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I've had the opposite, Playing to an empty room and had the owner come up and want us to play there regularly because we were great? Ended up doing a New Year's Eve party for big money. Played for 3 or 4 people and a bunch of empty chairs.
Wasn't much fun
In theory: Great. I'm on board.
I've never typed this before, as it goes against TB norms but... Don't fire that drummer!
I joined his band (southern and classic rock) when I was 16, he and the other guys were 25+. We were the house band
I suppose I could post this in the Humor section too but I'm taking it pretty seriously, to the point of being anxious about this Saturday's gig at this restaurant/bar. First some facts about this gig. It's one of our higher paying ones and this will be the fourth gig there. Also, this is an earlier gig than most, we start at 730pm, while people are still eating dinner and crowd has been quite big the past three times we played there. The final fact is we are a rock cover band that primarily plays 80s, 90s, 2000s, with very few 70's tunes. There are a few pop songs in there too but leaning more towards rock across the board. We advertise the band this way.
OK, first gig at this place several months ago, goes excellent! Good turnout, good response, dinner crowd stuck around, actually paid us a little more than promised because of how well it went, etc. Bar owner was there and danced (and drank) steadily throughout the night. Nothing but compliments. Offered us a steady gig there and we were happy so we go on our merry way.
Second gig, while setting up before we even start, bar manager comes up to us and asks us to please start with a little more laid back, softer music to start with because during the first gig, the bar owner was concerned our starting songs were too heavy (you know our usual songs that we start of with are Brian Adams, Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox 20....real heavy stuff).
Manager says that owner was concerned that we scared some people off last time (which didn't happen). We all scratch our heads but agree to start of quiet, almost bordering on acoustic and after about 30 minutes we start playing like we normally do. No complaints, gig goes good, crowd was good, manager and bar owner had nothing but compliments again. Bar owner was not there the whole time but when I saw him he was dancing (and drinking) like before.
Third gig, we figured ok, start off kinda mellow and after about 30 minutes we can "get heavy". We get past the mellow stuff and were probably 3 or 4 tunes into the regular stuff and bar owner actually comes up to us (drinking as usual, basically drunk) and interrupts the set while we are playing. He's shouting all kinds of tunes at us (none of which we usually play but could). In fact, our set lists are available on our facebook page. Everything we are playing is the same as the first two gigs except a few tunes maybe. At this point, he is on stage and has stopped us from playing. He proceeds to tell us that we are playing songs that no one knows (not true, in fact we are playing the same songs we played the first two times) and that on our first gig he really enjoyed it because we played mostly 70's music (again, not true, we have exactly one 70's song in that first set normally).
At this point after about 10 minutes of heated discussion and listening to the bar owner, people are getting visibly irritated and some are starting to leave. At this point bar owner actually points at people leaving and says "see, they're leaving because you guys aren't playing songs they want." Really?? This absolutely killed the momentum for the rest of the night. When we started playing again, bar owner was sitting at the bar yelling all these 70s tunes that he claims we played the first night (which we didn't). Getting heckled by people is one thing.... but the owner? Later manager comes out and apologizes to us and tells us to keep doing what we are doing, that the owner doesn't know the place and that he is just an old man (he's in his 60's and I would say that most people there were anywhere from 20's to 60). We get paid the same as usual and manager assures us that we are great and that we do what we do and don't worry about the owner!?! Which by the way, at this point was barely upright from drinking, but still managed to tell us that he expected more 70s tunes next time we are there. Manager said to ignore that because that doesn't suit the majority of the people there. Needless to say, we haven't exactly learned a lot of new 70s tunes.
I don't know what to think or if I should even think about this. To say I'm anxious about Saturday would be an understatement. In fact, I am dreading it. I'm dreading a repeat of the last scenario and me or my bandmates not being as cordial as we were last time. We discussed this as a band and the money is really good and we know that this is work and not for our personal enjoyment but where do we draw the line, if there is one to draw at all?
