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First Time Being Told "YOUR BAND SUCKS"
- Thread starter BayStateBass
- Start date
Thanks for the input. It's something we've argued about internally since...forever. The drummer and I always wanted to do just that....start out and build, see how the audience takes it. Unfortunately, the guitarist is the BL and he has this thing about coming out with guns blazing right from the first song. He likes to stand up and just smack the audience right in the face from the first note. For example, we did a show last Saturday which went over fantastic with the crowd they had (local hard rock festival), and he opens our act up by blaring "Eruption". Again, it works great in the places we go where they like us, but I don't think it works well everywhere. So yes, I see your point, and it's a good one.
Mellowiman, you had better bring Arthur to hold me down while you flail away.
I've decided to send my wife, instead.
Good luck!
The difference is that the Beib really DOES suck!Been there, done that. Just dust yourself off, get back up, and try again.
At least you know how Justin Beiber feels.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Remember, this ain't a concert at a stadium. They are there for a night out, not just to see you. Take a look at the bands you want to emulate who play the same circuit as you to get an idea of what you should be shooting for.
We have the opposite problem with a bar owner who books us. She and her staff love us but the crowd doesn't care for us so much. They typically book hard rock bands and we are a Classic Rock/Country band. It is a little far away so our regular followers don't usually make the trip. I don't get it, but they book us a couple times a year.
In your situation it is probably too late to turn the relationship around, but if it happens in the future (and it is a place you want to play again) try to get the owner to tell you what music he wants played. If it is doable, tailor your set list to the club. The thing I would not do is worry about what one owner says. Good or bad. If it is something that happens often, then I may take a look at the band, but it does not sound like that is what is happening.
In your situation it is probably too late to turn the relationship around, but if it happens in the future (and it is a place you want to play again) try to get the owner to tell you what music he wants played. If it is doable, tailor your set list to the club. The thing I would not do is worry about what one owner says. Good or bad. If it is something that happens often, then I may take a look at the band, but it does not sound like that is what is happening.
BayState, as a fellow Central-Mass lowender, I am dying to know the venue (PM me if you like)
I TRULY hope it's not the place I am playing tonite...
I TRULY hope it's not the place I am playing tonite...
PM sent
I can tell you the places we played that were really, really good and where we had some of our best times.
If you're playing the place I sent over, I can give you some details on what they are looking for, as near as I can tell, and what the $$ deal really is and how it really works there.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
I'm killing the last 30 minutes at work, reading these awesome stories, and I would like to share my "worst gig so far" tale...
A youngish, sort of cocky band digs our music, so they invite us to play at a club 90 minutes away, along with another band that we're great friends with and who are amazing at getting the crowd really moving. We get to this club, and it's the owners birthday, so before we even set up she's hammered.
The sound guy is a very nice and well-meaning older gentleman who we worked with once before. Unfortunately, we remembered him not only because he was gushing about his home-made 90-degree XLR cables, but because he put legs-out folding tables against the front edge of a 12" stage in an Eagles Club to 'keep the crowds from getting to the monitors.' These tables resulted in myself and the drummer hearing the amps bouncing directly back at our heads, and into the mics, causing feedback that the deaf sound guy couldn't quite hear...
So, same deaf sound guy at this show. We play our first song (all original tunes), and, along with the audience, have to endure a high pitched feedback that the sound guy never ever does anything to resolve. Our band is just bass and drums, so it's not like I'm running a high-gain guitar amp or full stack at head-level pointing right into the PA, it's just vocal mic and monitors, and he can't simply lower the mic gain or the monitor level. Well, we soldier on, and start in to a second song. About halfway through the tune, someone shoulders their way to the front of this crowded little place and says 'she wants you to stop.' So I stop the song, and say "What?" through the PA system. I'm already fuming about the sound situation, so I'm ready for any excuse to let off a little steam. The kid in the audience says "the owner wants you to stop playing, they don't like you," so I say over the PA "You want us to stop playing? You got it!" and I immediately turned my amps off and started loading out.
