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It Only Takes One Person To Ruin It

#21
There are so many great insults for awful people like that! My personal favorite (that doesn't include a string of four letter words) is to look at them with a sense of wonder and say, "Wow, you say that like you think I care what you think!" Then shake your head ruefully and go back to what you were doing.
 
#22
It was after playing bass with another bass player in high school that my bad interaction happened. The music teacher replaced himself with a substitute for a few days, and me and my bass playing friend quickly asked him if we could play during his classes. He was teaching people about instruments and thought it would be a good idea for two bassists to represent the instrument, so he agreed. So we played for a few classes until the guitar class started, and the kids in the guitar class wouldn't enter the room because of us, so they told on us to a teacher and we had to get back to our regular classes. As we passed each other I said "you just don't know good music" because they wouldn't enter the room with two bassists in it. Then one of them said I was just bad at bass and that bass itself was a bad instrument.
 
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#26
Korbl said:
I was in the middle of a solo over a Tool-ish type groove and here this older woman.. " Hey. Hey you." I looked up and saw this older gal (mid 60's) walking like a drunk giraffe, drink spilling in one hand. She walks up right infront of me, and I mean, her feet are touching my bass pedals which are a foot away from me.

"Hey, when is the other band playing?"

"I don't know, they are taking a break at the moment. I'm just filling in." while trying to keep some sort of melody going of the solo I was doing.

"You should go get them back on stage, they are a lot better than you." She turned and stumbled back to her seat, planted herself down and just started to glare at me.
Click to expand...

Umm....That wasn't a 60-something woman. That was Keith Richards.
 
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#27
She's honest at least. But not anyone play for just one. You just can't please them all. Had a lot of that happening at weddings as a whole. There's always someone you can't please. Never played for one person. And that persons preferential right of interpretation is as valid as it came from a 3 year old kid whining about things.

She was there for free wasn't she? No one paid admission in advance. You bet that I would turn her own medicine back to her at the drop of a hat, regardless of the consequences. I would ask her "Why not just leave, you haven't paid anything have you...you came in for free?" . I am generally deliberately rude to those people who uses their advancing age or seniority to be able to just camouflage arrogant views. And that we should feel pity for them, and back off just because their age. Of course she could not expect any band to be to her liking. She would've cracked that wise line to anyone.
 
#28
I can be rude but it's a friendly banter, if I am the only one in the audience and really know the band members as friends. It has happened. You know, heckling "can't you guys play any song that all of the audience knows?". Or if it's a blues band that has churned out a few blues numbers and there's another w*nker in the audience crying out for something else, I'd usually go "can't you play any blues instead..?" and get this weird look from the band and then everybody's cracking with laughter. BUT! I have to know them thoroughly first. They know I am like that, but it's a fine line making deliverate mockery of hecklers and irony, and if the band knows if I am really requesting this or that, or just pulling their legs. If it goes on a spin...I usually requests songs that are from some sort of mock up music genre that doesn't exist.... like "hey, play some White-Power-Reggae!!" or something similarly opposite. "Gangsta-hymn" or whatever is contrary. I like making up contrary music styles when yelling out..."UFO-Polka" and zany stuff. Something in the vein of "Slayer-Enya" tradition and so on. They usually get fed up on me, and I have to pay dues later on, but I don't mind.;)
 
#29
You should read/hear about what happened to Swedish progmetallers OPETH when they were touring in U.S last round. Of course it was sort of prior/after gig where you have these hazardous V.I.P passes that allows you (or forces you as an artist) to hang with people either outside the venue, or at the merch stands inside. OPETH frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt hasn't been that scared for his life ever. He just had to hire 2 personal guards for upcoming gigs. And it was "hecklers" coming out confronting him eye to eye, and not hiding behind the anonymosity of being in the crowd somewhere. Can't find it on the net at the moment. It should be somewhere.

Those people are those that you have to be more wary of, than any tipsy 60+ that has had just two minutes between puberty and menopause.;)
 
#30
I just wanted to take a moment to put out a couple of things that may help with some questions or statements.

Yeah, I shouldn't have let it get to me. That's a given. I shouldn't have stopped playing? Eh. I just felt completely out of my element because I had none of my solo music available to play to. It was just complete improvisation and using a looping pedal. I played what I was feeling which can be personal. So, getting a heckler during that just really rubbed me the wrong way. And thinking about it now, I should have just kept playing.

As for a retaliation or smart ass comment, I was kinda stuck. Not because I couldn't think of anything but it was the fact that I was with my wife's extended family and had no idea who was who. So, I didn't think it would be a wise thing to insult a family member on my wife's side of the family while being out camping during this event with 40+ people. It just didn't seem a wise thing to do. I've had a decent share of hecklers but that was during actual shows I was doing. For some reason, I couldn't care less when I'm playing on stage with a band, or my band, at a local show or while touring but when it was just me just improvising and being told I sucked, that just hit a nerve. Dealing with hecklers while touring was easy. I'm not going to be back at that city for a long time, I could talk some crap and just rock out even harder. But hey, it's the past and so it was a new learning experience.

But, I did want to say thanks for comments and support. Greatly appreciate it.
 
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