Ever had someone insult your band in front of you?

We played a gig Sunday on a beach at an outdoor tiki bar in Virginia. We are from Maryland right across the river. When we finished playing the house DJ said "everyone give it up for the band for playing my setlist. Now take your asses back to SoMD. We don't want you here." The bar manager got into it hard with him because roughly 100 people came over the bridge to see us and the 400 or so that were there loved us. They drank and danced ALL night. Guess the DJ was just bitter.

 

DJ with a "setlist".

I was sitting at the bar at Captain Joe's in South Hill Virginia sometime around '89. I was a teenager and the rest of the band was made up of thirty somethings. One woman says to the other..... "What kind of band is playing tonight?" The other one answered "When you see them, give them a chance. They sound amazing even though most of them look like they drive minivans."


(I had long hair and was 17 years old. She wasn't talking about me. )

To this day that could be part of the reason for my aversion to minivans.

 

Hahahhaa that's funny!!!

 

I LOVE this! That'd be me (station wagon for the record; keeping it 70's old skool).

 

I was insulted once before even playing.

We were loading in for a coffee house gig. A couple at a front row table was giving us the evil eye. Then the man said in a fairly loud voice, "Oh, it's a ROCK band". They immediately got up and left. Apparently the fact that three of us had long hair made us evil rockers. We were a folk/Americana roots band with a flute, lap steel, mandolin, 12 string guitar and bass with no drums , far from rock. Fortunately the rest of the full house stayed and enjoyed the music.

 

come on! Minivans make great band vehicles.

 

Even the great @BassCliff drives a minivan. They are great band vehicles.

 

Two old guys came up to me one night while I was setting up and one asked me if I as the tuba player. I said "no". He said, "how are you guys gonna play polka without a tuba?"
I told him we didn't play any polka. He said,''Hmmmph". Then the other one asked me if we were going to play any George Strait. I said, no". They both went, "hmmmph" again and walked away.
That's about the worst of it. lol

 

you must live in Wisconsin - polka capital of the states...

 

Hi guys,

That's funny! My youngest daughter is almost 18 now and loves the classic rock from the late 60's through early 80's. Even when she was five years old she did the cutest Bob Dylan impersonation you'd ever want to hear. It was hilarious!

Wow! What a jerk. What justifies the ego of some of these DJs? It's usually the other way around with us. We give our setlist to the DJ so that they don't play any of OUR songs. Bands may only have a couple hundred tunes to choose from but a good DJ should have thousands. Some people's kids. I tell ya.

I'm sure I look like I drive a minivan. Nothing wrong with a minivan. Well, there are a couple that I wouldn't drive.

Um, I don't think I would drive a Dodge Caravan, but the Chevy Astro van is the bomb!

Indeed.

I'd like to see George Strait play a tuba, while doing a polka.

There have been many times when my band would be loading in all its gear, four or five amps, a full PA, cases of instruments, etc, and invariably we would be approached by someone who would ask, "You're not going to be too loud, are you?" I guess we just "looked" loud, even before we plugged anything in.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

 

Yeah, @BassCliff we even GAVE him our set list. Which is currently about 350 songs. But, we highlighted around 50 that we'd likely play. He still got bitter.

 

Clearly he thought you were highlighting the songs you wanted him to play.

 

Hahha I don't think he was hitting that bottle THAT hard.

 

Try doing national tours. It is amazing what people will throw at you. The worst being CDs. You can't see those things coming.

 

We used to play a restaurant/club gig on a marina where the owner was a grumpy old guy
who loved bebop but hated everything else. He was always yelling at us to turn it down even when our PA was on 1.
So at our last gig there about 6 yrs ago I was the first to show up and walked in with two
JBL 12" wedges and sat them down on the dance floor close to the band stand. The guy walks up to me and says, in a loud, angered voice, "Jesus! How many speakers are you guys bringing?!". Now, just to recap, I was the first to arrive and had just sat down two 12"
wedges, the only gear brought in at this point. I looked up at him and in a voice similar to the one he'd just used on me stated, "ALL OF THEM!".
In our first set he kept yelling to turn it down or he would cut the power. So, having had enough of this guy and his venue, I asked the audience, who seemed to be enjoying our set,
"Hey everyone, the owner here wants us to turn down, what do YOU say?" They all yelled
TURN IT UP! So I turned to the band and told them this was the last time I was playing here and F&*K this guy, we're cranking it up to where we can at least get some tone from our amps. Well, the guy didn't pull the power...we had the place packed and the dance floor full. And we had a good gig and left, intending never to return.
A month later, on a Friday evening, I got a call from the guy asking if we could play that same night. It was around 7pm and he didn't have a band. I declined the invite and we've never returned. I simply refuse to work for jerks.

 

One time, some dude told me that I was too pretty to be in a metal band. I wasn't in a metal band. Still scratching my head over that one.

 

Yes. So we threw oranges at their car.