One of my pet hates about gigging is.... the people.
Specifically the drunk ones who insist on repeatedly haranguing you to play a particular song and can’t grasp that knowing of a song and knowing how to play it are different things. “You know, it goes “(they sing the first line of the chorus)””.
Yeah, I know it, but it’s not one we’ve learned, sorry. “But you know how it goes!! C’mon, play it for me!!”.
Grrrr.
My other pet hate are blokes asking for a go on the guitar or women on the mic. How do you deal with them without offending them (read: risking them kicking off in their drunken state) ?
How do you politely say “We don’t do requests and anyone who comes within three metres of any of our gear gets the cattle-prod” without coming across as curmudgeonly?
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
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I've had many occasions where people want to play my sax/clarinet. "Thanks my good friend, but please don't ever suggest to put my instrument in your mouth".
I do remember one gig where a young guy and his mate were desperate to get up on stage and they got the audience on their side. We gave in in the end and let them do House of the Rising Sun whilst we were packing up. Fortunately they were truly awful and even the well oiled audience were less than impressed, so I think it actually worked in our favour. It's not a tactic I would recommend though.
You can't really reply "Fuck off" can you ? How do you explain that if he was sober and someone you trusted, it wouldn't be a problem but for all you know he could be a twat who might damage it and/or refuse to give it back until he'd finished the entire list of songs he can't actually play ?
How do you say "No" in a way that is likely to get them to fuck off without any hassle or bad feeling ?
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
They probably go away thinking I'm dull, humourless and up my own backside about my gear... which is fine by me and partly true. I don't take a spare guitar to gigs so I'm not letting anyone put their dirty sweaty hands on the strings and then having to change them.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
For people wanting to borrow my gear the answer is no!
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Any requests just politely explained that we love that song but we don’t know it as a band. Obviously sometimes we do and can say oh yeh that’s in the second set or whatever. I think the last request was for did we know any Carter USM which seemed very optimistic.
My only memory of people borrowing guitar stuff was a bunch of bikers saying they were in a band and were going to use our gear. I looked around at my band mates who were already relinquishing drumsticks, etc, so I did likewise. Nothing damaged and they were truly awful.
Those were just the occasions when there was no security doing it for us.
Every punter gets the benefit of a single, polite "no", after that we stick together as a band and all pitch in.
I've spent too many years wanly smiling and explaining things to punters, in lengthy, set-ruining tedium. At least two of us are red mist psychos when it comes to this stuff and the other three will always wade in to back us up, often to protect our pretty 4'11" singer from leering drunken creeps.
Don't fuck around, seriously. I have zero tolerance for this stuff and the quicker it's dealt with the sooner you can build a fun atmosphere again.
... and then proceeded to play a couple of gentle Nick Drake-esque fingerpicked songs with it .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein