Agressive Drunks

[Gtrplyr]

There was a fairly in your face kinda drunk at a gig I played this evening. The guy was front and center and was fairly tolerable for most of the set but when he got up on the stage and was heading my way during a solo I was playing our bass player grabbed him and tossed him off the 2 foot stage. He tried to hold on to the guy so he wouldn't fall but the drunk lost balance and took the tumble to the floor. Our bass player also fell off the stage pulling his cord out of the amp but at least he didn't fall too.

Fortunately the club had security that then escorted the drunk out of the bar. I kind of thought we were all going to have to stop playing to deal with this guy cause he was pissed.

Now if our Bass player had a Fender bass he could have just used that big headstock and wacked the guy (as I've heard mentioned here) and continued without missing a beat ;)

[Tele-Bob]

Obnoxious drunks are such a pain to deal with. There is no right way to appease them. Ya just have to throw them out!

[chuckocaster]

did that trick one time about four years ago, the guy took a p bass headstock right across the neck. did i mention this was a "metal" show, and that we weren't a metal band. didn't hurt the bass, but man to see tuning post welts on someone is pretty damn funny.

but drunks are hard to deal with, i used to deal with them all the time at the club i used to work at. it sucked, good thing we had a bunch of huge security guards, so i usually didn't have to do anything. the guards would.

[Annie D.]

Ah Fenders. Gotta love that design. Their toughness.

The only drunk that ever reached me was a furious girl who threw a nearly full beer bottle from side-stage. She was aiming for one of The Gize but didn't throw so well. Hit me in the side of my head and knocked me silly. Got beer all over my guitar and me. I took her down with an arm twist and knee in the back.
She started cryin' and we had a talk later on. She vaguely remembered it. I hate mean drunks.

[pbradt]

I gots a story.

My old band, Wiley Post, got it's first gigs at a Tweaker bar called Hobies, in Concord, Ca.

We got MONDAY FUCKING NIGHT!

So we were playing our stuff, and there was this drunk who also looked homeless. He was rocking back and forth on his bar stool, sorta in time with the beat and sorta not.

At the end of the first set, we put on the break CD (no jukebox for tweakers) and as Flaco Jiminez was playing accordion, he came over, got RIGHT in the keyboard player's face and screamed: "YOU GUYS ARE SICK!"

So we played the next set and sure enough, there was our weirdo drunk screaming "YOU GUYS ARE SICK!"

Started the third set, and he started dancing with a rather toothless and skanky tweak-gal...unfortunately, they lost their collective balance and came crashing through my side of the stage, knocking my mic stand over, knocking both my amps over (I was using Pro Juniors at the time) and made a big mess.

At that point, we pushed the guy and his gal (who were just kind of laying there) off the stage and he got belligerent. We turned up REALLY LOUD (probably 135 DB SPL) and he backed off, it was hurting his ears (and ours too). Then he got belligerent with the bouncer who had come over to help set amps and stuff back up, and the guy was 86ed.

Was that the end of it? NO! He came back in, swinging at anything close enough to swing at. Then he got on a barstool and downed four straight shots of tequila, and proceeded to keel over, much like a tree, cut off at the base. Bonked his head so hard onthe floor that it bounced and bonked again.

'Bout that time, the cops showed up. I was getting ready to sink the butt enf of my Tele in his teeth if he came at the stage, but he just swung at air and people who easily dodged him and shoved him away.

He was fighting the cops all the way to the car and I could see out the window that one cop use his nightstick on the guy's head and he went over like he was poleaxed.

Just the same, meth and booze is a SCARY combination.

[Annie D.]

They served him after that? Negligence. You should sue. It's the American Way.

[Sven]

I used to work for a guy whose wife was like that. She loved Tequila...and it made her mean as hell....moreso than being her regular self - Bitch. Anyway, she would slug down some Tequila and start throwing stuff at her husband. Every single time. What a sweetheart. :!

[pc]

Back in September of last year, a drunk guy was harrassing us as we started our show. We knew it would be trouble even as we were setting up. He kept coming up to us and asking us completely unintelligable questions, the only one of which is "when do you start playing?"

As soon as we started, he came right up next to the stage and started doing odd gyrations that were supposed to be dancing, I'd imagine. Every so often he'd lean up onto the stage (which was only about a foot off the dance floor) and lean one hand on a wedge monitor while using the other to try to swipe at our female singer's breasts.

