Your most succesful heckle at a live show.

Which I thought was pretty damn funny.

get off the stage!

one of the bros went like "alright" and stormed off with his flying V. my friends around me were sort of surprised/ impressed/ appalled.
as usual

"Hey turn up the DVD!"

not a heckle, i know. sorry.

(wanted to make sure it's clear it wasn't _me_ who said this, I'm reporting. but I did think it was dead on)

to be fair, the guy did a decent job and the show was awesome but i was severely let down to find out J.Marr was not going to be there. Bummer.

"More banter!!!"

My fave heckle while I was performing, during a quieter moment:

"There's some serious stuff going on here!!!"
(it showed up on the live recording)

Teenage girl at Cocteau Twins concert at the Orpheum in Vancouver back in '87 or '88 yells out to her
HOW DID YOU LOSE SO MUCH WEIGHT?!

Heard that at a Locust show. The singer rose to the challenge and said something like, "You know, you laugh, but no one understood what you said, so you look like an idiot!"

Kinda silly, cos I was halfway across the venue and I'd understood what the heckler had said.

The The Locust launched into another tune, which like all their tunes, had completely incomprehensible lyrics.

Sam Kinison had a great anti-heckle,

"Hey, that's just what yr mom said to me before the show! EXCEPT I HAD MY DICK DOWN HER THROAT SO IT SOUNDED MORE LIKE GHGGUGHUUGHGGGHG!"

I skimmed through this post too fast and thought it was about Anal Cunt!

but anyway, being right up front, i yelled "high expectations!!!"

and laetetia turned around, looks right at me, and says "what, have you got some then?"

heh, it was funny, embarassing and awesome all at the same time

Because the other LA ILM folk I know are far too nice to watch my back.

I can't remember who the headliner was, but there was a serious butt-rock crowd standing there staring at the Sun City Girls. My friend decided he would get it over with and start the heckling, even though he was a fan of the band. He started yelling "what the hell is that shit?" and "you call that rock? Play some rock, MAN!" and stuff like that.

The only problem was that no one except me knew he was joking, especially the band. He was completely oblivious to the angry glares the big, bearded guitar player kept shooting his way (we were right up against the stage, just a small, knee-high type stage). I decided to let the scene play out rather than tell him to chill out, or tell him the guitar player was getting pissed.

Finally, after about three songs of this, during a quiet part with just some drums, the guitar player walked over and grabbed my friends baseball hat and put it on his own head. My friend, completely oblivious to the fact that no one else was getting his joke, laughed and thought it was cool that a member of the band was wearing his hat.

At the end of the next song, while my friend wasn't looking, the guitar player took off his hat and, in full view of everyone else in the club, hocked the biggest wad of spit I've ever seen into the hat. He then walked over to the my friend, who was turned around gabbing to someone else, and slapped it on his head and patted it down for extra measure. The crowd erupted in laughter. My friend laughed with them...and I laughed the hardest.

Actually the crowd was a lot looser after that, and everyone seemed to dig the Girls, even if they weren't quite what they were looking for that night.

I never did tell my friend about the spit in his hat.

"I wish you were my mother!"

Chilling . . .

The gnarliest heckles I've personally received:

"Embarassing for all involved!" (in very drunken Sheffield accent)

"What do you do for fun?" (opening for Bjork in LA)

Someone else:
I saw Spoon open for Guided by Voices in SF in 1996 and some guy kept yelling between songs, "HEY YOU GUYS SOUND LIKE THE PIXIES!". You could tell it was getting on Britt's nerves.

You are my fucking hero. Thank you, really.

Also this good band I was watching at a bar started playing what I thought was some ironic, intentionally wack, lounge song. They had previously played a great cover of "When You Were Mine" and I wanted to get back to the cool shit so I started throwing lollipops at them (they have lollipops at the tables at this bar). Evidently when I'm drunk my aim is great and I was hitting band members square in the chest until the bouncer made me stop. Despite making peace with most of the band, one guy still shrieks "FUCK YOU, WONKA!" at me when they're in town. So I hurl lollipops at him and scream "IT'S VIETNAM ALL OVER AGAIN! WATCH OUT FOR CHARLIE!"

that's fuckin' great...

Gear -- Ohmigod! All we have to do is find the other five people and we can have a reunion!

At a Handsome Family show at the University of Wisconsin Rennie responded with that heckle: "Do your parents know that all the money they're spending on your tuition is being completely wasted...that you're still a complete moron?"

