Hecklers anyone?

[Joel S.]

We heckle each other on stage. Sometimes we get some good natured ribbing from friends.

[dmusic148]

Originally Posted by JimiLL

Tell him youre having a hard time understanding him, because he's got a long flesh colored something blocking his airway

ROTFLMAO!!!

[GearHeadBassMan]

we get our fair share of hecklers when we play older crowds (bar shows and such) because we give a quick 30 second speech during our set about the dangers of depression, best bet is to just ignore them, it actually pumps me up to play the rest of our songs and shut them up!

[denhou1974]

Try this:

Remember YOU have a microphone - the heckler doesn't. When he starts yelling stuff out, totally pretend like he's saying something else. If he yells "you suck, blah blah blah" you can easily yell out "No, dude ... we don't know any Bay City Rollers" or "We don't know any WHAM, sorry".

Don't give the heckler too much attention. That's exactly what they want.

[LouisV]

Once, at a dive blues club, a drunk guy got on the stage & flashed a knife & said he was gonna play the trumpet on the next song. He had rather large friends in the audience. We let him play.

[bassbully]

Originally Posted by denhou1974

Try this:

Remember YOU have a microphone - the heckler doesn't. When he starts yelling stuff out, totally pretend like he's saying something else. If he yells "you suck, blah blah blah" you can easily yell out "No, dude ... we don't know any Bay City Rollers" or "We don't know any WHAM, sorry".

Don't give the heckler too much attention. That's exactly what they want.

Right on! A buddy's band had this happen one night and the singer said "Hey queenie over there wants to know if we play YMCA by the Village People"..."No".... "Sorry buddy wrong bar" The guy flipped them off and bolted for the door. Huge fun and laughs for us!


On the other hand i used to work security for some city rock clubs one that at the time was the citys biggest venues for hardcore bands etc. Hecklers there were brutal and fights would break out. They also would throw things at the bands when heckling didnt work... Coins, batteries , pens, shoes and others things can do allot of damage when thrown hard from only a few feet away from a dark floor of a crowd towards the stage.

[steveksux]

When I was playing the hotel circuit, one town, Quincy, IL, was just a bar. So naturally the put us up at the cheapest hotel available. Flophouse upstairs from a strip joint on the corner. We drop the gear off at the bar, figure we'll stop at the strip club for a beer to unwind. Something's just not right. One comes by our table, says "Hi, how're you guys doing?" in a REAL husky voice... My arm goes around the girl lead singer "Hey, I'm engaged, but these guys are REAL lonely being on the road all this time..." Turns out there's a circuit of tranny pre-op strippers, from Quincy to Chicago.

We shoot the breeze, on their slow nights they stop at our place, on our slow nights we stop at theirs.

Our last night, got a heckler, real drunk obnixious guy. Wants to hear Lynnrd Skynnrd, we're a top-40 band. Don't know any. "Y'all don't know nothing bout no rock and roll", one thing after another.

To head off an ugly situation, I go over on our last break, buy the guy a beer and apologize. We're shooting the breeze, and in walks one of the tranny strippers.... I should explain, I have a little man inside my head that makes me do bad things sometimes.... So anyway, next thing I know, I'm telling this guy... "hey, check that chick out over there... she's a stripper from down the street.... bet if you buy "her" a few drinks you'll get lucky..."

We go back on for the last set...
I start chuckling when the guy saunters over there.... buys her a drink or two. Next thing you know they're necking at the table... And finally, JACKPOT! He's leaving the bar with "her", hand in hand... Bandmates can't figure out why I'm laughing hysterically.... too hard to explain quickly between songs... had to wait for after the gig.

Worlds worst date for a guy? When you find out your girlfriend has a bigger johnson than you do....

Randy

[WickedPissah]

I'd go CJ Ramone on a heckler.

Look up some videos of him dealing with hecklers...man oh man.

[HeebeeJB]

An early band I was in, we were doing rather well then we got a "Your Sh*t!" from the audience...Our singer Shouts "Who said That?" Quickly I said "me!" This got a laugh from the crowd. Just as well, we had found out from a previous gig that when a band member flattens a crowd member we can loose a venue! Said singer was a 'Punch yer face in as soon as sing to' you type' Got us all into various hairy escapades till we fired him...by postcard!

[Jared Lash]

The strangest hecking we ever got was in a club in Berkeley with my college band. During a break some guy in the back yells up at the stage, "HEY! Who gave that negro a geetar?"

My guitar player (who is black) was stunned along with the rest of us. With the exception of our drummer (who is too much of a nice guy) we were all good at throwing back witty retorts, but not that night.

Of course the followup to this story is that years later he became a studio/touring guitarist and an A&R man for a record label and I went to see him playing in Hollywood with a side project band. I thought it would be funny for me to repeat the comment until after the words came out of my mouth and I realized there was only one person in that room that knew what I meant. Luckily he relayed the story to the crowd so I felt like less of an idiot.