This Ever Happen To You?

Steve Stallings · Post by **Steve Stallings** » 18 Aug 2002 6:01 am

We played a very large wedding reception last night at the Navasota/Grimes County fairgrounds. The job was from 7-11. It was a very large, young, inebriated crowd.

I took my new lacquer Mullen just to show it to the guys in the band. Anyway, at 11, the groom comes up and want to do this eminem crap. He aparently is a frustrated white rapper. He and his entire party are suddenly on the stage, stumbling drunk and taking over the drums, the mikes...etc.

I asked the leader of our band ... we done?
He said yep. I jumped into high gear and packed up my steel, strat, mikes, and was working on putting my amps in their flight cases when the band leader says.. " Hey! We aren't through... what are you doing?" I swear... I thought he was joking and said "I'm outa here". I continued packing up until my wife came up and told me "Wayne is really mad, he says you are not done". I went and found Wayne and he starts telling me that he never said that we were done and that we started late and had to play late.

I am so mad I can't see straight at this point. I am now completely packed up. The band comes back up and starts playing. It was now 1120. By the time I could get set up, it would be 1145 or so. I asked about getting paid and was ignored. I got even angrier. At this point my wife begs me to just leave. I really wanted to stay and get it straightened out but I realized she was right. I would have said something I would have regretted. It took me about 45 minutes to calm down on the ride home. This morning I'm just upset with the poor communication.

BTW... the new Mullen played and sounded great. I just worried all night that some drunk would spill beer on it.

------------------
Steve Stallings
Bremond, Texas

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 18 Aug 2002 6:19 am

Hi Steve....been there...done that. I'd have a long talk w/the bandleader. You should be told if they are going to let the celebrants up. Letting the audience or the partygoers take over the bandstand is not professional if you are hired to do the job and are furnishing the PA and equip. Out of control drunks are bad enough in the audience...let alone in front of mikes and instruments. Just be glad that gorgeous Mullen escape harm and try to not let the memory of this fiasco ruin your weekend!

[This message was edited by Jerry Overstreet on 18 August 2002 at 07:23 AM.] [This message was edited by Jerry Overstreet on 18 August 2002 at 07:25 AM.]

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 18 Aug 2002 7:36 am

It seems like it was a basic gig to me. When I feel like some drunk idiot (in or not in the band) might bump into my steel I just sit there and threaten them with a bat or something. Spilt beer is not going to hurt your steel much.

I always get the money straight BEFORE the gig and I stay until I get paid.

Look at it from the groom's position. I mean geez, the guy is getting married ! This is a very important day in his life and he is paying you a pile of money. He gets to do whatever he wants no matter how absurd it might seem to the cranky steel player. Its your job to help him have a good time.

What if the groom decided to eat cake with his hands ? How would the baker look if he came out and took the cake away because he got upset ?

The situation you are talking about happens on some level just about every week in my life. If I worried about it I would just get a day job.

Bob

Tony Farr · Post by **Tony Farr** » 18 Aug 2002 8:21 am

Hey Steve, something simular to that happened to me one night in a club. A gal thought she could sing, got on stage drunk and started to fall into my ShoBud, I gave her a nudge and she fell over the band rail landed on her back in the middle of the dance floor and kept on singing until we shut off her mic. The boss had a couple of strong guys drag her out to the front and started to fill her up with coffee.

Bob Smith · Post by **Bob Smith** » 18 Aug 2002 8:51 am

Hey Tony! I cant stop laughing,Was in a similar situation not too long ago. Thanks Bob

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 18 Aug 2002 9:30 am

STEVE........I'm with YOU!

Once had a wanna-be singer....drunk, climb up onto the stage and while weaving around fell over backwards atop my brand new Bigsby quad. I asked the leader to get him off of the stage, he didn't, so I announced I was leaving and did so.
I had to take it to the musician's union but did get paid and he got a lecture from our horn blowing union president.
With your investment...in guitars, etc., you have no obligation to let them be destroyed for the humor of some drunk and a failed band leader.
I'd rather not play music than to put up with that kind of crappola!

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 18 Aug 2002 9:33 am

In the 60s, I was on my first or second gig with a new MSA D-12. My keys were up against the wall to my right. A drunk comes up with a beer in his left hand; leans up against the wall with the beer in front of him and over my keys. Mind if I watch he asked ??

