Folk Punk Band Pulls Fan On Stage to Play Milk Crate or Whatever

PHOENIX — Folk punk band Poor Man’s Richard surprised concertgoer and superfan Dave Cumberbatch last night by inviting him on stage to “play a milk crate or whatever,” jealous witnesses confirm.

“Oh, my God, it was fucking crazy, man!” said Cumberbatch, sweating and out of breath. “They said they needed a little help knocking a bunch of trash around for their next song, and I was shouting my lungs out until they told me to come on stage. I got so nervous… but I smacked quarter notes on the milk crate with a wooden stick for the whole song without missing a beat. Usually, I can’t play very well in front of other people, but the adrenaline rush of the stage — it just held it all in place.”

The band’s full-time milk crate player, Mike Burton, was amazed by Cumberbatch’s skill.

“Sometimes, we like to pull a young fan up and let ‘em have a go with the big dogs, and lemme tell you — the kid was a natural. I thought I’d be out of a job,” said Burton. “Luckily, I’m still damn good at tapping a cutting board with an assortment of different-sized clothing pins, or else I’d be dropped from Poor Man’s Richard for sure. What a raw talent.”

However, fellow showgoer Jeffrey Angles was less than impressed by Cumberbatch’s performance.

“What a hack,” said Angles, smoking a homemade cigarette. “I’ve seen literal lepers slap the plastic honeycomb around better than that. It’s a dumb instrument anyways. Me? I’m a technical player; not some dandy like that Dave guy. If they called me up on that stage to shake my can of lima beans for a solo, I tell you, I’d get signed on the spot.”

For her part, sound tech Autumn Nabritzcki was perplexed by the performance.

“What the fuck kind of band is this?” said Nabritzcki. “My manager told me they were a punk band. 30 minutes before the show, one of the 12 fucking band members runs up to me asking if I have any mics that would ‘do my music tube justice’ — he was holding a PVC pipe with three holes poked in it and a flyswatter taped to the end.”

At press time, Nabritzcki audibly wondered if “these are real instruments,” and if “this a real genre.”