Heckling bands: I'm cool with it

Yelling "you're awful" sounds to me as gutsy as yelling "Freebird," i.e., not gutsy at all.

Way back when I heard a story about a critic who was assigned to review a singer/songwriter type who was doing 2 sets. Allegedly, egged on by a friend and drinking heavily, the critic stood up between sets and recited his planned review panning the performer. Not sure if this really happened.

Heard at Fergie festival show: "I WANT TO SEE YOU PISS YOUR PANTS!"

My experience wth the Magik Markers:

(as the band is setting up, tuning guitars, tinkering w/pedals, etc.)

I say "where's Lee," jokingly to the girl tuning her guitar. She ignores me.

Finally they get up, preparing to play. She introduces the band as the magic markers and that the'yre a sonic youth cover band. WE'RE A SONIC YOUTH COVER BAND (over and over) and they're sorry that Lee Ranaldo could not be with us this evening. And then she goes on to insist that they are strictly a sonic youth cover band and that this show was dedicated to the spirit of Lee Ranaldo and all things Lee Ranaldo. So they play and it is ok, kinda weak, sounds better on record (BOSS) and what not. So I say "skip tracer" in between one of their songs and she freaks out WHO SAID THAT?? WHY DON'T YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE!??????!?1/1/1/ *threat* And I'm standing right there in front of her, like "what." Then she says "Grow a moustache, you faggot." and then breaks into a song. it was awesome/

At Explosions in the Sky last March, during the opening set of the highly mediocre Paper Chase a good few heckle-calls were thrown in here and there, but most notably someone yelled "(WE WANT)"EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY! Yeah! WOOOO!" during a very quiet part in one of their the songs (which actually arose a verbal reaction from the lead singer) Either way, at the start of their set, on the EITS addressed the audience, saying something to the effect of "To the joker who called out our name when it was quiet, you know what, that is just rude. . . "

It was kind of awkward, and also, they didn't do an encore, which I think probably was the result of that too. At least he didn't insult one's capacity to grow facial hair and their sexual orientation.

When a band is really bad and you think they're going to play a long set, the best approach is to get people to start chanting "One more song!" when they're 2 or 3 songs in. They won't know what to do.

I dislike heckling that consists of calling for songs by former bands of the folks on stage, as it almost always seems to be done in an arsey way that's really just trying to make the heckler look cool by dint of their liking such-and-such way back when and shows a lack of respect for what the band is doing now.

For example at a Jesu show last week someone was shouting for them to "play some Godflesh", which seemed to go down like a lead balloon both on stage and with the rest of the crowd.

My first ever gig was Marillion at the Birmingham Odeon in about 1984? They were supported by a band called Beltane Fire who were a kinda Big Country/Runrig-y "Scotland the Brave" mystical bagpipe guitars not very good thing. And in the programme there was a square flexidisc with one of their songs on it. So of course, a couple of songs in, this flexidisc comes skimming from the balcony in a beautiful arc and stots the singer right on the nose. Cheers.

Sometimes a good timed heckle can result in something good. I was at a Posies show about two years ago which started out a bit lackluster. A friend of mine in the audience yelled PLAY IT FUCKING LOUD after the first two song, which was a signal for The Posies to turn up the volume and start playing more aggressively and into it.

It ended up being the best the best show I went to that year. Ken Stringfellow got so into it he nearly took off all his clothes and played the last song in his underpants. It ended up being an exhilarating and very fun show.

I dislike heckling that consists of calling for songs by former bands of the folks on stage

This often happens at Shellac shows, and really annoys Albini.

I heckled Devendra Banhart at a gig I guess...asked him to play 'Support Our Troops OH' in the hope it'd break up the awful sunshine jam rock shite they were drudging out otherwise. He responded that it was a Xiu Xiu song and looked a bit pissed.

I don't normally heckle unless it's mate's bands and it's friendly though.

heard at atp during modest mouse set: "rubbish! rubbish! RUBBISH mouse!" they threatened to stop playing.

Job done!

I don't believe in heckling bands unless the bands are asking for it--like one time I saw Sick of It All open for Slayer and the guy wasn't being rude or anything but the frontman was being really annoying to the crowd with his ridiculous stage banter, so we started booing and telling him to fuck off.

I did remember booing Marry Me Jane when they opened for Aerosmith but I was a kid and didn't have scruples. Retroactively I feel bad for them because they were totally the wrong type of band to put on that bill and they never stood a chance to win over the crowd. I didn't like their music, but they didn't deserve the booing and the birds they got. They rolled it off their backs though.

When I saw Bad Religion 5 years ago, Sunny Day Real Estate opened and they got majorly booed--can't remember if I participated or not, but the audience was unusually angry that night!

Oh one I forgot--when I saw SAvatage 6 years ago, this fat old guy behind us kept saying (for at least an hour or so) "boo, fuck this, play Sirens". Kept saying "Play Sirens" over and over again and people were telling him to shut the fuck up.

