The DU Lounge

The occasion?

A performance by Steve Martin. He walked out on stage with a banjo which everyone thought was a prop. This was before it was well known that Steve was an excellent player.

He told jokes for 20 minutes before informing the crowd that he was going to "play us tune" right after he tuned his banjo. In the previous 20 minutes he had made an animal balloon which was on his head along with pink bunny ears, an arrow through the head prop.....and a fake Grauco Marx mustache and glasses.

He "pretends" to tune his banjo by fingering the air right above the tuning pegs for like five minutes. Then, with that big grin on his face he says, "I think I've got it now, " and precedes to play the most God awful chords on the banjo that you have ever heard.

I was sitting with my friends, all music students, and we just had gone through a whole semester discussing modulation or key changes, and Steve, after the bad banjo chords says (still with the grin on his face);

"On no! I think I modulated into the key of shit."

One of my friends laughed so hard he fell off his chair.

My stomach muscles were sore for a week. I've never laughed so hard since.

Steve then preceded to play a flawless uptempo version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown that stunned the crowd. At the last note the room was silent....before breaking out with one of the most raucous rounds of applause I have ever heard.

Those were the days my friends we thought they'd never end......