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a-hole audience members

#62
Had a guy not too long ago go to every member of the band including me and say. "ya'll should let me sing wagon wheel... I'm from Virginia".
Best resume point ever.

The audience member that gets on my nerves most though, and he appears places other than shows, Is Mr. " Oh my brother-in-law's in a band". This guy ALWAYS proceeds to tell me all about this band and ask me if I have heard of them or each member and tell me I should check them out. Riiiiight.
 
#64
Let's quickly give a shout out to all the entitled a-holes that feel privileged enough to come up on stage drunk and uninvited, and simply start using equipment during a performance, like a tambourine, a keyboard, congas, or a microphone.

Like you and the thousands of dollars in equipment are a background prop for their "wedding singer" moment in front of friends.

They are disabused of this notion fairly quickly, even with risk of fisticuffs and a marred wedding or event.
 
#69
Oh oh! I've got one!

I was playing with my variety cover band down at a local joint. Nice vibe in there that night with a great crowd, and at the beginning of "Wagon Wheel", this drunk chick just kinda wanders up on my side of the stage, and makes a motion like she wants to talk to me. I lean in, can't hear a word she's saying... So I just shrug and look back over to the drummer.

Next thing I know, she's on my mic singing backup. The lead singer looks back at me and I shrug at him. I didn't tell her she could or anything, and security was nowhere to be found. The lead singer just kinda played along and she was OK with her vocals... at best.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people coming up and singing... I just kinda have a problem with some nobody coming up and slobbering all over my mic.

Song wraps up, the singer thanks her over the PA for singing, and said something to the effect of "We'll get her back up when she's had a bit more to drink!"... I shot him a look and he comes over, telling me he's just kidding. I don't think he should've even joked about this.

Later in the evening, she comes up a second time out of the blue, and sings along to Every Rose. By now, the 'vocals' have become something of a mix between a confused coyote and a barbaric grunting, so we sorta backed her out of the mix out front, and I pulled out my in-ears (since my mic level was almost double everyone elses). Song ended, she promptly vanished. We told our sound-guy to make sure she doesn't come up again.

And in the LAST set of the night, we play Simple Man. She comes out of nowhere and I almost accidently elbow her as I'm turning around to do backing vocals... She grabs my mic, stand and all... and drags it over to the lead singer, spilling her beer on my DI/Effects rig, and I immediately look for the soundman... nowhere to be found. I click the mute on that mic channel, but she got smart and reached for the lead singer's wireless. He snatches it away and security rushes up to pull her off mid-song

Needless to say, I had a talk with our singer about it, and I told him that we either have a side mic that we can hand off or have nobody come up...
 
#70
OMG this drunk chic kept hollering "JETHRO TUUUUULLLL" so Kalli (female vox) explains that we don't do covers but we'll learn a JT song and play it for ya next time, to get her to shut up. wudnt happnin.

So she disappears. Thank God, then at the very end of our short 45 min set she shows back up lookin kinda lost, turns, sees Kalli and says "YOU STILL HERE FAGGET?!!?"

To funny, its our inside joke now and I think we may use it as the new album title.
 
#71
I was playing a bar once and this drunk woman comes up and says, "no sad songs." I say OK to shut her up, and apparently we played another sad song because she came up and said it again. I said OK again and then we played a few more and when we launched into heart break hotel, she came up and threw a drink on me.

We still laugh about that.
 
#72
lfmn16 said:
I was playing a bar once and this drunk woman comes up and says, "no sad songs." I say OK to shut her up, and apparently we played another sad song because she came up and said it again. I said OK again and then we played a few more and when we launched into heart break hotel, she came up and threw a drink on me.

We still laugh about that.
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This post/whole thread is PLATINUM! :D
 
#73
Rapisme said:
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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The key is to get them involved.

Flag down a waitress and get a pen and a bunch of napkins.

Ask them to write down all the lyrics, completely, and chart out the chords and song structure on the napkins.

If they complete this one task remind them that there are other members of the band who will need to know that information as well so one copy isn't going to work.

No drunk has the attention span for that sort of thing. Hell, no one sober does really either.
 
#75
I can honestly only think of a couple times I had to deal with an a-hole at a show. For the most part, we get good crowds and the people are generally a lot of fun.