Yelling for an artist do so something they're already doing always works. "Mellower!" at a boring show is good. I yelled "stare at your hands!" at the Kings Of Leon (who appeared hella nervous about hitting that G chord). Supposedly Sharon Osbourne is fond of yelling "don't look at me!" at people trying to avoid her at parties, like Scott Stapp.

no offense

The heckling wasn't funny, but it still made me laugh.

Six times, then.

that is correct Sir

it was also pretty funny when built to spill responded to that by playing the complete note-for-note rendition immediately upon someone yelling it. THANKS HECKLER DUDE

we could make another thread out of this conceit.
at a GYBE! show: "WHY DON'T YOU GIVE YOUR SONGS SOME SPACE TO BREATHE?"
at a radiohead show: "DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING WITH AN ORWELLIAN BENT?!"
at a counting crows show: "LET'S HEAR SOMETHING VERY MEANINGFUL!"
at an animal collective show: "WHAT ABOUT A QUIRKY BLEND OF STRUMMY FOLK WITH MILD ELECTROACOUSTICS IN AN ATTEMPT TO CONVEY THE WIDE-EYED, ALMOST HALLUCINATORY WONDER OF EARLY CHILDHOOD?"
at a clipse show: "THE ONE ABOUT YOU SELLING COCAINE!"

Fugazi person: 'Dudes, like, it is uncool that you are stage diving OK? You are, like, tripping over our leads and pulling them out of the amplifiers. Don't you know, like moshing and stage diving totally went out with the 80's?'

Heckler: 'Yeah, well, you're in Canberra now, mate.'

Norah Jones PLAY THE MID-TEMPO ONE!
Allison Moorer PLAY THE SAD ONE!
Madonna, Cher, Janet, et al LIP-SYNCH THE _______ ONE!
Scissor Sisters PLAY THE ONE THAT SOUNDS LIKE ELTON JOHN!
The Replacements in their prime PLAY ANYTHING! IT WON'T MATTER!

Frances Faye FINISH SOMETHING FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

It DOES look lame in print. It was a total "you had to be there" moment - Rufus' glare and icy deadpan delivery were terrifyingly funny.

They're doing a long tension and release intro to "copper":
tick tick tick tick *SKRONG* tick tick tick tick *SKREE*... so on.

Impeccably timed with the last bit of hi hat - just before the song erupts - some guy in the crowd sings: "GENERALS GATHERED IN THEIR MASSES!".

Revelatory.

Actually, with respect for his show-mates M Ward and Jim James, who does lovely Gram Parsons covers, I decided to refrain from cussing out Conor. Also because Conor that nobel little rebel once heckled Clearchannel from on-stage at one of their venues.

"Less Iron More Wine" (at iron and wine - it could have been "less irony more whine" though)

"Whos having sex in my mums room" (at Andrew WK)

Heckles i participated in:

For a friends birthday we went to see The Get Up Kids (a band i hadn't heard until we went). When we got there we went to the front and found a setlist so me and my friend yelled "Play _____" to correspond with the setlist before each song. We didn't know they were keeping to their setlist until the singer goes "Hey you guys are ruining the element of suprise", to which my friend retorted "It's ok I see dead people too".

Fugazi person: 'Dudes, like, it is uncool that you are stage diving OK? You are, like, tripping over our leads and pulling them out of the amplifiers. Don't you know, like moshing and stage diving totally went out with the 80's?'"

Somehow I find it hard to picture Ian or Guy using these exact words.

what have i unleashed

I saw them in 2001, and the show was stopped after some moshing and basically the same thing happened. Ian found whoever was leading the pit, isolated him, and explained that most people in the audience were there to hear the band and not get beat up.

It's funny, cos I had never been to a Fugazi show before then, nor had I heard about such a thing happening at one, but it didn't surprise me in the least...

Colton: "There's a young man over there in a very nice shirt... where did you get that from, sir?"

She puts the microphone in his face.

Young man: "From a bin."

That was a good show. Before it started, it was announced that Lou would be playing "Magic and Loss" in its entirety, song by song - eliciting groans from the Detroit crowd. Before one song, Lou lectured, "This song is about a subject that's very important to me. Do you know what it is?" A guy yells: "HEROIN!" Lou: "No... Revenge."

I never endorse heckling, but I had to do it myself when Evan Dando showed up and ruined two shows in one week for me -- uninvited. The Frogs didn't even want him on stage but he felt compelled to get up and take over their Maxwells show. I mean, paying ten bucks and having your show become his, that ain't right.

