Mismatched Disaster Gigs

[Monkey Steve]

14 hours ago, Bluewine said:

My opinion, weddings are for DJs and bands specialize in weddings. They're called Wedding Bands.

 

Blue

My old punk lot did one excellent wedding (as a favour to a mate of mine - it was my present to him).  the bride and groom (especially the groom) loved old school punk, and we only played stuff that was in the charts (not necessarily poppy, bet certainly the more singable choruses) so even if you weren't a punk you'd recognise most of the set.  And it was staged so that we were in a large function room above where the meal took place, so anybody not wanting to listen to the band could easily avoid us.  Went down a storm.

I also saw a great band at a drummer from an old hard rock band of mine's wedding.  Bit of a culture clash as his dad was a retired high court judge and his bride was from a traditional Hindu family.  they hired an absolutely brilliant band who did a mash up of rock/pop and indian music, which was spot on for everybody under 50.  And again, if you didn't want to hear the band, you could stay in the dining room

[Blink]

Metallica opening for the Freddie Mercury Tribute gig at Wembley. I was there and it didn't fit with the rest of the day.

[Rich]

On ‎02‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 08:36, Bluewine said:

My story is from a Wednesday night gig. Another untraditional gig night.

We we're called last minute to fill in for a band that cancelled. No big deal, right.

Thing is, it was a country music venue that books national country headliners. We're a local, regional at best 70s style hard rock band.

These crowd if you could call it a crowd we're folks that wanted to line dance and show off their nifty hats, jeans and boots 

How can I put this? Got it! They hated us.Very embarrassing.

But the pay was nice.

Blue

"That ain't no Hank Williams song!"  

[Rich]

Many years ago when I lived in Swindon, my blues-rock trio (Hendrix, Gary Moore, ZZ Top etc) had a booking at the Plessey Social Club... when we walked through the door, we lowered the average age in the room by about 40 years. As we set up, I could feel the glares from the light-&-bitter brigade burning holes in the back of my head. We had backline and a vocal PA only, nothing DI'd or miked up -- Steve the drummer was first to get set up, he sat down and picked up a stick and hit his snare drum ONCE... and I heard a croaky old voice from out in the shadows say, "ooh, it's a bit loud..."

Predictably the first set was horrendous, every song met with almost total silence apart from a few “turn it down”s from some of the coffin-dodgers and one or two claps. One of them even walked right up to me mid-song, stuck his fingers in his ears and bellowed “It's TOO LOUD”.

End of the first set couldn’t have come soon enough for me. When it did, the club MC asked if he could borrow one of our mics to do the bingo. Ye gods.

Eventually we couldn’t put the second set off any longer and trudged to the stage. I was just putting my bass on when a woman approached me. I thought, if she tells me to turn it down I’m just going to pack up and sod off home. But she said cheerfully, “OK lads, all the old farts have buggered off, they only come for the bingo... you can turn it back up now”. So we did  needless to say, the second set was a lot better and we never set foot in there again

[bassace]

In the early sixties we had ridden the trad boom and very soon our music would be pretty well totally eclipsed by rock. The four of us out of six lived in a series of Cheltenham flats or houses in Young Ones disorganisation. We read in the local paper that Gloucester’s Mayors Ball (Mayors had balls in those days!) couldn’t find a dance band. This gig was a big deal in those days, black tie, very formal. So we wrote to the organisers under The John Goodwin Ballroom Orchestra and offered to do the gig for a fat fee. Whether the organisers smelled a rat I don’t know but they wrote back ‘reluctantly’ accepting our offer but insisted that we provide continuous dance music for the duration, which I remember was in excess of four hours.

We were a trad band so what was this dance music about? We’d have to do waltzes, quicksteps, Fox trots, old time and some ‘novelty’ stuff.  Most of us could just about read but where could we find a library? As it happened a local band leader had recently died, so recently that the corpse probably wasn’t completely cold. But with the hubris that only the young have we went to see his grieving widow to express our condolences and, by the way, could we borrow his library?

We drafted in a local baritone sax player and a pianist. So we were an eight piece dance band with a library. No time for a rehearsal but what could possibly go wrong? On the appointed day we formed up on the stage in Gloucester’s Guildhall and looked down on the Mayor his invited guests and all the assembled throng in their finery. We started the first number and the sound, nay noise, we produced was hideous, apalling, awful. Every few seconds the young piano player would emit a loud nervous laugh and, looking round, I could see all our faces were white, all the blood having drained.

Anyway, we struggled through the first two hours with diminishing confidence and increasing disharmony until we left the piano and drums to it while the other six took a break and ‘fortified’ ourselves. We decided we were onto a complete loser and on our return to the stage we played a two hour Dixieland set. The hitherto rictus-set audience started to warm up and went crazy. What started as a mismatched disaster turned into a success. But it was a close thing, oh yes, very close.

