Maintaining Composure Onstage

[DanL]

...drunk harmonica player wants to sit in, we let him play 1 song, he sucks, next set, he wants to play again, we say no, so he's standing next to me off stage, and while I'm in the middle of a solo, lunges for my mic. I caught him right across the throat with a forearm backhand shot and sent him flying into a pile of cases. The next night he called the venue, asked for me, and had the balls to ask me if I saw his box of harmonicas.

 

 

Well? What didja tell 'im?

 

My brother and I used to fight like that all the time.

 

Lucky me... At dinner I always got his bowl of JELLO and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

 

I wonder what kind of stunts he'll pull THIS week.

 

 

To paraphrase, I said, do you really have the balls to call me up after what you did last night? No, I have no idea where your effing harmonicas are, and I hung up.

 

After I knocked him down, he stood out in the crowd glaring at me, and I was really on edge, I was ready to roll. I was literally trapped, my keys in front, drums to the left, rack and leslie and speakers behind, so the only exit was off the stage in his direction. Ironically I had told the bartender after the 1st set that the guy was going to be trouble and he said he couldn't do anything because he was behaving. After the 2nd set, when the incident took place, I said wtf, I told you! One of our female fans calmed him down and got him to go downstairs and leave. Thanks Annie!

[Tonysounds]

I was the MD for Tony Clifton.

Wow - when was this?

For real. That's a really groovy bit of resume material there....

 

So...was it AK or BZ? Or someone else?

[Meisenhower]

Anyone who has played for any time in the SF bay area has done a sentence at Ruthie's!!!

 

I still love playing at strip bars!!! Nothing better than the bump and grind to a live band!

 

I've seen too many bar brawls to comment on, but one night playing "Emul the Buffalo's Tavern" in Muttonville, Michigan, we had a situation develop with a group of patrons that was smack out of the "Blues Brothers" and 5 years before that film came out!

 

Back in the late 70's, we were a hot R&B/Funk band from Detroit playing latest and greatest from Ohio Players, Slave, Funkadelec, Brothers Johnson, etc. We got booked into this place that had everything that Bob's Country Bunker had, except the chicken wire.

 

We launched into our first set, when a couple of big redneck dudes started with the "play some Merle Haggard" crap. This went on for most of the set, and on the break, we were threatened within an inch of our life, if we didn't open set 2 with some Merle Haggard.

 

Now, not wanting to bleed all over our electric yellow 3 pc. suits, the guitar player let into a version of Okie from Musokogie that did them boys proud. We must of played that tune 6 times before the night was over, but it saved our ass and we got paid at the end of the night.

 

The women in the bar went crazy for what we were playing and we were asked to play there the following month for a two week stint. Sadly, can you believe, it, we weren't available.

 

 

[Pale]

I setup my keyboards facing the band, and my left side is towards the audience. In one of the bars I do gigs often the stage is very close to the audience. A drunk patron once decided it was such a good idea to come every 10-20 seconds and press one of my bottom keys. I managed to maintain my composure once and gave him the dirtiest look I could. The second time he did it I stopped playing and warned him to stop. It seems it was so much fun he decided it to give it another go. I slapped him with my left hand so hard half of the audience turned their heads to see what's going on. I just continued to play like nothing has happened, and the guy finally figured out it wasn't a smart idea to annoy me and left. I guess he was too drunk to fight.

 

Don't you just hate it when you play and someone touches your keys randomly.

[MonksDream]

Don't you just hate it when you play and someone touches your keys randomly.

Yes! It's almost worse than someone placing a drink on your rig.

[DanS]

Don't you just hate it when you play and someone touches your keys randomly.

 

It's bad enough when I do it myself.

[Bosendorphen]

Amazing stories! I've not experienced too many fights and "incidents" at bar gigs, fortunately. Did have a gang gunfight just a bit down the block outside the bar we were playing in the Curtis Bay area of Baltimore back in the early 80s. We got through the gig despite a lot of ruckus, noise and sirens outside. Just kept playing; we were in our 20s and you feel immortal at that time of life.

[mcgoo]

Back in the early 80's I was playing some hotel lounge in Parkersberg West Virginia. We always had the code of "don't stop, no matter what". We were playing "Dirty Laundry" and a fight breaks out on the dance floor, as if on cue, right when we're singing "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're the down....".

[Steve Force]

Back in the early 80's I was playing some hotel lounge in Parkersberg West Virginia. We always had the code of "don't stop, no matter what". We were playing "Dirty Laundry" and a fight breaks out on the dance floor, as if on cue, right when we're singing "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're the down....".

 

Sounds like that seminal movie "Roadhouse" starring the late, great Patrick Swayze as "Dalton".

[Ken Beaumont]

..... This went on for most of the set, and on the break, we were threatened within an inch of our life, if we didn't open set 2 with some Merle Haggard.

 

Now, not wanting to bleed all over our electric yellow 3 pc. suits, the guitar player let into a version of Okie from Musokogie that did them boys proud. We must of played that tune 6 times before the night was over, but it saved our ass and we got paid at the end of the night.

 

 

I have this set of tunes I call the "redneck set". These songs are so old its amazing some aren't public domain! I work in these tunes in to the regular set list during occasions such as that.

 

Folsom Prison Blues

Gimme Three Steps

Call Me The Breeze

Workin Man Blues

Guitars Cadillacs

As Fast As You

You Never Even Call Me By My Name

Family Tradition

Move it on over (ala George Thorogood)

Green River (CCR)

Who's Your Daddy? (Toby Keith)

 

If you can play them without vomiting, you'll get through any redneck joint.

 

For the Biker Bars I used to add:

Born To Be Wild

Pride & Joy

Mustang Sally

 

 

Since I stopped playing bars I haven't needed these in years.

But when your getting paid and it might save a fight from damaging your gear, you do what you have to.

 

[Mr. Nightime]

Back in the early 80's I was playing some hotel lounge in Parkersberg West Virginia. We always had the code of "don't stop, no matter what". We were playing "Dirty Laundry" and a fight breaks out on the dance floor, as if on cue, right when we're singing "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're the down....".

 

I was playing in Parkersberg many years ago. It was right after John Anderson come out with the Country smash "Swingin'". We opened for him when he came to the club.

 

A couple nights later, we're still there as the weekly house band. This one guy had it real bad for the waitress. Kept professing his undying love for her, which she wanted none of. Finally the guy leaves. and we thought that he'd finally gotten the idea. After a short bit, the guy comes back in, holding his hand over his left shoulder. He gets the waitress' attention, lowers his hand, and collapses on the floor.

 

The moron had gone out to his car, and decided to show just how much he loved her by shooting himself in the shoulder.

 

And the club owner made us keep playing until the paramedics got there.

 

 

[retrokeys]

In the early 70's I was in the house band of a country bar in Frankfort KY. As you might expect, this was one of those "drinkin' and fightin" places. We had a fight song, Yackety Sax (played well by our guitar player). Every time a fight would break out we'd play it and the bouncers, one a trucker, and the other, a former Marine would wade in. Years later I was never able to watch Benny Hill without a flashback to those days. Worst fight I ever saw was between two women over the attentions of some ol' boy. Purses and wigs flying. Took both bouncers to break it up and they looked worse for the experience at the end of it. The band played on.

[Michelle ggurl]

..... This went on for most of the set, and on the break, we were threatened within an inch of our life, if we didn't open set 2 with some Merle Haggard.

 

I have this set of tunes I call the "redneck set". These songs are so old its amazing some aren't public domain! I work in these tunes in to the regular set list during occasions such as that.

 

Folsom Prison Blues

Gimme Three Steps

Call Me The Breeze

Workin Man Blues

Guitars Cadillacs

As Fast As You

You Never Even Call Me By My Name

Family Tradition

Move it on over (ala George Thorogood)

Green River (CCR)

Who's Your Daddy? (Toby Keith)

 

If you can play them without vomiting, you'll get through any redneck joint.

 

For the Biker Bars I used to add:

Born To Be Wild

Pride & Joy

Mustang Sally

 

 

Since I stopped playing bars I haven't needed these in years.

But when your getting paid and it might save a fight from damaging your gear, you do what you have to.

 

Ugh. So far, now that I'm no longer playing in cover bands, I haven't needed these songs. Some of these songs I really don't like, but have played them ad nausuem anyway ... and of course if I'm going to play them I find a way to enjoy doing it ... but really ... so glad to not need to at this point.

 

[Ian Sharrock]

Playing a certain air force base in Suffolk where the audience would come up while I'm mid song & shout "Hey, you wanna beer"? At my nod he goes away & comes back with a whole crate, opens one & tries to give me a drink while I'm still playing, but he makes sure the bottle's away from the keys!

 

Loved it!My first taste of an American audience & I couldn't have wished for a better initiation!

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

I'm not even going to try and list the crap that's gone down while I've been onstage. I mean, fist fights. Knife fights. Attempted rapes in the parking lot. And that one kid on PCP who kept trying to climb onstage regardless of how many times I beat him with my pointy guitar.

 

But the one thing I can say: ALWAYS keep playing. When the music stops, that's when everyone else gets angry, and then you have a seriously ugly situation.

 

Oh, and screw that guy who was flipping off the OP. I would have laughed my ass off.

[marino]

It's been great to read your stories! And while I've had an overdose of similar occurrences in my early days, I'd like to relate a much lighter one, from more recent days.

It's one of the side advantages of playing only jazz-type stages... you don't come across so many crazed characters anymore.

