it loaded, and began to say how he had had to use guns a few times when people didn't listen very well...

We all seemed to stop to think about the importance of that, beginning to realize that he was bullying us out of our job and our pay for the one night we did play.

There was a very awkward silence until one of the guys in the band broke a smile and said that his own brother also had one of those derringers (they were made in Wyoming in the 70's and 80's), but said his brother was too cheap to buy the extra buckle part, and asked if he could see the buckle.

This played on the vanity of the owner, and he showed us how the buckly looked and how it worked... gradually he broke down some of his "stand and fight" attitude...

Then another band member turned to him and said, "are we still in Montana, or is this Wyoming?" * The town of Gardiner is only several hundred yards from the Montana/Wyoming border.

The owner said that 'of course it's still Montana'... (meaning we would have had to enter the national park a ways before it officially became Wyoming).

Then our band mate says, "well, in the Montana I know, a man's word is still his bond... and you promised us our band pay to come and play for the weekend. We drove 5 1/2 hours to get here, wearing out tires to get here...
and you aren't going to tell us that you aren't going to honor your word, are you...?"

Now there was a VERY awkward moment as the cowboy bored into our band mate with steely eyes...
Then all at once he just spit out the words, "no... you're right... I'll pay you for tonight and for tomorrow night just like I said I would... a man's word is still his word."

Of course none of us hardly slept that night, rehashing the tense scene with the owner, and roundly congratulating our band mate who changed the stubborn old cowboy's mind...

By the next night, Saturday night, word had gotten around town about "live music" at the bar, and the place was jam-packed from early until last call... and we had a rip-roaring good time... (but didn't stay around to sleep over Saturday night!).

... and we never tried to book a gig in THAT bar again...