Drunk Stumblers

Played a party this weekend. Great bunch of people at the party.

But I broke a string during the 2nd of 8 songs. I stumbled through until a bit of a break and then got someone to string it for me. Of course, I didn't get the string stretched enough, and so I had tuning problems for the next four songs. (I didn't have a back up guitar--both of my Strats are in the shop, both with wiring problems.

Dealing with that, I was also having to try to protect my mic and stomp boxes from a drunk who was falling all over the place and still trying to headbang. He stepped on my neuropathic feet. He knocked my mic stand over twice more. He wound up falling on my pedal board and unplugging my guitar.

That was it. I stopped us in mid-song and told the crowd to get that guy out of there, and they got rid of him, and the show went on.

The crowd loved us, but it was not Willie's favorite gig.

I'll take a crack at the take-away lesson here -- Never do a gig without one of these.

Only a lack of space kept me from pulling a Keef and swinging my Tele.

Seriously though, I wanted to be cool about it, and professionally, I should have been. But it was an ultra-wild party. I was so cramped into a corner, and this guy was invading my space. Instead of getting him out of the way, people were just letting him flop wherever he wanted. He had already knocked down the other guitarist's Strats. When I told the crowd to get the dude out of there, the guitarist dropped his guitar and rushed him toward the door. Not a pleasant scene, but hey, people are talking about how we rocked and about how good the party was.

That worked out!
Back in the day we used to do outdoor parties, (folks would decide how much fun they had on the number of kegs consumed). We had done a blues number, and one of the biker types came back up and wanted "some more of that good old Chicago blues". We told him later, and played another tune, he grabbed the guitar players mic, and several other Harley folks gathered him up, and hauled him off. We took a break later, and I noticed him sitting by a boulder and smiling. One of the hippie guys said he was no problem, let him stay. He had a couple of the bikers hold him while he stuck a pipe of his home grown in his mouth, didn't have any problem the rest of the night! (And the hippies were proud of their non violent action).

Bill, I've had some of the most enjoyable gigs at biker fests. I'm glad your story turned out well. That's the thing people don't get--the majority of biker clubs are the best of people and do a lot of public service in some way or other, at least the biker gangs I know around here. Of course, there'll always be bung'ole in any crowd.

Willie, sounds like a worse version of some of the gigs I've had lately...

They're always banging into my mic stand. In fact, when I've got drunk dancers in front of me, I usually sing a bit louder and back off the mic - as I almost lost my teeth once. I've had people fall over the wedge monitors, and have had a mic stand fall over, knocking over music stands and in turn unplugging things as well. It's crazy; people don't seem to know when they should just go home and sleep it off. :D

I have learned that if you have an obnoxious drunk crashing the stage it is really easy to give him a punch to the gut w/out anyone noticing, particularly if it is done while he is lunging at you. He'll be out of commision & if you're lucky he won't vomit right away.

A quick sharp punch was on my mind, but I used the crowd to get rid of him. From now on, I'm going to use my Tele to punch drunks in the head. Gotta keep the Keef vibe flowing.