kannibul
New member
I hate to say it, but I think in three words, he managed to do a lot more damage than anything else I'm writing about here, about last night's gig...
Someone in the back of the room was complaining we were too loud, which he said if we're too loud, you're too old, and since the vocalist knew who said it, he threw in a "suck my dick" because he and this guy do NOT get along, and apparently have some kind of history.
So, we finish out, and while I was packing my drums, a fight nearly breaks out between them, plus two of his buddies, I see this and I step around my kit (Liz finished packing) ready to throw down (readon as to why...) along with our lighting/sound guy (he's about as big as I am...)
Thankfully, they all go seperate ways after a good number of minutes - later on, I'm halfway out the door after packing up, and I hear it start up again, so I go back to get my vocalists back...bar staff are telling people to leave and so on, getting kinda fugly...turns out one of the guys (a 4th) is a UFC fighter, bitched at us for fucking with Metallica, rambled on about having to explain to the police why someone was in the hospital, admitted he wasn't there for the "suck my dick" comment, but has to watch out for his bro and other BS...
So, his "crew" walks out the front door (bar closed 45 minutes prior), I leave out the back door since I'm parked there, roll around to the front of the building, and they're standing there, and I could tell they were just egging each other on to jump our vocalist when he'd come out the front door (why else would they stand at the door and be doing fighting moves?)- I call 911 and tell them to send over the police because they were, short of starting a fight, keeping people "hostage" inside the bar (I said they were beligerent), figuring it'd be best if I had them en-route should shit hit the fan....great...about 5 minutes go by and the whole staff and everyone left in the bar just kind of mobbed out the door, so nothing happened, called back 911 and told them to disregard...
I mean, I can certainly feel for the other guy and I think it was TOTALLY unacceptable, but at the same time, you can't stand by and let your band mates get their ass kicked, well, I can't...same thing with if your wife slaps some guy, and he starts yelling at her, you show a presence and hope it stops from there, but if not, you're ready to throw down...
Compound this level of bullshit, with the band that was supposed to go before us was over an hour late, took their sweet-ass time setting up (40 minutes before even doing sound check), and they even had to BORROW equipment to play (my snare, my cymbals, our guitarists amp), and to top it off, played a total of 20 minutes, because their time was up. I never let ANYONE borrow my shit, and you know how over-protective I am...so I was already geeked up before we even started playing...
Anyhow, that bullshit aside, the whole "suck my dick" thing has me really bothered. I'm generally not one to step into someone else's circle in a band, but every time we've played this venue, our vocalist acts as if it's his bar, and pushes the envelope quite a lot with the bar staff and some of the regulars that I would never, ever, see another band do...EVER. I mean he handles (well, handled, Jan1, this bar won't have any more bands playing) booking with the venue so maybe he feels there's some personal entitlement that will allow him to get aways with it...but still...
Regardless, I'm thinking is the ball-breaker, I think I'll have to say something...I mean, I didn't know who he was saying that to - and what does that look like to our audience? We had 44 paying people through the door at this nasty ass bar (plus the drunks who damn near live there), which is about 4x more people than we've had any other time we've played there (yes, it sucks that bad!), and because of what was said tonight, I think that means we'll have at least 440 less potential people showing up at our gigs.
Well, I can say this was a shit-hole of a night...but, at least we got paid...the other band got $20 only because they cried about it - I was saying they shouldn't get shit for playing 20 minutes on borrowed equipment...crazy...
We were going to play on New Years at this place along with another band (had decided earlier that night we would), but given the lack of support from the venue, the nearly certain amount of flack we'd have to take should we play there again after tonight's BS and so on, we're not...
Oh, and we also blew one of our monitors...once that happened, things went in the shitter as a band as well...I mean, we played our first set pretty well - not our greatest, but not our worse, but the second set, not our worst, but pretty close...
Thanks for the read...I figure I'll either say something to the bass player about it and let him handle it, or, I'll say something during next practice - not sure yet...fucking hell, you can't expect to get a following if you're calling out people like that...