This was our very first show with her, and although she was a bar-band veteran, I still felt really bad. She played it off pretty well. The bar manager came over and got him and escorted him back to his bar stool, suggesting he leave.

He didn't leave. He drank more and returned for round two. He was again escorted away by the manager and told that if he harrassed the band again he'd be thrown out.

He didn't leave. He drank more and returned for round three. This time though, as he leaned on the wedge monitor, he helped himself up onto the stage. I immediately put up my hand to block him from touching the woman, and he put up his hands in a "Okay, my bad" kind of way and started to back up. Of course, his foot caught on the same wedge monitor and he fell backward.

The only thing he could find to grab was our mixing board at the corner of the stage. He went over, and it went with him, as did all of the cables that were attached to it. There was an earth-shattering kaboom and then nothing but the sound of our mains speakers going BVVVVVVVVVVVVVV.

I carefully unhooked my guitar, carefully laid it on the stage, carefully stepped over the remaining wedge monitor, and then beat the ever-loving snot out of him.

It was actually a short fight. He was just drunk enough and confused from the crashing of gear around him that one shot sent him backward over a chair.

The bar manager came running over and said only, "Um, don't hit him again unless he gets up, k?" They then dragged him out to the street and threw him onto the sidewalk, from which he eventually staggered away. They apologized to me for not having thrown him out the first two times.

Yeah, no shit.

The mixer is cracked now, but it all still works.

I felt a little bad afterward. I mean, playing in bars is what my version of the music biz entails, so you gotta take the good with the bad. Still, I don't feel that bad. :rolleyes:

[Fripperton]

This thread reminds me why I don't normally do bar gigs anymore. Well that and the fact that Surf/Instrumental bands are hard to book in that situation ever since about 1965.

Friday night I did a fill-in gig for a friend on last minute notice at a local bar. By the 3rd set I'd had enough of observing the effects of alcohol on human inhibitions to think that the Prohibition movement might have been on to something. . The guy that insisted we play "that funky music white boy" was so ripped he never noticed the band didn't do the song but played about 30 seconds of the intro and just stopped. The guy who claimed to be a publicity man for the Gipsy Kings kept trying to get a friend of his onstage to show us how good he was and was doing that jerky movement dance thingy. And I'm still trying to figure out the correlation between alcohol consumption and the apparent need to use a microphone.

[Cottage]

Originally posted by Fripperton
This thread reminds me why I don't normally do bar gigs anymore. Well that and the fact that Surf/Instrumental bands are hard to book in that situation ever since about 1965.

Friday night I did a fill-in gig for a friend on last minute notice at a local bar. By the 3rd set I'd had enough of observing the effects of alcohol on human inhibitions to think that the Prohibition movement might have been on to something. . The guy that insisted we play "that funky music white boy" was so ripped he never noticed the band didn't do the song but played about 30 seconds of the intro and just stopped. The guy who claimed to be a publicity man for the Gipsy Kings kept trying to get a friend of his onstage to show us how good he was and was doing that jerky movement dance thingy. And I'm still trying to figure out the correlation between alcohol consumption and the apparent need to use a microphone.

I know what you mean. I've got the point where I actually detest playing most bars. I've never been much of a drinker, but its getting to the point where I have to drink something just to get through the gig. I'd actually love to quit playing the damn places altogether, but where else do you play when you're a blues band? There are only so many hall gigs, and I don't want to let the rest of the guys down. So I soldier on!

[Franklin]

Originally posted by Cottage
I know what you mean. I've got the point where I actually detest playing most bars. I've never been much of a drinker, but its getting to the point where I have to drink something just to get through the gig. I'd actually love to quit playing the damn places altogether, but where else do you play when you're a blues band? There are only so many hall gigs, and I don't want to let the rest of the guys down. So I soldier on!

I'm with you!! There should be a law allowing band members to swat drunks.

At a recent show, Mr. Iturned21today was really plastered. He was dancing along having a blast, we were jamming on an instrumental break.... I turn and was looking at the drummer then I hear a "WhaMNKMNnn.." type sound. I think 'Oh crap, what was that noise?' Thinking it was an equiptment issue, I ignore it. Then we accidentally played a song that he likes and thought he could sing along. It was all I could do to belt him. Good thing that people pulled him away from the mic.