With that, the band we're good friends with decides not to play either. My drummer and my incredibly awesome girlfriend go to talk to the club owner, who is drunk as she can possibly be, and in her country-bar-booked-a-rock-band-owning-birthday-poopie-fest stupor she pays us TWICE, while enduring a polite but exceedingly firm tongue-lashing from our camp.
On the way out of the parking lot, we finally see the bar's sign, which has been changed by the other band to read "Happy Birthday Breenie, You Bitch." We scheduled a last minute show in the other band's hometown and ended up playing a glorious steam-blowing set. Honestly, was worth it for the story and the experience.
The club and it's owner are now long gone, not even 5 or 6 years later, and replaced by a full-fledged rock bar.
A youngish, sort of cocky band digs our music, so they invite us to play at a club 90 minutes away, along with another band that we're great friends with and who are amazing at getting the crowd really moving. We get to this club, and it's the owners birthday, so before we even set up she's hammered.
The sound guy is a very nice and well-meaning older gentleman who we worked with once before. Unfortunately, we remembered him not only because he was gushing about his home-made 90-degree XLR cables, but because he put legs-out folding tables against the front edge of a 12" stage in an Eagles Club to 'keep the crowds from getting to the monitors.' These tables resulted in myself and the drummer hearing the amps bouncing directly back at our heads, and into the mics, causing feedback that the deaf sound guy couldn't quite hear...
So, same deaf sound guy at this show. We play our first song (all original tunes), and, along with the audience, have to endure a high pitched feedback that the sound guy never ever does anything to resolve. Our band is just bass and drums, so it's not like I'm running a high-gain guitar amp or full stack at head-level pointing right into the PA, it's just vocal mic and monitors, and he can't simply lower the mic gain or the monitor level. Well, we soldier on, and start in to a second song. About halfway through the tune, someone shoulders their way to the front of this crowded little place and says 'she wants you to stop.' So I stop the song, and say "What?" through the PA system. I'm already fuming about the sound situation, so I'm ready for any excuse to let off a little steam. The kid in the audience says "the owner wants you to stop playing, they don't like you," so I say over the PA "You want us to stop playing? You got it!" and I immediately turned my amps off and started loading out.
With that, the band we're good friends with decides not to play either. My drummer and my incredibly awesome girlfriend go to talk to the club owner, who is drunk as she can possibly be, and in her country-bar-booked-a-rock-band-owning-birthday-poopie-fest stupor she pays us TWICE, while enduring a polite but exceedingly firm tongue-lashing from our camp.
On the way out of the parking lot, we finally see the bar's sign, which has been changed by the other band to read "Happy Birthday Breenie, You Bitch." We scheduled a last minute show in the other band's hometown and ended up playing a glorious steam-blowing set. Honestly, was worth it for the story and the experience.
The club and it's owner are now long gone, not even 5 or 6 years later, and replaced by a full-fledged rock bar.
They were probably told that in German, and may or may not have understood it, though.
3 barflys probably drink more than your crew over one week. The risk analysis is simple. If you were to get a monthly spot and cause just one barfly to fly off you cost the bar an immediate loss. I'd probably can you even if I liked you.
Opinions are like ********,everyone has 1 and they all stink ! We had a bar owner tell us we sucked just because he didn't "like the way we looked "! Don't worry about it,you cant please everyone.
The very last gig I did the bassist (not me I also play Gtar) said out loud in front of the owner and bartender. "This Place is a ****ing dive!" I corrected him this place is classic! Do you know how many bands have come through here? I'm happy to be playing this place. Two songs into our set sound guy turned off the PA and said it was time to go. Ushered us out the door and the next band took the stage.
Thanks for the moral support and stories, everyone. I can always count on you people to cheer me up. I am actually looking forward to our next performance. We actually have two gigs in one day. Our first stop is a town fair/festival in the late morning followed up that night by a gig in my second favorite venue. It will be a long day but a fun one, and pretty profitable to boot. I might start another thread asking for help with a set list for the festival. Thanks everyone!