Some girls were talking over the music from the back bar, and in between songs (and many drinks) I was yelling at them to stay fucking quiet.

After they got louder and louder (and I got drunker and drunker), I got really pissed, and after the first song of the encore, I apparently yelled "THE TWO GIRLS AT THE BACK BAR- SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
I PAID TWELVE BUCKS FOR THIS SHOW!!

The band thought I was heckling them, and the singer says, "For the rest of you, we're playing the Bowery Ballroom tomorrow night."

Had to apologize after the show, not that it made a difference.

Lead singer of Bleu finishes the first song and mistakenly asks into the microphone, directed to the front of house mixer, "How was that?"

Heckler replies, "Terrible!"

Not a revolutionary heckle but hilarious nonetheless.

Oh, and Shesus were none to pleased. The singer even said, "We only have one more." I'm not sure if the jab would make sense to anybody, we used to yell "Tune To M#!" at bands in college. Oh, we were smart!

lead singer gets up, says "Hi, we're On Vibrato, we're from Salt Lake City."

heckler/friend: "Salt Lake SHITTY!"

Somehow I find it hard to picture Ian or Guy using these exact words.

-- Hurting

I wasn't there and the woman who told me the story is given to comedy imitations of American accents. So you're probably right.

Ian (in booming voice): "HEY! HEY! YOU IN THE FRONT! YES, YOU SIR! WHAT KIND OF DANCE IS THAT YOU ARE DOING! DANCING DOES NOT INVOLVE HITTING PEOPLE IN THE FACE!"

Sally Timms to audience: "Our bass player is like the Queen Mother..."

Audience member: "They both smell of wee!"

x-post to fauxhemian

of course, i was the sound guy that night when i yelled that

-- (milto...), October 14th, 2004.
is this aimed at pink floyd ?

So she and her other friend went to a thrift store, bought entire boxes of discarded shoes, went to the next Fugazi show, handed them out to their friends who they invited, and the moment Fugazi took the stage, a complete maelstrom of shoes had been thrown on stage. It didn't last long (i.e. my friends got kicked out), but the moment was worth it, apparently. (hey, it was a $5 or $6 show max, even if her friends didn't like the band, apparently the ticket price was worth the prank.)

-- lourtney cove (dog...), January 23rd, 2005.

Was what fatal?

The last band of the night was from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who in the middle of their set played a dead-on cover of Fopp in its entirety. I had never heard before or since of them doing this song so I can only assume they saw our banner. Not really a heckle so much, but I thought it was funny.

At the end of the song, Alan Sparhawk said: "I'm sorry, we kind of like that one - but it's all three minute punk classics from now on. I promise."

Personally, I shouted "Popcorn" during a phillipe petit set and he rather surprised me by actually playing it. At least I think he did, I was in a bit of a mess.

Holy moley! One of those drunk hecklers was me! I requested "Where the Cheese At?" and informed the crowd that Momus loves Hitler. The other hecklers were boring tourist-y types who were very amused by "Space Jews."

Anybody else chant "NO MORE" when the crowd is begging for an encore? I do this even if I like the band.

I've had a few good heckles in my time, but they make me look like a jackass, so.

While tuning his guitar, looking down he says "try this fucker on for size" and they launch into dragonflies

Apparently, 'WHERE'S THIS GOING?' is occasionally heard at stand up shows.

My favorite was from a friend of mine who was sitting through some support act he immediately didn't like. After the very first song, he starts cheering loudly (markedly different from the rest of the crowd that was just politely clapping) and screaming "ONE MORE! ONE MORE!" Subtle.

A similar moment was when I was seeing the death metal band Origin. I had just seen Melt Banana in town the same night and I was drunk from two clubs and tired from two shows after a day of work. I also thought Origin was kinda generic so i told my friend we'd leave early.

After the second or third song, I whispered in my friend's ears that we would be leaving after one more song. My friend, being more drunk that I was, started whooping and hollering "WOO! ONE MORE SONG! WOO!"

The lead singer heard this, looked at my friend with a sad look on his face and said, "Dude... We just started!"

...

Best retort from a band to the obligatory "FREEBIRD!" cries - flip the heckler off and say "No charge."

eventually it was shortened to "DJ CAD"

even today it still happens at every show

fuck

I was at that Glasgow Wilco show mentioned earlier. I think the band started playing immediately after someone shouted "play it again, Jeff", while he was in the middle of telling us to do the running on the spot bit next time around. The spontaneity made it.