 

So I'm doing soundcheck with the trio in this small club, and the piano bench squeaks loudly. Does anybody have lube oil? No, sorry. No time to go buying some either. Ok, I'll give up the bench, gimme a seat. But the place had just armchair-type stuff, with armrests; it's not possible to play on one of those. Someone brings some kind of stool - no way. Too low, too small, too fragile.

 

So I have to play the concert on the squeaky bench. I try to sit as still as possible - but obviously, while playing the piano, you have to move in various ways. Aaaargh.

 

It was so bad that I had to cut short a piano solo tune, and most introductions. Even when I was speaking to the audience, it was so annoying that I stopped talking and made a little "dance" on the bench and made it squeak to the max, to show everybody what the hell was going on. After a while, I started some kind of "sqeaking rhythm", and I had them clap in time with the squeaking! Of course, I started the next song from that, and everybody applauded.

 

Edit - oops! I hit the "Submit" button too soon.

 

Well, a squeaking piano bench might sound like nothing - but in that very intimate place, it nearly ruined the experience.

 

 

[Pale]

Speaking of seating I did my share of gigs on stacked bear crates, bear kegs, stacked flight cases, bar stools, and various other improvised seats. I even played on a sofa once !

[Les Mizzell]

WORSE FIGHT EVER

 

Setting the scene: Redneck bar located somewhere at a fish camp on the Edisto River in South Carolina. Stage for band is at one end of a long hall with a loading dock with doors that opened right onto the stage - your could back your Uhaul right up to the stage. Pure luxury! Other end of the hall - a large door opening into a room full of pool tables.

 

We're playing our stuff and see a fight break out in the pool room. Starts off with fists, next thing you know, men and women alike are breaking pool cues on each other. The fight slowly swells through the doors and into the hall where we're playing and progresses through the crowd towards the stage.

 

We're worried about the gear and stuff, swing open the loading dock doors and quickly just slide everything back into the trailer. The fight is starting to get really ugly - there's blood everywhere and some folks have broken bones. We start to fear for our safety and go ahead and pull away from the loading dock to the safely of the far reaches of the parking lot. The fight has spilled out of the building at this point. Someone produces a shotgun, we hear shots, and decide to get the hell out of there.

 

News the next morning - 3 people dead, bunch more in the hospital! Sheesh! Never went back to that place. Didn't get paid that night either.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

BIG FUN

 

Got a job in Jacksonville, NC near the military base there. Drive up, nice looking club, roadies get the gear set up, we do a sound check and run a few tunes, and then go to get something to eat and a shower at the hotel before time to play. Seems like any other gig.

 

Get back to the club a few minutes before starting time, walk in, and it's a strip club!!! Nobody told us! Uhhh - I'm only a junior in high school at the time and hot damn - this is like finding the mother lode! There's a gogo cage on each side of the stage, and a different girl dancing in them every 30 minutes. If the sound guy would only pay attention to what he was doing since he had to peer between one of the girls legs to see the stage all night...

 

Having been brought up believing that nudity is really no big deal, this is great for the first hour, then it's kinda like, "OK, seen it now, so what" ... Got interested in why some of the girls would actually do this. Chatting to one of them during a break - they all had to be married, there was a Godzilla sized bouncer there that would reduce anyone that tried to touch them into raw hamburger, they all had full health/dental benefits ... the one we were talking to was paying her way through medical school with the proceeds - almost $2500 a week including the tips. She planned on continuing until gravity got the best of her because she couldn't make that much doing anything else.

 

Looking back on that - I'm in the wrong line of business...

[Marzzz]

Ok, so we're three songs into a 75 minute set and this Xanax'd-up lady loses her balance and falls right in front of the stage. Compound fracture of radius/ulna. We take a break, ambulance arrives and hauls her off, staff turns up the house lights and mops up the dance floor with bleach, and then "well, you guys have 30 more minutes - get to it." Kinda killed the dance floor action for the rest of the night.

 

It was completely unintentional but the bulk of songs we played after that point seemed to have strangely appropriate lines in the lyrics... "baby going down, down down"... "don't you wanna see them all fall down"... "falling down, while my head is spinning"...

 

Along those same lines, thanks to my day gig I spend a lot of time in Operating Rooms and we have music piped in; I can't tell you how many songs (for example, on the SiriusXM Classic Vinyl channel) make references to death, dying, etc. It's almost spooky....

[mate stubb]

Back in the early 80's I was playing some hotel lounge in Parkersberg West Virginia.

 

Was that the Holiday Inn by chance. I played there MANY times in 1980-81. The bar manager was a drunk and the innkeeper (female) was a lush. We had some fairly wild times there.