I swear, I think he kept chanting it after they DID play "Sirens"! Surprised nobody egged Jon Oliva on for being extremely fat though...

I get wound up when a band makes an audience wait for them with their thumbs up their asses for more than a half hour past their scheduled start time. If they're gonna be divas, they'd better be ready to play the best show of their lives or be severely heckled.

Wu Tang did that quite badly when I saw them....

>>I dislike heckling that consists of calling for songs by former bands of the folks on stage

>This often happens at Shellac shows, and really annoys Albini.

Yeah this is a cross-section of "the guy who wants to prove how hc he is by yelling for chestnuts he knows aren't gonna get played anyway" and "the guy who thinks if he gets yelled at that makes him cool," both of them dumbasses - like congrats, you're at a Shellac show yet you've heard of Big Black? Wow u r kewl. A decent Albini heckler should be yelling for Effigies songs anyway

Your most succesful heckle at a live show.

down, heckler, down!

Share your heckling experiences...

hardcore heckling

I dislike heckling that consists of calling for songs by former bands of the folks on stage

This often happens at Shellac shows, and really annoys Albini everyone.

I love that after 50 years of live rock performance, people haven't realized that bands write setlists, and generally find it best to stick to them until they're in second-encore territory.

STOP LOOKING AT THAT PIECE OF PAPER AND PLAY THE SONG I LIKE

True! All I was saying is that it was very noticeable at a couple of Shellac shows I've been to.

A friend shared this story with me: he was at a Dennis Driscoll show (K-recs twee-pop) and there was a really drunk guy up front leaning against the stage who kept slurring "Sounds like shit." At some point Dennis Driscoll responded "Well, would you like to play a song?" So the guy came up onstage and stumbled his way through a Nirvana-ish pissed off grunge song which nobody in the audience liked. Then Dennis Driscoll came back and said "Well I thought it was lovely" or somesuch. Cracks me up to imagine that. Whenever that friend is at one of my shows I ask him to be that guy and do an Andy Kaufman/Bob Zmuda act with me.

To go back to the original poster's point, I fail to see how it takes more guts to shout ill-advised taunts at a band onstage than to actually take the stage in front of hundreds to thousands of people with the pressure of pulling off a good show for about 90 minutes...with the possibility of people taunting you. Especially since the majority of the time, the "guts" are really a result of having had too many cold ones before the show.

You're really going to have to explain that one.

Maybe I was wrong in saying it takes MORE guts, but I'm not trying to do a guts vs. more guts comparison. Eww, guts! If you're a bastard, it's pretty easy to heckle any band. I'm not a bastard, and I know that heckling a band is gonna bum the band out, piss off people in the crowd, embarrass your friends (possibly) and who knows what else. You could get your ass kicked while the whole audience applauds. That story above, about Steve Albini singling out that one guy, and another story I heard about the dude from QOTSA (ugh) wanting to fight a guy in the audience who threw a shoe at him, it just makes me think that hecklers sometimes do something valiant when the confront the egos of band members and the entire circumstances of the show atmosphere by undermining the Band v. Audience separation. Ian McKaye is probably a nice guy, but I would feel justified in talking back to him. Just because they have the microphones and everyone's attention doesn't mean we in the audience are peasants who must all applaud at the right time and be in awe of them. It depends on the show, but sometimes, like with rock shows at small venues, I'm cool with talking shit. Mark Rich@rdson, thanks for the links to the other threads, some of those stories were awesome.
I saw Jello Biafra so spoken word in Detroit about 10 years ago, and he was talking about some of the fucked up shirts he saw in the line outside. One guy had a shirt that said something like "Target Serbia" or something. Jello said this was really insensitive and violent, but the dude with the "Target Serbia" shirt was in the crowd and started to heckle Jello. The gig was unsettled for a minute or two, and people in the crowd were yelling at the kid with the "Target Serbia" shirt to shut up, "we paid to hear Jello speak!" and what not. The guy was not having it and made his way to the stage. Instead of being an asshole and having the guy kicked out and having the crowd cheer him on, Jello let the guy onstage, told the audience to shut up, and that this guy should speak, gave the dude his mic, and let the guy explain what his shirt meant, how we was from Serbia and why the situation was fucked up. I think it was a noble thing for Jello to let the guy voice his side.

Dudes are just trying to do their jobs, Chelvis.

Like do we we really gain anything by someone taking Magik Markers down a peg?

I find heckling tends to be without purpose the majority of the time. It's about the heckler--they are jealous of the attention the act is getting, they want to be a part of it.

Whiney and Bo Jackson, you both make good points.

Ryan Adams to thread.

I'm not a bastard, and I know that heckling a band is gonna bum the band out, piss off people in the crowd, embarrass your friends (possibly) and who knows what else. You could get your ass kicked while the whole audience applauds.

Interesting to look at it that way. It's like Three Versions of Judas by J.L. Borges.