Asked to stop playing temporarily

Sizlack · #1 09-23-2011, 01:01 PM

Played at a new venue this past saturday night. Doing covers from 9pm til 1am. Made it through the first set ok, took a short break and went back on for the 2nd. About a 3rd of the way through our second set the manager comes over and asks us to take a break...it's almost 11pm now.
Being concerned that maybe the patrons were complaining about the music; the club does country on thrusdays and fridays; we do classic rock through hard rock stuff; I went to speak to the manager.
It seems the owner had called and wanted us to stop playing until he and his large party of guests arrived. So we sat there till about 12:15 waiting, they never showed up. Finally the manager told us to go back on play a few more songs and pack it in.
Played about 4 more songs, loaded up, got paid, and went home. Very weird night for us.

paganjack · #2 09-23-2011, 01:04 PM

Hey, you got paid, right? Could have been worse!

But yeah that is a strange gig, huh?

Waffles and Scotch · #3 09-23-2011, 01:05 PM

I guess that means you're good enough that the owner wanted all his friends to see/hear you...

Sizlack · #4 09-23-2011, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paganjack

Hey, you got paid, right? Could have been worse!

But yeah that is a strange gig, huh?

Not complaining, just found it odd...as we were booked to cover the whole night we would have had enough material to play till 1 without stopping and then some.

MatticusMania · #5 09-23-2011, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sizlack

It seems the owner had called and wanted us to stop playing until he and his large party of guests arrived. So we sat there till about 12:15 waiting, they never showed up. Finally the manager told us to go back on play a few more songs and pack it in.
Played about 4 more songs, loaded up, got paid, and went home. Very weird night for us.

That is weird, did the owner think you would have run out of material by the time he and his party arrived?

WalWarrior · #6 09-23-2011, 01:17 PM

Yeah I read that the same way, sounds to me the owner digs your act and wanted all his buddies to check it out as well. perhaps he likes tunes from your second set and didn't want to miss them. Seeing as he was a no show, charge him twice the cover next time, everyone else gets in for free!

Sizlack · #7 09-23-2011, 01:38 PM

As far as I know the owner had never heard us before, we were booked in by the previous bar manager who had left a few weeks ago.

Waffles and Scotch · #8 09-23-2011, 01:45 PM

Then I'd say your reputation precedes you and leave it at that.

bolophonic · #9 09-23-2011, 02:45 PM

Sounds like a typical idiot bar owner.

kcole4001 · #10 09-23-2011, 02:54 PM

He possibly thought that his party would arrive during or just before your scheduled break, and wanted to avoid this and have a full set to dance/listen to when they arrived.

jaywa · #11 09-23-2011, 03:06 PM

I agree with others who think this appears to be a compliment on its face. Why the owner and his posse never showed up, who knows? Heck maybe it was just a test to see if you guys were divas or were willing to work with the club. But it's really no skin off anyone's nose, especially if you got paid your full rate.

One thing I've learned from the bar band scene is the importance of being flexible. We had something kind of like this happen just two weekends ago... we start the show, there's very few people there and the ones who are there aren't really into it. BL calls a break after we'd only played at most a half hour. (We had played the same place the night before and played a standard length 1st set so none of the bar staff got too concerned). I asked the BL what was up and he said, "No sense playing to an empty room; I want to see if this place fills up a little more." Sure enough, within a half hour there were a LOT more people and so we played a marathon 2nd set to make up for the short 1st one, which the crowd and the staff loved. Finished the show out with a standard length 3rd set, the crowd stuck around and everyone was happy at the end of the night.

Unless your contract says you MUST play 45-minute sets with 15-minute breaks or whatever -- and yes some venues are VERY particular about this -- but a lot of times on those things you have some liberty to go with the flow. A BL/frontman who's good at reading the room and working the crowd is a tremendous asset in these situations.

