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a-hole audience members

#41
TheOxRocks said:
No, I was fired from the band (for reasons unrelated to the above anecdote), who then booked a gig at that same club. I guess I didn't make that clear in my original posting.

No, I would not quit a band because of a drunken a--h---, but I WOULD refuse to play at a particular venue if I thought that said drunken a--h--- would make a return appearance.
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still makes little sense....drunks are everywhere and dealing with them is part of the gig....i think i can see why you got canned tho'....someone hits on the wife like that either have him tossed out or kick his butt.....you choose to write off the venue....
 
#43
Every bar has its A-hole. Been playing a club every Friday for 2 and a half years. The 1st A-hole had no teeth and long matted hair and beard. He'd sit at the edge of the dance floor and ogle the girls dancing as he shoveled potato chips into his mouth. Ended up running a lot of girls out of there. No girls, no guys, so they barred him. We called him Aqualung. 2nd A-hole was an older guy we called Einstein because of his hair. he'd get on the dance floor and some sort of weird LSD dance and, once again, creep the girls out. Barred. Present A-hole is a twit who dresses all in yellow with matching sunglasses who thinks we're is back up band as he does all his breakdance moves. He repeatdly would bump into the singers mic stand almost knocking our singers teeth out. I'd shove him with my foot a couple of times but no change. This past weekend I walked to the edge of the stage (Real low stage, about 10" or so) turned quickly to the right like I was looking at my amp and caught him on the back of the head pretty hard with the headstock. That fixed it, He now dances at the other end of the dance floor.
 
#45
Jim Campbell said:
still makes little sense....drunks are everywhere and dealing with them is part of the gig....i think i can see why you got canned tho'....someone hits on the wife like that either have him tossed out or kick his butt.....you choose to write off the venue....
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Nice... Actually, I got canned because of musical disagreements with the band leader... stuff like her wanting to play songs at gigs that were clearly train wrecks in the making, and me not wanting to embarrass myself just to satisfy her ego. Stuff like her singing songs in keys only dogs could hear, and not accepting the undeniable fact (pointed out to her by both me and the drummer, who I hear is next on her hit list) that she wasn't even close to singing in the same key as the band was playing in. Stuff like her being the "perfect rock star", incapable of making a mistake, but whenever a song was messed up it was always someone else's fault. I was actually a gig away from quitting when I was fired.

For the record, nobody had ever argued the point with me about not wanting to play that particular club again. They underpaid us and wrung an extra hour out of us by refusing to pay. I have no idea why they wanted to play there again. But hey, it's no longer my problem.
 
#48
A few years back we were playing at a restaurant. My guitarist's wife brought along their two kids (10 & 14) to see us play. They were sitting there enjoying the show... After we were well into our second set, he noticed they were gone and saw his brother sitting in the booth they were in. We did two more songs and stopped for a break. My guitarist asked his brother where his wife and kids went and he said, "She told me to tell you there were going to wait in the car"... WTH?

We go out to the car and his wife was on the verge of tears. Some drunken bar witch came up to her and asked "Are these your kids?" to which she answered "Yes" (She thought she was going to get complimented because they were behaving) the lady said "Good, I wanted to let you know I called child protective services on you"

Mind you this was a restaurant and there were other kids in there as well... It wasnt even 9:00 yet. The whole band was pissed and got the owner involved. However, we were not able to find the lady to ask her why she did that.

She never called the cops (had no reason to) but that really screwed him up bad... messed up the last set. TOTALLY understand. I would be too.

:mad:
 
#49
We usually just tell 'em that our memories are foggy on requests until we see a little money go into the tip jar...then the fog magically clears.

But if you want to know how to handle a rowdy crowd, listen to Johnny Cash play San Quentin Prison in 1969. There are times when it sounds like a prison riot is about to break out, and you should hear those prison boys whistle at his wife. But he keeps them from going over the edge.

 
#50
You know it's going to be a great night when during setup you hear...

"hey ya'll...whut kinda skin-erd yew got fer us t'nite?"

And when you turn around, there stands a meth ravaged scarecrow in a "hell no I ain't fergettin" wife beater, a foot long three dollar knife on his belt, nasty azzed hair to his butt, no front teeth, and a big floppy leather hat, already doing the one too many sway and it's only 8PM.
 
#51
Was palying a class reunion gig (not mine) once in the past and this one dude just would not stop. Went on and on after every song. After about a set and a half worth of this I couldnt stand it anymore, and I can take a lot. I couldnt see who was talking, but knew about 90% of the people there, and if someone had told me who it was I would have just blown it off since I knew he was a moron. I just said at the end of a song "eight billion sperm cells and you had to swim the fastest". The crowd lost it and he got pissed and got up and left. I found out later who it was and wasnt really surprised.

Best one tho was this. A friends band was playing and this drunk dude walked up to the guitar player and gave him the finger for whatever reason. Unfortunately it was within arms reach of the guitar dude. He reached out and grabbed the guys finger and broke it. I LOL'd.

