This one is a real beauty!

This past Saturday night, my band played a gig at a bar that we have played countless times before (too many times, if you ask me). My singer booked the gig before getting my work schedule, so I was supposed to work that night, but made arrangements to play the show instead (playing the gig for "exposure," but actually losing money by doing so). I was told that the gig couldn't be rescheduled, because another band was supposed to play for a forty-person party and that they had cancelled and the bar owner wanted us to play in their place. After the soundcheck, the drummer and singer argued with each other about the tempo of the song we did (it was way too slow, but the drummer argued that it didn't matter, because it was only a soundcheck). By the time we actually started playing at 9:30, there were a total of 15 people there -- including the four band members and the soundguy, the two bartenders and the guitarist's brother-in-law. I personally played the worst show of my "career" and the drummer was either pissed off at the lack of turnout, or just plain trying to show off, as he was beating the hell out of his drums, putting fills were there are no fills and smashing his cymbals like there was no tomorrow and at all the wrong times. He even did his trademark drum solo before starting into "Hard to Handle," even though there was hardly anyone there.

As the night progressed, more and more people eventually showed up (although there was still nowhere close to 40 people there) and just when the crowd started to get into us, a fight broke out. Well, guess where the attention went? The singer started spouting on the mic about the crowd sucking and the fact that we might as well have not showed up at all. I asked if we should pack it in early and was told that the owner (who our singer is supposedly really good friends with), had had several other bands do just that in past weeks, and they were told that they would, "Never play here again!" At this point, the drummer asks if we are going to pack it in early and he and the singer proceed to argue -- on the mics -- for a good minute or so. We finished up our last set (my guitarist decided several times to come in during some of my "trademark" passages and intros, further annoying me and also effed up a part in the middle of a song, which also sent him and the drummer into an argument -- on the mics) and started packing up to go home. The singer went to collect our pay, only to find that we had been shorted by $100! We all discussed the fact that we were doing this bar owner a favor by even playing this gig and that it wasn't our fault that the forty people that were supposed to show up, hadn't. It was at this time that I pointed out the fact that the money had been placed into a sealed envelope, long before the end of the evening, which meant that the owner hadn't intended to pay us what we were supposed to get, whether the forty people showed up or not (of course, the owner went home as we were first setting up to play, so we couldn't discuss this situation with him). The singer called it a "slap in the face," and proceeded to remove a neon beer sign from the wall and a speaker from a shelf and stick them in his car.

The ending of all endings, is when I got home and relayed the evening's events to my girlfriend -- she informed me that the band that was supposed to play there (for the big forty-person party), had instead played at a much bigger venue. Apparently, that's were the forty people were -- where they should have been -- just at the "wrong" bar!

I seriously doubt that we will ever play at that bar again.