Obviously this story makes cringe myself inside out nowadays, but at the time I thought it was quite cool.

Worst (only) heckling I've received was at a party where I was playing a few songs with my friend who's a singer. Party was full of drunken middle aged people. One drunken middle aged woman starts trying to get my attention, and is saying something to me. I guess it's probably something important (like "the amps aren't working" or "the building's on fire" or something), so I lean over to hear what she's saying. And I still can't work it out. I'm still trying not to fuck up the song I'm playing, while all this is going on. When it gets to the third or fourth time of her repeating herself, I finally realise that she's slurring "Can you show me where the toilet is?".

Me: "NO, I'M SORRY, I AM PLAYING THE FUCKING PIANO".

later on, she held my hand during anthems for a seventeen yr old girl. i was just wishing it were leslie feist.

Ian (in typical semi-belligerent tone): "Banter? What kind of banter would you like, sir? Am I bantering enough for you now?"

Dude i think i saw or heard that on some kind of recording medium?

some horrible latin pop band who dressed like the thompson twins were playing a comedy taping i was at. Someone heckled them and the singer snorted "dont quit your day job" and then I yelled: "don't quit your dye job." nailed him between the eyes. total deer in the headlights look.

-- Abbadavid Berman

...then began the opening chords to "Living After Midnight" and he told the band to "Play fucking loud" -- what a night.

I, unfortunately, won't be at that Lightning Bolt gig, because I'll be at ATP instead. It's a tough life.

To make this a productive post, a bit of reverse heckling: Iron & Wine start playing a cover of a Stereolab song released on the internet a few days earlier, and a guy who had up until that point exlaimed "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" a few seconds into every song does it again. Sam Beam monotonally says "you don't know this one". I don't think he WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOed again.

more superchunk heckling stories somewhere in here: http://superchunk.com/tours.html

Well, that just put a huge smile on my face. hahahahaha

Haha, awesome. Jason Molina will be one of my favorite artists for a long time to come. He's playing on my birthday in Chapel Hill, and damn am I depressed that I'm going to miss it.

"More beard in the monitors" at Built to Spill

I will heckle opening bands that play too long. This is really the only thing that will compel me to shout stuff like "GET THE FUCK OFF THE STAGE!". The other night I went out to see a local triple-bill with my relatively new girlfriend (4 months). The second band asked the crowd "Can we play two more? Is that OK?". My girlfriend, loud enough for everyone to hear, says "NO!". God, I love her.
― sleeve (sleeve), Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:45 PM (7 years ago)

so glad I had the smarts to marry this woman!

awwww. But does she heckle you at home

people being dickheads at gigs = dud

no one likes a heckler at a comedy show, so i'm not sure why it should be justified in this venue

I got muffled laughter from the crowd and called a 'cunt' by the comedian for heckling at a comedy show once.

what did you say?

no more than any other partner xxxxp

did they call you a cunt in a joking way, or were they actually proper radge?

Ex-Bible frontman Boo Hewerdine at the Purcell Room sometime in the mid-90s. First part was solo acoustic, then he picked up an electric and brought on a band. I shouted (rather wittily, I thought), "Judas!". He replied, "That's a bit harsh."

He was proper radge. He was a supporting comic and he was dying on his arse and had been for 30 minutes or so, I can't remember why precisely as it was more than 12 years ago now, but he was really poor and the crowd was not keen. He actually announced "OK, I'm going to tell a joke now" and then said something about his bicycle being stolen to open it, at which point I think I said "hooray" and clapped a bit. So he called me a cunt, probably quite rightly, and he sounded quite hurt.

I think I asked after King Missile did a Patsy Cline cover if they were taking her plane.

(Jon S Hall chuckled and looked shifty)

you're crazy for that one Morbs

It's a little disturbing to hear people satisfied that they think they managed to hurt someone's feelings.

I was thinking for a while of making a thread for stories about things that happened at concerts that werent really about the music. I thought there would probably be one already but I couldnt find any. I thought maybe I should just post any stories in the individual band threads but I'm not sure how many will sound interesting enough. Oh well...

