OT: What was the worst / silliest / strangest COMPLAINT that you've ever gotten?

[soundscape]

Originally posted by stepay:

Not sure how many of those gigs are in Ohio, but I know that at my wife's cousin's wedding in September they paid $10,000 for a 13-member band (11 musicians and 2 sound guys).

$10,000 for the entire wedding is a waste of money, much less for the band alone.

 

http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/corbis/DGT069/CB007271.jpg

[Blue JC]

Originally posted by Ed Coury:

Originally posted by stepay:

I could NEVER be in a wedding band -- akin to being in hell.

Actually, I spent 2 solid years playing in a wedding band when I was in college. It was great.

 

The money was good, the crowd was happy to see us and they tried to dance to everything. We got home at a decent hour, didn't smell like ashtrays, and many times brought a date (although I can't remember how that happened) and ate/drank at the gig free of charge.

 

My experience was not one of being a slave.....I think it was kind of cool to hear a request from the family and be able to meet it easily -- to their amazement. Everybody's happy :-)

I've played thousands of society gigs in my life (weddings, etc) and I can count the bad experiences on two hands. If you act like a professional, 99% of the time, people treat you like a professional.

[Mr. Nightime]

Originally posted by Ed Coury:

The oddest complaint I've heard in a while was uttered last week: "the guitar player isn't loud enough."

 

Of course we smiled and did nothing about it ;-)

Are you sure you didn't just dream that.

[cnegrad]

I've played thousands of society gigs in my life (weddings, etc) and I can count the bad experiences on two hands. If you act like a professional, 99% of the time, people treat you like a professional.

I concur. How you handle the situation is what separates the men from the boys.

[acctjm]

>>> Anyway, that experience coupled with how I've seen the way nicely dressed people treat musicians, and I say no thanks.

<<<<

 

Stepay,

I think the abuse from audience members at weddings might come from two factors:

 

1. the bride and her family have been under months of pressure to make sure this 'once in a lifetime' event comes off smoothly.

 

2. Unlike bar crowds, many wedding attendees aren't used to drinking. After a few glasses of champagne they start acting like a 14 year-old working on his first 6 pack.

 

 

Even so, in my experience, I've been treated like dirt more times when playing in bars, usually by owners, than when I was doing weddings. I'm not sure why clothing would have anything to do with it.

 

acctjm

[ITGITC]

Originally posted by stepay:

Let's see, $10,000 divided by 13 = $769 per person.

 

...Anyway, that experience coupled with how I've seen the way nicely dressed people treat musicians, and I say no thanks.

Stepay, I understand just how you feel. That attitude exists and it's a nasty feeling to be a recipient of it.

 

Frankly, this is just ignorance rearing its ugly head, for one guy in my band is a medical doctor. Another is a judge. Would it make a difference to the mother of the bride if she knew this? Perhaps it's worth a shot to slip that into the conversation somewhere. that I may have inhaled somebody's second-hand smoke while attending a late-night party at college thirty years ago.

 

Sorry for the rant, but some bad memories of dealing with the PITA mothers of the bride just got loaded back into my cranium RAM.

 

Now if you take $10,000/13 and think that everyone is going to take home $769 at the end of the night, you know that's unrealistic. Sure, it's a good-paying night, but you still have to factor in expenses - not to mention the percentage that the booking agent is going to take off the top. And for some guys, by the time they pay the bar bill, they end up OWING money instead of making it. (Yes, I've been in bands like this.)

 

In the end, you need to learn the art of managing expectations. The mother of the bride is going to be uptight any way you look at it. Sure, it can be difficult at best, but the examples that you've described go along with the territory. People often drink too much at weddings. They're under a lot of pressure seeing relatives and friends they haven't been around in awhile. And, I imagine that quite a few simply don't want to be there. But, the pay can be good, and the gig can be fun.

 

As I said, the risks are certainly there. That's why you charge double or triple for a wedding gig vs. what you would to play at your favorite bar down the street.

 

...Oh, and that party I mentioned? It did NOT take place in the basement of a certain frat house the night of October 30, 1976.

[cnegrad]

Preparation is half the battle.

[cnegrad]

...or in Tom's case, half the bottle.

[ITGITC]

Originally posted by cnegrad:

...or in Tom's case, half the bottle.

That's just a silly RUMOUR, and you know it.

[cnegrad]

Of course I knouw it; you started the rumour.

[ITGITC]

Originally posted by cnegrad:

Of course I knouw it; you started the rumour.

Don't try to humour me, cnegrad.

 

I know you're rolling in the BIG BUCKS booking your wedding bands for the holidays.

 

Didja ever find a last-minute, short-notice male vocalist for your gig?

[stepay]

Tom,

 

True, they likely had to pay a booking agent.

 

My band is all made up of professionals too.

 

I have a Masters Degree in English Education (exciting I know!).

 

Drummer is an Electrical Engineer.

 

Guitar player is a college professor (Humanities).

 

Bass player has a Masters Degree in Latin and Greek and a JD. He is managing partner of a law firm he started with his partner.

 

Yes, I think at a "high society" gig it would be a good idea to mention all that, but the sad thing is that that WOULD make a difference to those people. Why can't we be plumbers and bus drivers and mechanics and play and get decent treatment? Wedding bands by SOME people who are there as guests treat the band like they would second-class citizens. Just not right.

[Blue JC]

Is it cynical of me to say that part of our job description as gigging musicians is to know how to handle drunkards and buzzards - both on and off the stage?

[ProfD]

As previously stated, preparation and acting like a professional go a long way.