So, I'm playing this sub gig at a local Eagles hall. I'd subbed with these guys before and always had fun. There's this woman there sitting, then dancing, and bopping about 10' from where my amp is. And she keeps shouting things at me...."You're too loud.....You're too quiet.....I can't hear your singing......why aren't you dancing more....blah blah blah....". Went on for almost two sets, I mostly ignored it. Then on our second break she comes up to me and tells me how I should listen to her and take her advice because her HUSBAND plays in two bands and she knows what she's talking about. Turns out she was there mainly because she was hoping to get up and sing with the band (I guess she knew them, I didn't know her) and when it didn't happen she was a bit miffed.

Second time my current band was playing a show at a small bar. Honestly, our first set is kinda littered with songs that aren't maybe the greatest, but they're not bad either. So we go on our first break, and as usual I go out and go table to table, up to the bar, talking to people, thanking them for coming out to see us. I get to a table with my friends Steve and his wife Francine. They brought one of her friends, a woman I didn't know, who looks at me and says "Do you guys play anything that doesn't suck?". Francine is mortified. I told her to stick around for a while and let me know later on. She did. And later on she told me that she was sorry and she really liked the songs in our other sets. Turns out she was irritated because we don't do any KISS, her favorite band.
 
#76
I've had my fair share of a-hole audience members. From the dancing drunk that knocked my mic into my mouth, to the guy that kept shouting out different songs that he wanted to hear, and eventually started heckling us..stuff like, "Go back to the garage" and "You guys SUCK!"

The latest in a-hole audience members came from an older woman (who was a bit drunk) who didn't say or do anything during our performance, but waited until we were loading out. Her whole speech started out with, "You guys are good, but too loud", and "You really should engage the audience more, like, asking what they would like to hear. Like that group of young people there, maybe they would like to hear Jason Mraz." She went on and on with stuff like that and I did my best to be polite. Good times, I tell ya!!
 
#77
DerTeufel said:
I've had my fair share of a-hole audience members. From the dancing drunk that knocked my mic into my mouth, to the guy that kept shouting out different songs that he wanted to hear, and eventually started heckling us..stuff like, "Go back to the garage" and "You guys SUCK!"

The latest in a-hole audience members came from an older woman (who was a bit drunk) who didn't say or do anything during our performance, but waited until we were loading out. Her whole speech started out with, "You guys are good, but too loud", and "You really should engage the audience more, like, asking what they would like to hear. Like that group of young people there, maybe they would like to hear Jason Mraz." She went on and on with stuff like that and I did my best to be polite. Good times, I tell ya!!
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's the chickens coming home to roost.....for decades now a lot of bands,famous and not so famous.... have encouraged a lot of bad behavior from audiences,feeling that less than a full scale riot is equivalent to a dead crowd...

..now everyone feels that they have a duty to yell and scream everywhere and the very notion that music started out as something to be listened to has gone the way of the dodo,or dollar a gallon gas....jazz and classical seem to be the only places you can hear more music than yak these days and even then only in the theater settings....club crowds just don't give a rat's --- .

....the last classical thing i was at sounded every bit like a lung cancer ward.....it's like people cannot focus on anything any more.....and find texting someone about the concert they are missing as more rewarding than the music itself....
 
#79
will33 said:
I've been hearing it as '80's hairband guitar mixed up in something that isn't really country. Either that or Britney Spears with a fiddle player.


I'm a big fan of country music......unfortunately they stopped making it.
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Genres are hardly rock walls. I watched Fairport Convention play a Motor Head song at Croperty one year.

And It May Get Loud had Edge, James Page and Jack White jamming on the weight.

I do need to share in your regret about the lack of country music.

Credence was a rack band. Today they would be country.

And crying and dying is what life is all about.
 
#80
I think there's a special place in hell for the obnoxious jackasses who yell out the same requests after every song. Personally, I hate soliciting requests, because it seems to encourage that behavior. I know it seems pretentious, but I don't suffer obnoxious dip-poops very easily.

SpecialBlender said:
My Country/60's band decided to play out our last bookings and retire last fall. Our very last gig was a Vet's club where we've always been their top draw. Everything was going great, room and the dance floor were full (as usual). During our second set I have someone come up and complain loudly we weren't playing enough rock & roll and we needed to be a whole lot louder. People close to the stage told here it was just fine, they really appreciated exactly what we were playing and we were plenty loud enough. During the next couple of tunes she kept hollering from the dance floor, turn it up. Again people on the floor told her it was just fine, they liked what we were doing and if she didn't like it she should leave, which she did after yelling at us we would never play there again.

When we picked up our check at the end of the night, the bar staff apologized profusely for her behavior, that she just had too much to drink.

Turns out it was the bar manager who was fired the next day.
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This is a prime example of a story that starts off with so much fail but then ends with so much win. :D
 

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