Someone in the back of the room was complaining we were too loud, which he said if we're too loud, you're too old, and since the vocalist knew who said it, he threw in a "suck my dick" because he and this guy do NOT get along, and apparently have some kind of history.
So, we finish out, and while I was packing my drums, a fight nearly breaks out between them, plus two of his buddies, I see this and I step around my kit (Liz finished packing) ready to throw down (readon as to why...) along with our lighting/sound guy (he's about as big as I am...)
Thankfully, they all go seperate ways after a good number of minutes - later on, I'm halfway out the door after packing up, and I hear it start up again, so I go back to get my vocalists back...bar staff are telling people to leave and so on, getting kinda fugly...turns out one of the guys (a 4th) is a UFC fighter, bitched at us for fucking with Metallica, rambled on about having to explain to the police why someone was in the hospital, admitted he wasn't there for the "suck my dick" comment, but has to watch out for his bro and other BS...
So, his "crew" walks out the front door (bar closed 45 minutes prior), I leave out the back door since I'm parked there, roll around to the front of the building, and they're standing there, and I could tell they were just egging each other on to jump our vocalist when he'd come out the front door (why else would they stand at the door and be doing fighting moves?)- I call 911 and tell them to send over the police because they were, short of starting a fight, keeping people "hostage" inside the bar (I said they were beligerent), figuring it'd be best if I had them en-route should shit hit the fan....great...about 5 minutes go by and the whole staff and everyone left in the bar just kind of mobbed out the door, so nothing happened, called back 911 and told them to disregard...
I mean, I can certainly feel for the other guy and I think it was TOTALLY unacceptable, but at the same time, you can't stand by and let your band mates get their ass kicked, well, I can't...same thing with if your wife slaps some guy, and he starts yelling at her, you show a presence and hope it stops from there, but if not, you're ready to throw down...
Compound this level of bullshit, with the band that was supposed to go before us was over an hour late, took their sweet-ass time setting up (40 minutes before even doing sound check), and they even had to BORROW equipment to play (my snare, my cymbals, our guitarists amp), and to top it off, played a total of 20 minutes, because their time was up. I never let ANYONE borrow my shit, and you know how over-protective I am...so I was already geeked up before we even started playing...
Anyhow, that bullshit aside, the whole "suck my dick" thing has me really bothered. I'm generally not one to step into someone else's circle in a band, but every time we've played this venue, our vocalist acts as if it's his bar, and pushes the envelope quite a lot with the bar staff and some of the regulars that I would never, ever, see another band do...EVER. I mean he handles (well, handled, Jan1, this bar won't have any more bands playing) booking with the venue so maybe he feels there's some personal entitlement that will allow him to get aways with it...but still...
Regardless, I'm thinking is the ball-breaker, I think I'll have to say something...I mean, I didn't know who he was saying that to - and what does that look like to our audience? We had 44 paying people through the door at this nasty ass bar (plus the drunks who damn near live there), which is about 4x more people than we've had any other time we've played there (yes, it sucks that bad!), and because of what was said tonight, I think that means we'll have at least 440 less potential people showing up at our gigs.
Well, I can say this was a shit-hole of a night...but, at least we got paid...the other band got $20 only because they cried about it - I was saying they shouldn't get shit for playing 20 minutes on borrowed equipment...crazy...
We were going to play on New Years at this place along with another band (had decided earlier that night we would), but given the lack of support from the venue, the nearly certain amount of flack we'd have to take should we play there again after tonight's BS and so on, we're not...
Oh, and we also blew one of our monitors...once that happened, things went in the shitter as a band as well...I mean, we played our first set pretty well - not our greatest, but not our worse, but the second set, not our worst, but pretty close...
Thanks for the read...I figure I'll either say something to the bass player about it and let him handle it, or, I'll say something during next practice - not sure yet...fucking hell, you can't expect to get a following if you're calling out people like that...
