Local writer talks to Rush, Gillian Welch, Alice Cooper, Rufus Wainwright and more about their worst gigs

Any music writer worth his or her chops knows that questions about tour malfunctions can offer some pretty vivid, disgusting and raunchy stories. The best question, though, is simple: What’s your worst gig? A local writer named Jon Niccum has complied 13 years’ worth of interviews on his site, WorstGig.com, featuring tales of the worst shows from artists such as Rush, Gillian Welch, Alice Cooper, Rufus Wainwright, and more. Here’s a sampling from Kansas:

“One of the most memorable ones we played was up in Wisconsin called Nudestock. It was a nudist colony. Foreigner was on the bill and Alan Parsons. But you expect up in Wisconsin there’d be all these beautiful blond women. But the reality is never what you imagine. You get there and it looks like you walked into a Piggly Wiggly grocery store and suddenly everybody was naked. And you’re standing there playing and there’s some guy with a baseball hat and tennis shoes standing in front of you, wiggling around and playing air guitar with his pecker swirling around. It bothers you.”