Chit happens mang. We had a semi regular job at a nice little place here in town and one day we play there and the owners girlfriend wants to do a song with us. It's not our usual thing, but she came correct, far enough ahead of time that we could figure out a song we all knew, when to call her up, etc
When the time came, she was not knee walking drunk but was not far from it, and had a flute in hand, which was not a part of the plan. She takes the mic and proceeds to start attempting to play "Summertime". It was so awful and off it took a minute to figure out what she was trying to play. We fell on it and got it sounding like a song and about that time she stopped playing and turned around and started screaming at us about play the GD song, which we were, but she was obviously too intoxicated to realize this. She tried to sing but was not synched up with us so we synched up with her, just in time for her to once agan turn around and scream at us for not plating the GD song right. My brother (our BL) had enough and motioned for us to stop and told this girl that she needed to step down and let us finish our set. She started screaming about she was never gonna leave this GD stage, if anyone was leaving it would be our GD band because her old man owned this GD stage and on and on for a few minutes. Her boyfriend finally came up to get her off the stage and as she struggled with him to stay, she slipped and fell flat on her face, exploding her nose in a gout of blood. As soon as she was cleared from the room we cranked back up and finished out the night. When we got paid the owner was so apologetic it was bordering on sickening, and continued to assure us everything was cool and don't worry about it and she'll never do that crap again, and on and on and on.
This place called us on a regular basis to book us in there and it's been just over 10 months since the fiasco with the drunk GF. I'm a little slow but I'm not too slow to figure out we won't ever be called to play this place again and since scuttlebutt has it that drunk GF has become something of a fixture at the place, and has been putting the bad mouth on us, I'm in no way inclined to return. For some reason it bugs the crap out of my brother. He occasionally obsesses over the fact that we lost that job through no fault of our own and are getting slagged by some drunk jerk. Whenever he goes off on that tangent I remind him that it is really a blessing in disguise, that we play out all we want and who wants to go someplace where you aren't welcome. I know it hurts my bros pride, but life is never everything you want, sometime you just have to not worry about why and just move the eff on.
I enjoyed playing the place but not enough to try to fix whatever it is that's broken in their organization.
When the time came, she was not knee walking drunk but was not far from it, and had a flute in hand, which was not a part of the plan. She takes the mic and proceeds to start attempting to play "Summertime". It was so awful and off it took a minute to figure out what she was trying to play. We fell on it and got it sounding like a song and about that time she stopped playing and turned around and started screaming at us about play the GD song, which we were, but she was obviously too intoxicated to realize this. She tried to sing but was not synched up with us so we synched up with her, just in time for her to once agan turn around and scream at us for not plating the GD song right. My brother (our BL) had enough and motioned for us to stop and told this girl that she needed to step down and let us finish our set. She started screaming about she was never gonna leave this GD stage, if anyone was leaving it would be our GD band because her old man owned this GD stage and on and on for a few minutes. Her boyfriend finally came up to get her off the stage and as she struggled with him to stay, she slipped and fell flat on her face, exploding her nose in a gout of blood. As soon as she was cleared from the room we cranked back up and finished out the night. When we got paid the owner was so apologetic it was bordering on sickening, and continued to assure us everything was cool and don't worry about it and she'll never do that crap again, and on and on and on.
This place called us on a regular basis to book us in there and it's been just over 10 months since the fiasco with the drunk GF. I'm a little slow but I'm not too slow to figure out we won't ever be called to play this place again and since scuttlebutt has it that drunk GF has become something of a fixture at the place, and has been putting the bad mouth on us, I'm in no way inclined to return. For some reason it bugs the crap out of my brother. He occasionally obsesses over the fact that we lost that job through no fault of our own and are getting slagged by some drunk jerk. Whenever he goes off on that tangent I remind him that it is really a blessing in disguise, that we play out all we want and who wants to go someplace where you aren't welcome. I know it hurts my bros pride, but life is never everything you want, sometime you just have to not worry about why and just move the eff on.
I enjoyed playing the place but not enough to try to fix whatever it is that's broken in their organization.
