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Did I screw up, or am I a hero?

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#81
Yep, total dick move. I get the drunk part, but I would like to see the video because my guess is that your version probably wasn't quite the stellar performance you think it was. EVERYONE thinks they are singing in key...everyone!

Not sure why you or anyone else would think you are a hero for this. You didn't save anything, Geddy isn't worried about someone butchering the vocals on that song in someone's backyard and 99.99% of the people there had no clue. This doesn't even provide a good story for future parties...nothing funny or untoward happened, just something dumb.
 
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#82
Dave Siff said:
So every year at my neighborhood pool, there's an adults-only party. My band played it a couple of times. The beer, wine and liquor always flow freely at this shindig and things can go a little sideways…

This year they hired a cover band, who handed out song lists at the beginning of the night so people could come up and sing one. I can carry a tune and there were a couple of Rush songs on the list and there's no bigger Rush fan than me, but I don't sing with my band and I had no intention of jumping on-stage at this party. Until…

A neighborhood guy who I don't even know got up there and sang some song which I don't remember, and it wasn't so good, but whatever. Everyone's having a good time. Then he stayed up there, consulted briefly with the band, and they launched into "Tom Sawyer". So I move close to the front of the stage 'cause this is gonna be cool.

But right from the first line of vocals, he's screwing it up. Badly. Off key, not in time with the band. I'm looking at him, we make eye contact, I'm mouthing the words in time, trying to get him back on track, and it's not happening. And I'm thinking to myself, go ahead and desecrate the Cranberries or Sublime or 'Brown-Eyed Girl', but not Rush. Not on my watch.

So after "the river…", I took the #%$^&* mic out of his hand and finished the song, in tune and on time. And the crowd went wild. This guy and his wife, however, did not.

Several minutes later, he saw me and said "not cool", pretty forcefully. I apologized. He wasn't having it. Then, a few minutes later, his wife comes charging at me, calling me every name in the book, saying I embarrassed her husband because I'm "a professional", etc. And then they both stormed outta there, flipping me off.

Thinking about it later, if someone had done that to me, I probably would have been pretty pissed. Then again, I wouldn't have been butchering one of the greatest songs in rock history. So, I'm dug in – sorry not sorry, as a massive Rush fan with some liquid courage, I did what I had to do.

Am I am heel or a hero?
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I'll say, not cool.
You had the option of walking away with your fingers in your ears if it offended you so badly.
It's neighborhood karaoke. You should have anticipated the quality of performance that those two words predict.
 
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#85
Hero? Only in your own mind.

It was rude to cut him off mid song and take over even if he was butchering it, he was having fun and so was everyone else from your description. Sounds like you're the only one that noticed he was off. You know how many times I've had to sit and listen to someone butcher the bass lines to many of my favorite songs, and not once have I ever even so much as said anything about it to them, much less barge on stage, take his bass, and start playing the song the right way.

Classic example: small bar gig, a younger punk/metal band was playing a few covers to fill out their time and they played For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica. It has a pretty killer bass lick in the intro which the bassist flubbed every time, he lost his place in the song a couple times but they got thru it. Now my band goes on next and we had already planned on playing that same song, rehearsed it several times even and I had the Morley pedal for it but because these guys had played it, albeit poorly, we switched it out for Creeping Death right before we went on. Had we played the same song and done it better, would we have been heroes or d!cks?

What's done is done, only you can decide if it's worth it to pursue some sort of peace offering or just be the professional a-hole. Sometimes you gotta let it go and just let it be what it is.
 
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#89
RustyAxe said:
But ... would your wedding band open the mic to all comers? OP was a block party thing. Can we agree that OP was NOT a "hero"?
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Sure. But many here are acting as though he's public enemy #1. And he's not that either. Small party foul at worst.
images.jpeg-3.jpg
 
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#91
two fingers said:
Sure. But many here are acting as though he's public enemy #1. And he's not that either. Small party foul at worst.
View attachment 3506096
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Right. My original post was just intended to illustrate how much of a "heel" I think he was for publicly embarrassing the singer. Being drunk is no excuse ... maybe OP will think twice next time ... or not.

But hey, no one died, and the sun rose in the east this morning. All is well.
 
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#96
Dave Siff said:
as a massive Rush fan with some liquid courage, I did what I had to do.
Click to expand...

I always need to restrain myself when someone is butchering a tune that's dear to my heart but the worst I'm capable of is leaving and letting them know I'm not leaving because I have an appointment elsewhere but solely because the band sucked.

In a party environment with an open stage character, that's a cool dick move.
I mean, someone does badly and the next moment someone else rescues the thing, that's quite cool for the crowd, except those few that get embarrassed. For those, It's a dick move.

But! ! !: When you manage to embarrass someone by taking away the mic and singing in tune and in time,
in my book that person did all the embarrassing on his or her own.

When you sing the song somewhat okay'ish and then a pro comes along and finishes it off the way Geddy would have done it, that's another story.
 
#98
As a fellow Rush fan, I think the fact that you're even asking tells you everything you need to know...you feel guilt because you knew it wasn't the best action to take in that situation. Otherwise, it would have been a "Can you believe this couple?" post.

Why not share the mic and try to help him that way? Both of you up there drunk and singing would have come off MUCH more couth given the general tone of the event...people aren't expecting stellar performances at a drunken pool party with live karaoke. To put it in context that we can all probably understand better...imagine you are doing an improv show or just jamming at a club or coffee house, when a studio musician or someone famous like Michael Manring just walks up onto stage, takes your bass, and starts playing a better bassline for what the rest of the band is playing. Naturally you'd feel pretty pissed as well, he basically said "STFU, you don't know what you're doing now give me that and go sit down, I'll show you how it's done."

While protecting the integrity of a song or its significance sounds like a very noble ideal, I can guarantee you that this guy was not the only drunken tonedeaf guy to butcher that song in history and Geddy, Alex, and Neal could NOT care less...
 
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