I laid there in pain, teeth clenched, and eyes closed. All I remember is stepping on my foot pedal to turn on the flange for the bridge part of the song, "High in Life."
It felt like an unknown force threw me back into the drummers cymbals, just inches away from falling directly onto his drums. I took out three of his cymbals, and fell onto my guitar amp.
My guitar was feeding back on stage, I looked up, and saw the drummer looking at me, still playing. I looked to my right, the bass player was also still playing.
What really happened is that I never played on a carpet stage before, and I twisted around with my right foot still planted. Just then I felt my right knee cap pop out of place. I immediately felt nothing but pain and my leg gave out, sending me backwards.
As I came crashing down, I was holding my leg, knee cap was literally bulging onto the right side of my knee out of place. My god I was in pain.
So I did the first thing that felt natural to do. I pushed my knee cap back into place. The whole time the band was still playing, and as soon as I pushed it back in, another overwhelming pain took over. I lied there in fetal position holding my leg, all the while, my guitar feeding back on stage.
I opened my eyes to see the bass player in my face yelling, "Chuck! Chuck! You okay man!?!"
I closed my eyes again, not wanting to move or get up, or even talk. I felt like passing out. I opened my eyes again, and this time the owner was in my face yelling, "Dude, you okay man!?!"
I took a deep breath, turned down the feeding back guitar, waved off my bassist, and the owner of the venue. It was dead silence in the venue. I used my guitar to get off the floor. I slowly limped backed to the microphone and said, " OWWW, s$!@ f#! $# *(%& *^&@@&^ damn f^*^& knee!!!" People were cheering, and I was in pain.
I asked the drummer for a 4 count, and we picked up right we left off. We still have 4 more songs to go. What can I say? The show must go on.
Two weeks later, I'm in the doctors office getting a steroid injection shot into my knee... ouch.
Anything for music.
-chuck
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