The flip side of this of course, is when you're playing a corporate gig or a class reunion or something and you're just getting into the flow of the set and then you have to stop so the CEO can announce the employee of the year or the Alumni Committee can pitch for donations or whatever. Those are interruptions that aren't always welcome and can really put a buzzkill on what's shaping up to be a good night... but again, you're there to serve the client so that's what you do.

aztomr · #12 09-23-2011, 04:21 PM

I actually had a stranger experience than that, last weekend. We played a country bar for the first time, Saturday night. We play a mix of rock and country, more rock than country. We find out that there is a dj who'll be teaching country line dancing during our breaks. At our first break, the dj demands all women to the dance floor and spends 15 or so minutes teaching them to dance to what I can only describe as disco country. We play our second set, no problems.We play our third set, two songs before the end of the set, the dj sends over the message " can we finish our set early?". Our lead singer sent back the message" tell him to f*ck off!" and we finish our set, about 11:05 pm. It turns out the dj is angry because he plays the national anthem for no apparent reason every night at 11:00 on the dot. By this time, we had all our fans run off by the dj, so we didn't really care when we went back on. After a half hour or so we ask the dj to stop, and he tells us in 6 or 7 songs. Our drummer starts playing with the disco country at this time, pissing off th dj more. The dj is doing the finger across the throat signal trying to get him to stop. I point it out to the drummer and he laughed and shouted " tell him not to fear the backbeat" and keeps going.
Eventually we go to the bar manager and ask if we are going to play our last set or not, he talks to the dj and we finish the night out without incident. We finish at 12:00, load out by 12:30 and go to get paid. The bar manager tells us to wait a second, he wants to talk to us about playing there again. At 1:00 I drove to the guitarist's home and unload, return to the bar where the reat of the band waits.
At 2:00 the owner sits down and talks to us for a couple minutes, wants us back in November, can we play more country next time. Afterwards I was thinking that we waited 90 minutes to get paid and the bar didn't even commit to a second night. Initially I was thrilled to play this bar, it sits exactly the same distance from my house and the guitarists house, now I really don't want to go back.

MatticusMania · #13 09-23-2011, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sizlack

Played at a new venue this past saturday night. Doing covers from 9pm til 1am. Made it through the first set ok, took a short break and went back on for the 2nd. About a 3rd of the way through our second set the manager comes over and asks us to take a break...it's almost 11pm now.
Being concerned that maybe the patrons were complaining about the music; the club does country on thrusdays and fridays; we do classic rock through hard rock stuff; I went to speak to the manager.
It seems the owner had called and wanted us to stop playing until he and his large party of guests arrived. So we sat there till about 12:15 waiting, they never showed up. Finally the manager told us to go back on play a few more songs and pack it in.
Played about 4 more songs, loaded up, got paid, and went home. Very weird night for us.

I guess the most important question to ask... did your band get asked back?

Sizlack · #14 09-24-2011, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

I guess the most important question to ask... did your band get asked back?

Yeah, got rebooked for December 10th. The whole situation just felt odd to me. Like everyone said though, we got paid so no problems here.

denhou1974 · #15 09-28-2011, 09:12 AM

You got paid for sitting around. Thumbs up.

I've played several gigs where we had to start really late because because the football/baseball game went into overtime. We still quit at 1:30AM.

I've played some gigs where the bar manager/owner/girlfriend wanted to get on stage and talk for 15 minutes.

I've played a few gigs where we took a 1 hour break for a bikini contest.

I've played gigs where they wanted us to quit and let the DJ play for the rest of the night. Nothing against us, people just wanted to hear cRAP.

Etc.

TolerancEJ · #16 09-28-2011, 11:28 AM

Perhaps the "Oddest" part was that it's a paying gig. I thought paying gigs were an urban legend. Hehe.

Sizlack · #17 09-28-2011, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TolerancEJ

Perhaps the "Oddest" part was that it's a paying gig. I thought paying gigs were an urban legend. Hehe.

Most of our gigs are paying...I have standards. I won't play out for less then at least 3 beers.

Depth_Charge · #18 09-28-2011, 07:54 PM

If you're getting paid in beer/alcohol by a bar, you're pretty much working for free in their eyes, since they can write a lot off on "wastage".

That said, I'm not knocking the concept...

Richland123 · #19 10-01-2011, 04:17 PM

So, the manager had you take a break for an hour and fifteen minutes and the other patrons did not care you were not entertaining them? I would think that a good business person would want you to perform for the customers who are there and not sit and do nothing.

walterw · #20 10-01-2011, 08:30 PM

remember, as long as your pay doesn't change, the less you play, the more you're getting paid per note!

i love goofy gigs where whole sets end up not happening due to the client's other ideas, as long as the pay doesn't change.

(that is, as long as the "other ideas" are no reflection on your band!)