 

[Bluewine]

10 hours ago, mrtcat said:

We do all sorts of private parties including over 40 weddings last year. We also do pubs at times of year when weddings are quiet. It's not about specialising it's just about being really mainstream. Classic rock may be popular in pubs, festivals or bars but it's pretty niche elsewhere. Mainstream pop and pop rock is where the crossover is. 

I'd take a wedding or a private party over a pub gig any day of the week. Nice venues, better money, food provided and a packed dancefloor full of happy people in their best party gear as opposed to the usual cramped pubs, angry drunks, low pay and playing to a bunch of blokes.

I maintain my position. Weddings are for DJs and wedding bands.

BTW all bars are not cramped and I haven't crossed paths with or seen any drunks in years.But that's just me.

Blue

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

BTW all bars are not cramped and I haven't crossed paths with or seen any drunks in years.But that's just me.

Yeh, well, there is a cultural difference for you. A lot of the British are embarassingly over drunk a lot of the time. Acting like a complete t**t in public in an evening appears to have no social stigma. 

Having said that, I observed a fair amount of drunken behaviour when I lived in the states, but it was a lot more area specific.

[peteb]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

Yeh, well, there is a cultural difference for you. A lot of the British are embarassingly over drunk a lot of the time. Acting like a complete t**t in public in an evening appears to have no social stigma. 

Having said that, I observed a fair amount of drunken behaviour when I lived in the states, but it was a lot more area specific.

To be fair, I haven't come across any punters being aggressively drunk at a gig for many years. I think it depends on the type of pub you play. In my experience most pubs with a reputation of putting live music on get a pretty reasonable class of punter! 

However I'm depping for a band playing a city centre pub near a railway station on Friday, so I might have something different to report after the weekend...! 

Edited April 4, 2018 by peteb

[Bluewine]

4 hours ago, peteb said:

To be fair, I haven't come across any punters being aggressively drunk at a gig for many years. I think it depends on the type of pub you play. In my experience most pubs with a reputation of putting live music on get a pretty reasonable class of punter! 

However I'm depping for a band playing a city centre pub near a railway station on Friday, so I might have something different to report after the weekend...! 

Pete,

You should tell us if something happens.

Blue

[mrtcat]

13 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I maintain my position. Weddings are for DJs and wedding bands.

BTW all bars are not cramped and I haven't crossed paths with or seen any drunks in years.But that's just me.

Blue

I think it's probably a different thing in the states. In the UK rocky pop bands are very much in favour for weddings at the moment. Many people are opting for bands that look and sound like a rock / indie / pop band rather than the now slightly dated "shirts, ties and waistcoats" type clean cut bands that were dominating the wedding scene a couple of years ago. 

No not all bars are cramped but ime there's almost always more space at function venues. 

Edited April 5, 2018 by mrtcat

[Rich]

9 hours ago, peteb said:

To be fair, I haven't come across any punters being aggressively drunk at a gig for many years. I think it depends on the type of pub you play. In my experience most pubs with a reputation of putting live music on get a pretty reasonable class of punter! 

Agreed. Any pub that had routine problems with aggressive drunks harassing the bands would pretty soon find it hard to get any band bookings. Either that or they'd become very popular on the Oi! scene.  

[JapanAxe]

1 minute ago, Rich said:

Agreed. Any pub that had routine problems with aggressive drunks harassing the bands would pretty soon find it hard to get any band bookings. Either that or they'd become very popular on the Oi! scene.  

I regularly play a 10-midnight spot at an O'Neill's pub with a 4in-high stage. If any punter tries to get up with the band, a bouncer quickly gets them shifted. This is very much appreciated!

[Bluewine]

8 hours ago, mrtcat said:

I think it's probably a different thing in the states. In the UK rocky pop bands are very much in favour for weddings at the moment. Many people are opting for bands that look and sound like a rock / indie / pop band rather than the now slightly dated "shirts, ties and waistcoats" type clean cut bands that were dominating the wedding scene a couple of years ago. 

No not all bars are cramped but ime there's almost always more space at function venues. 

Regarding space, our problem is our bar show is hot 70s style hard rock. It works well in bars, however it doesn't seem transend to the large stage 

Blue

[Woodinblack]

the UK is fairly notable in its tolerance of complete drunk culture, people staggering down the road and having fights, so while I have seen a few violent drunks in pubs, most have been dealt with by the bar staff, or ended up punching other random strangers, so I have luckily never really had too much trouble with them personally, just stupid drunks and drunks that think they are funny.  I wouldn't go to a pub if I am not gigging, so I don't really have to deal with many of them, apart from the ones staggering home damaging things.