[MikeT156]

Wow, these are some pretty incredible stories. I wouldn't set foot into any bar or club that had a reputation of having a lot of fights. The kind of fights I saw back in the old days were cat fights. Two girls fighting over some guy on the dance floor. Usually some hair pulling and rolling around on the floor, which often times made for an excellent view of the situation, provided either or both were wearing skirts or dresses. It usually got broken up before either one of them really got hurt.

 

Alcohol and anger don't mix any better than Alcohol and guns.

 

 

Mike T.

[Michelle ggurl]

... the one we were talking to was paying her way through medical school with the proceeds - almost $2500 a week including the tips. She planned on continuing until gravity got the best of her because she couldn't make that much doing anything else.

 

I know a woman who worked her way through law school (and yes, she's smart as hell and earned her law degree) as a stripper.

[Michelle ggurl]

Wow, these are some pretty incredible stories. I wouldn't set foot into any bar or club that had a reputation of having a lot of fights. The kind of fights I saw back in the old days were cat fights. Two girls fighting over some guy on the dance floor.

 

Actually Mike, this brings up an interesting point ... I don't know if it's because I'm a woman or a wimp, or for the last several years have focused on jazz gigs (which, as Carlo said above, tend to not attract much riff-raff), but I can't think of many gigs I've had where there've been much violence. I don't know if I/other bandmates (I've often been one of two women in a band, usually the singer also a woman) have chosen venues carefully or we just lucked out. I've seen a few fights, but the most interesting (and worst) gig I've had by far wasn't marked by violence, just lameness for many reasons ... but the entertaining part of the night was when two chicks in the audience started trying to do cartwheels across the dance floor. Yeah, they were pretty wasted so that didn't go so well ... it was amusing to the band, though.

 

For example, this infamous Bay Area hang, Ruthie's others mention here ... never been there, never played there. I think I'll count my blessings on that one.

[mcgoo]

Back in the early 80's I was playing some hotel lounge in Parkersberg West Virginia.

 

Was that the Holiday Inn by chance. I played there MANY times in 1980-81. The bar manager was a drunk and the innkeeper (female) was a lush. We had some fairly wild times there.

 

I couldn't tell you for sure. I remember the hotel rooms being up a pretty steep hill from the lounge, and I remember this one particularly friendly girl named Debbie, but that's about it.

[Josh Paxton]

I was the MD for Tony Clifton.

Wow - when was this?

 

His 2008 "comeback tour." (What's that? You say you had no idea Tony Clifton did a comeback tour in 2008? Yeah, promotion was kind of a problem...) The entire tour was basically a lesson in maintaining your composure when things get crazy, because crazy was the norm every single night. I don't think we ever did a show where stuff onstage didn't get knocked over and thrown around. And that, in many ways, was the least crazy part of it. I could easily write a memoir from just that tour, that would make the Bitch-Slap Diaries look like an afternoon in the park by comparison.

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

Awesome. Any idea who was playing TC?

[Botch]

WORSE FIGHT EVER

We're worried about the gear and stuff, swing open the loading dock doors and quickly just slide everything back into the trailer. The fight is starting to get really ugly - there's blood everywhere and some folks have broken bones. We start to fear for our safety and go ahead and pull away from the loading dock to the safely of the far reaches of the parking lot. The fight has spilled out of the building at this point. Someone produces a shotgun, we hear shots, and decide to get the hell out of there.

 

News the next morning - 3 people dead, bunch more in the hospital! Sheesh! Never went back to that place. Didn't get paid that night either.

 

I think we have a winner here...

[DanL]

We're playing this small bar that gets a mixed crowd- everything from true motorcycle gang 1% club members to yuppies. Regular bouncer is not there, so they stick some guy on the door who takes his job WAY to seriously. Wouldn't let our guitar player in without paying the cover because he didn't believe he was in the band. Then he gives a couple of the 1%ers a hard time. He goes to the bathroom, this little biker guy follows him in there, beats the crap out of him, then comes up and asks if he can sing a verse to Whipping Post, which we had just started. Fearing for our lives, we said sure, and the guy totally tore it up! I mean, he really sang his ass off! After the set I had to go to the john, it looked like a butcher shop in there with blood all over the place. Never did see that doormam again!

[Josh Paxton]

Awesome. Any idea who was playing TC?

 

Bob Z. At least, given that I'm now old friends with Tony but have still never "met" the man behind him, I'm 99.9% sure that's who it was. I'd bet my car on it, but not my house.

[Adan]

Don't you just hate it when you play and someone touches your keys randomly.

 

This used to happen to me a lot in a certain Seattle bar frequented by junkies. They would drift up to the keyboards and try sitting in, while I was playing. But it's easy to handle than a wayward junkie. Just give them a gentle push and they drift away.

 

I regret that I've never played a strip bar. Seems like it would be so fun. I may have missed my chance, since they all use recorded music now. Or so I've heard.