"At least you didn't die in Italy" - Juno, the case worker in the movie Beetlejuice.
"I don't want to play electric guitar. I might get electrocuted." - Zachary Stevens, age 6, January 6, 1997.
Florence, Italy, December 1985: Another stop on The Long Ryders second European tour. In Italy, they always set up a baseball backstop in front of the band to keep the fans from rushing the stage. In this case, it was a metal stage. My name's Bingo. I play an electric bass.
In the old days, playing an electric instrument meant you got shocked a lot. If your amp's polarity (the direction of AC, alternating current) was different from that of the PA your mike was plugged into, a jolt would be felt when you touched the mike and the strings of your guitar at the same time. Me, I never liked getting shocked much, although I think some of my fellow band members did.
Sound check. We had a full road crew to set everything up. Heaven. I tuned my own bass and plugged it into the amp, and cautiously stepped across the metal stage to the microphone. To test for shock potential, I had a trick that drove sound crews nuts. Without touching the bass strings, I pressed them lightly to my microphone, checking for sparks. Damn good thing I did. An ugly orange curve of electricity went from mike to string. This was no garage band spark, this thing arced! I could still see the temporary burn on the retinas minutes after the test, like a flashbulb from Hell.
Our British road crew, well seasoned in the-show-must-go-on work ethic, ran a long PA earth line out of the hall and buried it in the ground. I found out later a guy from the club, under fear of death, had to stand guard over the buried cable the entire show. It seemed that the town factory had shut down for the night, and there was about 700 volts of electricity going through our amps and PA.