Later we sang "Happy Birthday" to him.......

[moonpie]

Cottage,
The worst thing in the world is to use alcohol in the way you're using it. None of those obnoxious drunks planned to be that way.
In fact, some of them may have started out the same as you are now, just having a drink or two to .........................................

[Cottage]

Originally posted by moonpie
Cottage,
The worst thing in the world is to use alcohol in the way you're using it. None of those obnoxious drunks planned to be that way.
In fact, some of them may have started out the same as you are now, just having a drink or two to .........................................

I hear ya! Your absolutely right.

[stonetone]

We host an open mic at the most popular bar in a very small town, have been (with the exception of a 6-week break) for about a year now. We encourage people during those nights to come play/sing with us, bring their own bands, whatever.

So who knows, maybe locals can perhaps be forgiven for thinking they can grab mics and take the stage on those infrequent occasions when we have an actual gig to perform.

In any event, we had a paid gig at the same bar several months ago where one Tipsy McStagger decided we would serve as his personal karaoke machine. After all, we let people do it every Thursday, right? I hate that. I know it's a distinction most non-musicians would never grasp, but this is a paid gig, right? Time to be professional and polished. No wanking in between songs, no learning songs on the fly because some gal wants to sing. We have had to quit sets early, and sic bar management on folks many times.

Another time I went to see a friend's country band play at a local hole and same deal, one obnoxious drunk kept trying to steal the mic from the singer. Twice, he was escorted from the stage. Third time, the singer/guitar player stopped, spun the guy around by the shoulders and kicked him in the ass harder than anyone I've ever seen, and that includes my old man. Big old pointy cowboy boot right to the keister, the guy went flying into a table, arms pinwheeling. The band never missed a beat. The drunk got mad, balled his fists and started to storm the stage, but ran into half-dozen large, mean-looking biker types on the way, while the singer waved and taunted him from the stage.

Funniest thing I ever saw at a bar show.

[stonetone]

Edit: Bah, sorry double-post... :nelson

[Telebluesfan]

We've only had trouble at one place - and they don't even hire bands anymore, thank God. One night it was the Romanians toasting 'TO ROMANIA!" and dancing on the tables until one table broke and two guys came tumbling to the floor. Another night it was 'Punch Palace Night' at the bar and the resulting melee kept drifting ever closer to the stage until we were all about ready to abandon ship. Still another night it was something else.

By some strange coincidence, the place was also a coke palace too. But I'm SURE that had nothing to do with the obnoxious behavior there.......

[Snags]

I have had quite a few close calls when I was still doing the bar band thang, but the freakiest was this wasted dude that tried to pull me over the rail and off the stage. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking (I guess I was just reacting instinctively), but I opened my right hand up, thrusted with all of my adrenaline-charged might, and slammed the palm of my hand square into his nose.

By this point, a few regulars had seen what was going on, and four of them pushed their way to the front of the dance floor, and had this guy on the tiles in nothing flat while the bouncer was coming from the door.

I am by no means a violent person, but I'm pretty sure I broke his nose when I tagged him. There was enough blood on the floor that we had to stop while they cleaned it up.

I was so freaked out by the whole thing that I had to sit out the rest of the set (the guy was by then long gone).

[CA Bobcat]

Well, I guess I'm going to find out from the other side. I'm working the door at Jan's Lounge the next 3 nights. Although things have calmed down the last few months, it's pretty common to throw 3 or 4 people out in an evening. It seems like the young guys can't figure out that JD is not meant to be slammed at the rate of 4 an hour. Combine that with the high testosterone levels and you're asking for trouble. Not too bad though with 3 bouncers and one of biggest young bartenders you've ever seen.

[Sven]

Originally posted by CA Bobcat
Well,...seems like the young guys can't figure out that JD is not meant to be slammed at the rate of 4 an hour.

JD?! Yuck! :hurl

Only Neanderthals drink Jack Daniel's anyway...no wonder you guys can't keep 'em under control. Same with the cretins who drink Budweiser. :rolleyes:

[cooltone]

Sounds like my relatives show up at quite a few of your gigs!!...can't take 'em anywhere..