 

A few subtle techniques come to mind:

 

Maintaining a sh*t eating grin throughout the gig

 

Play with your back to the audience

 

Head down and play your a** off

 

I'm sure many of you can fill in the names of the pro musicians who utilized these devices.

 

Seriously, it takes a positive attitude and personality to make it through most BS.

 

Musicians can help themselves by not bringing negativity to any gig but especially one that is already tense (wedding/corporate) i.e. poor band dynamics/sound system, sloppy attire, vulgar language, greedy (eating food w/o an invitation), etc.

 

Still, when it comes to gigging musicians, there will be hard to please folks. You could be a bidet and Charmin and they still wouldn't be satisfied.

[cnegrad]

I know you're rolling in the BIG BUCKS booking your wedding bands for the holidays.

And believe me, I deserve it for the kind of crap I deal with from some clients and other folks in the biz.

Didja ever find a last-minute, short-notice male vocalist for your gig?

Actually I did (thanks for asking), and he worked out really well. The gig was a fundraiser and I believe that they raised boatloads of money for Cancer research.

[ITGITC]

Originally posted by cnegrad:

The gig was a fundraiser and I believe that they raised boatloads of money for Cancer research.

[MikeT156]

Quote by the Pro:

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

I finally quit a job about three weeks ago that was rubbing me wrong for months. This restaurant has a nice stage and dance floor but the owner chose to put his grand piano in the middle of the room and put tables and chairs on the stage. The room has bad acoustics with nothing to absorb the sound. I was constantly getting requests to "turn down the piano" even though it's not amplified, the piano lid was closed, and I was playing as soft as I could. This is all going on despite the fact that the normal room noise is loud, multiple electric air fresheners in the room were always beeping for a battery change, the tv was on with the volume up in the bar area close by, the stereo in the kitchen is loud and the dining room gets blasted by it whenever a waiter passes in or out, the house phone rings all the time (client cell phones too)... I could go on and on. This same place has bands on Monday nights that are deafening (they play on the dance floor in front of the stage), and here I was playing solo piano on Friday nights and getting volume complaints. I finally got mad when once again I had a request to turn down and told the owner "no": he could move the people who complained away from the piano, do some acoustic treatment to the room, or put the piano back on stage where it belonged. That actually stopped the complaints for several weeks but nothing really changed and I got tired of the place and found a better gig. Last I heard the owner was trying to find some kind of padding to stuff into the underside of the piano.

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

Jim, congrats on telling the guy where to shove his gig. I've come to a few conclusions about club owners/managers:

 

1. They don't know anything about music.

2. Check that, they don't know ANYTHING.

3. They expect you to play "rock n' roll" or say "don't disturb the dinner guests" and proceed to complain AFTER the first set that the "music is too mellow". No SHIT?

 

Do you want quiet or do you want rock n' roll? Maybe consider some light jazz? To which they say "No market for jazz around here" Right.

 

Rant Over.

 

Mike T.

[EscapeRocks]

Originally posted by stepay:

Ed,

 

Cool. Glad it worked out for you. It obviously has to for many as there are lots of wedding bands out there. I've seen enough people get yelled at though, and I just don't take kindly to that. Maybe what I've seen is the vast minority.

Stepay,

 

My experience over the last 20 years or so has been about 95% like Ed's, and 5% what you describe. he wedding gigs have for the most part been fun, with no issues. As Ed mentioned, home at a decent hour, not smelling like an ashtray, and people already in a good mood having fun on the dance floor the entire time.

 

Now then, over the 20 years I've probably only played about 25 wedings...as i've never played ina dedicated wedding band. However, they were soe of th emost fun gigs I've ever done, especially the ones at some of the high rise 4 star hotels.

[Les Mizzell]

If they think you're playing too loud - try this:

 

I was in a twelve piece funk/party band many years ago, and we had a brilliant sound guy who like to build little electonic "widgets" for fun.

 

When you've got 4 brass players, you can only get so low with the volume, and as hard as we tried, there was always some idiot every few weeks that would yell at us "TURN IT TOWN"!

 

So, our sound guy build this little box that had two rows with about 20 lights per row, with a little switch between each pair. He'd plug this thing in and sit it up vertically by the sound board so it looked like a level meter. We'd start the night off with all the lights lit up. If anybody came up and b*tched that we were too loud, he'd smile very politely, apologize for miscalculating the volume, and then flip a few of the switches, turning off a couple of the lights.

 

"That better?"

 

98% of the time he'd get a "Gezz, thanks!!!" response and they'd leave us alone the rest of the night.

[stepay]

Originally posted by LesMizzell:

If they think you're playing too loud - try this:

 

I was in a twelve piece funk/party band many years ago, and we had a brilliant sound guy who like to build little electonic "widgets" for fun.

 

When you've got 4 brass players, you can only get so low with the volume, and as hard as we tried, there was always some idiot every few weeks that would yell at us "TURN IT TOWN"!

 

So, our sound guy build this little box that had two rows with about 20 lights per row, with a little switch between each pair. He'd plug this thing in and sit it up vertically by the sound board so it looked like a level meter. We'd start the night off with all the lights lit up. If anybody came up and b*tched that we were too loud, he'd smile very politely, apologize for miscalculating the volume, and then flip a few of the switches, turning off a couple of the lights.

 

"That better?"

 

98% of the time he'd get a "Gezz, thanks!!!" response and they'd leave us alone the rest of the night.

That's great!

[DanL]

2 strange compliments I've received.

 

Sit in gig with a dance type band- I was the only "white boy". Singer comes up to me on the break and says "man, you sound just like a brother".

 

Another gig, this old school jazz quartet opens up for us. Piano player tells me after our 1st set "Chester Thompson!" Thats all he needed to say, I knew he was digging my playing.