BnB
 
#52
bound'n'blocked said:
Was palying a class reunion gig (not mine) once in the past and this one dude just would not stop. Went on and on after every song. After about a set and a half worth of this I couldnt stand it anymore, and I can take a lot. I couldnt see who was talking, but knew about 90% of the people there, and if someone had told me who it was I would have just blown it off since I knew he was a moron. I just said at the end of a song "eight billion sperm cells and you had to swim the fastest". The crowd lost it and he got pissed and got up and left. I found out later who it was and wasnt really surprised.

Best one tho was this. A friends band was playing and this drunk dude walked up to the guitar player and gave him the finger for whatever reason. Unfortunately it was within arms reach of the guitar dude. He reached out and grabbed the guys finger and broke it. I LOL'd.

BnB
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A guy talking?
Got up and left?

I take it this wasn't your average rock gig, huh? :p
 
#53
Had a guy pestering me all night that I needed to play more slap lines...I was like "slap doesn't fit in about 90% of the tunes we play". He says "I'm a bass player and I play slap for every style"...I said "how much work do you get?"...he said "huh?"...
 
#55
TheOxRocks said:
Nice... Actually, I got canned because of musical disagreements with the band leader... stuff like her wanting to play songs at gigs that were clearly train wrecks in the making, and me not wanting to embarrass myself just to satisfy her ego. Stuff like her singing songs in keys only dogs could hear, and not accepting the undeniable fact (pointed out to her by both me and the drummer, who I hear is next on her hit list) that she wasn't even close to singing in the same key as the band was playing in. Stuff like her being the "perfect rock star", incapable of making a mistake, but whenever a song was messed up it was always someone else's fault. I was actually a gig away from quitting when I was fired.

For the record, nobody had ever argued the point with me about not wanting to play that particular club again. They underpaid us and wrung an extra hour out of us by refusing to pay. I have no idea why they wanted to play there again. But hey, it's no longer my problem.
Click to expand...

Since we're in the same area, can you PM me the band name so I stay away?
 
#56
One day I walked into a guitarist friend/former bandmate's kitchen to find him fairly beaten up and black-eyed...He tells me about the previous night's gig and a six to seven foot,300 pound drunk***.

They had played Billy Idol's version of Mony,Mony to great crowd reaction. At the break, Man-Mountain walks up to the band and informs them that they better not play that song again or there would be trouble, then walked away.

Last set they decide to encore Mony,Mony....After the set the guy walks up to the bassist and says 'I told you not to play that song!' and starts punching. The whole band (none of which where that small themselves) jump from the stage onto the guy ,who still managed to do a good deal of damage to most of the band before being taken down.
 
#58
I was once playing in an instrumental modern jazz/funk band, not exactly the most accessible stuff at times, and I had a drunk idiot who kept yelling for Tom Petty, Bob Seger, and AC/DC, apparently clueless. On the break, I gave him a quarter, and pointed towards the jukebox.
 
#59
Over the years I’ve had my teeth chipped on microphones, had my rig knocked over a few times, and knocked the headstock of my bass (accidentally) on more than a few noggins. I can deal with all that, as its par for the course in the genre of music I play, and it’s never on purpose. What I can’t deal with is having stuff thrown at me or being spit on…

About 10 years ago my former band got hooked up with a wannabe “promoter” that wanted to book us at several more rural and suburban bars and halls than we usually played, with the shtick being that we play behind chicken wire, in true Blues Brothers fashion.

The first of these shows was at a small-town bar that happened to be running specials on Jagermeister shots that night, served in those little plastic shot glasses. Unbeknownst to me at the time, chicken wire tends to make drunken jackasses act like even bigger jackasses, and their game soon became “throw the half-full Jager shot at the chicken wire and see if it will stick”…with the remaining contents hitting us. I laughed at first, then got mad, then politely asked the crowd not to waste booze, then screamed at them to stop f&*%$# throwing $%^* at us, after which the liqueur showers subsided. But by that point my bass was already coated in sticky brown goo. The drunken “promoter” was apologetic, and even gave us an extra $100 beyond the ridiculous guarantee we’d convinced him to pay us just for the hassle.

Being gluttons for punishment, we agreed to play another one of these “chicken wire” shows a few weeks later at a suburban sports bar (not really our kind of place) due to another disproportionally large guarantee . As expected in that sort of venue, most of the bar patrons weren’t too enthused at listening to punk rock while eating their hot wings and slowly filtered out, leaving just the sloppy drunk “promoter” and his cronies watching us. Apparently, the draw of the chicken wire was just too much, and Mr. “promoter” couldn’t resist taking a huge mouthful of beer and spitting it right towards the stage. I deployed chaff and narrowly avoided the lukewarm stream, but my hot-headed guitarist wasn’t so lucky, and took a direct hit of beer and spit on his upper leg. Before I could even react, he had busted through the chicken wire and was preparing to use his Les Paul as a Louisville Slugger on the “promoter”, who had suddenly sobered up enough to high-tail it to the parking lot. We stopped the set, demanded our guarantee, and surprisingly…never worked with this “promoter” again.
 
#60
I've learned to stay hidden in between sets as nothing frustrates me more than having an audience member ( to put nicely ) request a song and then decide he just doesn't want to sing a few bars but the whole freakin song! After 60 seconds I just walked away.
 

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