 

[davepb24]

On the subject of mismatches I often wonder how Motley Crue's tour with Killing Joke as support went some years back

[radiophonic]

13 minutes ago, davepb24 said:

On the subject of mismatches I often wonder how Motley Crue's tour with Killing Joke as support went some years back

Dunno - but I saw Hanoi Rocks open for Wishbone Ash in 1981. That didn't go well.

[Bluewine]

7 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

the UK is fairly notable in its tolerance of complete drunk culture, people staggering down the road and having fights, so while I have seen a few violent drunks in pubs, most have been dealt with by the bar staff, or ended up punching other random strangers, so I have luckily never really had too much trouble with them personally, just stupid drunks and drunks that think they are funny.  I wouldn't go to a pub if I am not gigging, so I don't really have to deal with many of them, apart from the ones staggering home damaging things.

 

Yeah, definitely a difference.

Over here there's no staggering down the road. We're a country of automobiles.

The penalties, fines and legal fees for drunk driving over here could be life changing for some.

Blue

Edited April 6, 2018 by Bluewine

[Woodinblack]

5 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Over here there's no staggering down the road. We're a country of automobiles.

The penalties, fines and legal fees for drunk driving over here could be life changing for some.

As they should be - as often the result of doing it is.

[peteb]

8 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Yeah, definitely a difference.

Over here there's no staggering down the road. We're a country of automobiles.

The penalties, fines and legal fees for drunk driving over here could be life changing for some.

Blue

I often wonder how American bars manage to stay in business if everyone drives and then can't drink alcohol when they get there?  

The same thing applies to an extent here for live music bars. I had last Saturday night off so went to see a Rory Gallagher tribute in a great club venue in a different town about a half hour drive away. It would have been impossible to get home by public transport and would have been an expensive taxi there and back, so I obviously drove. I only bought one soft drink all night, so they can't have made any money behind the bar from me and the many others like me who went who didn't live locally. 

Edited April 6, 2018 by peteb

[BrunoBass]

Kind of disastrous: Some years ago my old band were playing at a pub in Warwickshire, we did indie / Britpop covers and it all went down quite nicely. As the night progressed a big gang of people came in, very drunk and clearly very emotional. We found out during the break that it was a wake / funeral party that been going from pub to pub, certain members of whom were (understandably) in some distress. It turned out the wake was for a young lad who’d died in a road accident. 

Anyway, we go back on after the break. A few songs in and we started to play The Smiths’ ‘There Is A Light The Never Goes Out’, which always went down a storm with it’s big singalong chorus. But as the chorus approached I suddenly had the terrifying realisation that our singer was about to start singing about double decker busses crashing. He sang the line without really realising but as the next line about ten tonne trucks killing the both of us approached he suddenly cottoned on, looked across at me in horror and kind mumbled something along the lines of ‘and if a ten fwww fwww fwww fwww fwww fewww fwwwwww’. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole, mainly in case we’d offended anyone but partly also because of the state most of the party were in I feared a bad reaction. Luckily no one even noticed (if they did they didn’t react) but it still makes me shiver thinking about it today.

Edited April 6, 2018 by BrunoBass

[Norm]

On 2 April 2018 at 09:41, gjones said:

Many years ago, I was asked if my band would play the Inland Revenue (UK version of the IRS), fraud squad's, Christmas party.

I had to turn them down.

 

That would most definitely be 'The wrong crowd' for my then band 

My wife's grandad (long deceased) was a quite well known Black Country raconteur/comedian back in the day & did a gig for the local Inland Revenue office Christmas party. He demanded to be paid in cash & they did, no questions asked 

 

[MGB]

Played at a wedding many many years ago. The groom was in a wheelchair. All was going well and we play our rock&roll medley including a Dutch song which has a chorus going "hey get off that roof, I'm not gonna warn you again". We get a lot of weird/angry looks from the audience, during our break we hear that the groom had fallen off a roof and was partially paralysed because of that.

[SICbass]

1 hour ago, MGB said:

Played at a wedding many many years ago. The groom was in a wheelchair. All was going well and we play our rock&roll medley including a Dutch song which has a chorus going "hey get off that roof, I'm not gonna warn you again". We get a lot of weird/angry looks from the audience, during our break we hear that the groom had fallen off a roof and was partially paralysed because of that.

Ouch. We have a winner!

[totorbass]

Unpredictably inappropriate, but  Run to the hills would not have done very well either.

Edited April 7, 2018 by totorbass

[peteb]

On 05/04/2018 at 05:06, Bluewine said:

Pete,

You should tell us if something happens.

Blue

No aggressive drunks or acts of senseless violence to report. Shame really, might have livened things up...  

To be fair, even the drunks stumbling past the door outside when we were loading out at the end of the night were unfailingly polite!

Edited April 8, 2018 by peteb