There is a few Low mentions here. I remember before the first time I saw Low I heard people saying how glum and miserable they are on stage but every time I saw them, Alan Sparhawk seems really upbeat and charming; I liked how he would often take requests, almost start playing a song and then say "nah, that one's too boring to play".
It was the Great Destroyer tour and he was having problems with his electric guitar then got out his acoustic guitar then said that he wasnt a big fan of acoustic guitars, some people asked him why and he said "acoustic guitars are for pussies", someone in the audience seemed genuinely offended.

Just to confirm I am not satisfied now - I think I was a dick, but I was about 20.

I think Mark Kozelek was touring after his Sun Kil Moon April album, it was halloween.
There was a guy with one of those Scary Movie masks on (that parodies the Wes Craven Scream mask) hanging out the cloak room window staring at people. He later got up on stage and it turned out he was Kozelek.

He played quite a few songs with the mask on and several people were asking him to take the mask off, I think some felt it was hindering his voice but I thought he sounded fine. When he did take off the mask (somebody jokingly made a scared sound as if Kozelek had a horrible face), he said he was disappointed nobody else came dressed up, but I'd guess some people would think that inappropriate for a Kozelek gig.

Someone was trying to take photos on his mobile phone and Kozelek complained there was no romance in taking photos and that kids these days have too many gadgets. He said when he was a kid "all I had was a cone" (I think he meany ice cream), someone heckled "lucky you!", the audience laughed but Kozelek didnt catch it and seemed a bit annoyed. He later said that Scottish accents and some accent from an earlier european gig were like a screwdriver in his ear.

Some people were a bit offended by Kozelek but I had no idea how serious he was, so I just found it funny. But I've heard quite a few things about him surprising audiences with his sense of humor or being surprisingly unpleasant. I never went to see him again mostly because I'm not big on the recent Sun Kil Moon albums (some people really seem to love them though) but some bad stories about his gigs have put me off too.

When someone requested a song from a less successful album, Kristin Hersh replied "You're the one who bought that album!"

heckling is a dud. there is a time and a place for it - if a musician is acting assholish on stage or being surly to the crowd, or giving a poor show, all for it. but when it's about a dickfungus in the crowd trying to make the show about him, always dud.

last week I was doing a last minute 'scareacting' gig at a local haunted house. I had 15 minutes of training (I'd only gotten called 90 minutes before it), and then went at it, and was just really surprised at how the majority of the people going through were assholes (not even just the kids).

just shouting nasty stuff back at us scareactors. since we were characters that were allowed to talk, I realized that insulting them back in character was better revenge than getting angry, and it worked. on more than a few occasions, landed a few retorts that got the dude's entire party to laugh at him.

I sort of have to ask some of these people - why do you pay money to go out, not enjoy yourself, and make fun of stuff?

also the original vocalist of Dillinger Escape Plan (Dimitri) hated ANYTHING shouted from the audience. even positive shit. Someone shouted a request, something like "How about <song>?", and he replied "HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP.", and then he pointed at another would-be audience member and beckoned him to the stage, threatening to fuck him with a knife.

Corpsegrinder (of Cannibal Corpse) is my favorite, mostly cuz the dude is built. someone shouted "Freebird" at a CC show and he basically went on this calm, mocking tirade about how sorry he felt for the dude and immasculated him in front of the crowd, it was kind of funny.

my favorite "heckle" to do at shows is to try and get the crowd to start chanting USA! USA! during the applause between songs

I yelled "Freebird!" at Mistislav Rostropovich's final concert. He died. So I'd say it was a pretty successful heckle.

Neanderthal-

http://www.fright.com/edge/IWasAHalloweenMonster.htm

This is a really great account of a guy who did scare acting and the bafflingly obnoxious behavior of the public.

just read most of that - that's why I would never do this frequently (it was strictly a one time favor). that guy has it right though - people think they're so hilarious in haunted houses. the trick is if it's a dude, go nuclear on him, esp if he's around ladies, and he'll shut up. women that are rude, give it back in more sarcastic fashion.

my partner got slapped in the face by a drunk woman as a reaction to being scared. fortunately our security was fairly good most of the night, but he couldn't find em.

by 'nuclear' i mean land an insult that makes everybody else say "ohHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh!"

don't believe in heckling but my favorite reverse heckle was at a Dillinger Escape Plan show (in the Dimitri era)

Fan: "Why don't you play <song>?!!!"
Dimitri: "Why don't you shut the fuck up!"

At a Silver Mt Zion show last year:

Efrim (while tuning up): "Does anyone have any questions?"
Me: "When is Godspeed touring?"
Efrim: "I have no idea what you are fuckin talkin about"