I said no and we began another song. Then I heard water running somewhere beside me and when I looked to my right I saw the beer just running out of the bottle and all over my new guitar and my nice clean shirt sleeve. I jumped up and grabbed a towel off of my amp to clean up. The drunk left without a thank you or a go to heii !!

That was one for the save bin !

Regards, Paul

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 18 Aug 2002 10:00 am

Bob Hoffnar said it right. This has happened to most all of us, many, many times if you have played a lot of weddings, bars, etc. ....al

Willis Vanderberg · Post by **Willis Vanderberg** » 18 Aug 2002 10:16 am

Hey Steve..Glad you escaped with your axe intact.A good woman will keep you out of trouble ( sometimes ).Years ago we were playing for something called "a Polish hard times party ".Our bass picker has finally got a new dog house and was doing just great with it.Well a fight broke out and things were flying thru the air.The only guy with something big enough to hide behind was the bass player.He was laughing at the rest of us when a beer bottle went right thru the front of his new bass.
Hang in there,you learnmore picking out than picking in .

Buddy Van

Mark Herrick · Post by **Mark Herrick** » 18 Aug 2002 12:43 pm

Saw Johnny Bush not too long ago in Houston. Two obviously drunk women were trying to dance. Fell right over Johnny's monitor. He said, "I'll have whatever they're having."

Nick Reed · Post by **Nick Reed** » 18 Aug 2002 1:23 pm

Steve, That is a bad situation to be in and I don't blame you one bit for packing up to leave. On top of that, I think you should have some Money coming.
My frustration last night was when the (Dance Hall Owner) where we played came up 5 different times to the stage and said "we were too loud"! We kept turning down more, and more, and more to the point where my wife and some of my friends said they couldn't even hear me when I played. Later they said it was the Drums and the Fiddle being too loud, then the vocal mics were muffled. Just no way to please them. I know for a fact that I wasn't too loud. I feel it was just their hearing which to me was nothing but BULLSHIT! Nick

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 18 Aug 2002 6:17 pm

I had something kinda similar happen a month or so ago at a club gig. On the busy nights, the club manager likes to let the crowd get up on the stage and dance to a particular song that we were asked to play. This punk kept reaching back while I was playing and strumming the E9 neck WHILE I was trying to play. I slapped his hand away a couple of times and the third time I started unscrewing one of the legs on my steel. The bass player saw where this was going and decided to run defense by putting himself between me and the guy. Also, at this same club. There's a roped off area where the monitor board is. I had my flight case for my Emmons sitting INSIDE the roped off area. Well, a bunch of drunks thought it was a good place to dispose of their empty bottles, and even a few that weren't so empty. I came off stage for a break and was LIVID when I saw beer spilled all over my brand new case. Fortunately, none of the beer leaked into the case so I was able to clean it up with a little windex. It amazes me how little respect people have for other peoples stuff. I probably treat other peoples equipment just as good, if not better than I treat my own! To quote Bill Engvall "I just hate stupid people"

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 19 Aug 2002 6:23 am

The reality is, everybody leaves their brains at the door in a drinking establishment. You have to expect the unexpected, and then some.

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 19 Aug 2002 7:07 am

All these incidents seem to come with the territory, unfortunately. I'll bet there's not a weekend-warrior honky-tonk hero or old road-dog who isn't full of these kinds of stories. Even the top guys have had their share of this, first time I met Chalker I asked him if stupid people ever come up and lean on his steel and what he did about it, he told me how he whacked a guy over the head with a leg from his steel and got into big trouble over it...the guy recovered but this is something you really don't want to do unless you're fighting for you life. Once at a gig in a barroom in Texas while I was packing up my steel at the end of the night, the owners' wife was drunk and making a lot of nasty comments about our girl singer, who was a good friend of mine and an excellent singer. Then the owner started making comments implying maybe he just wouldn't pay us. I had enough of it and stood up in his face with a steel leg in each hand. The owner and one of his buddies said, "better put those back down, boy". I looked at the band and they all had the "oh sh**!" look, told me later they were ready to jump in....I looked at the two guys and something told me I'd better back down, which I did. He paid us and nothing else happened but I'm sure now that if I'd tried anything one of them would have whipped out a pistol and shot me. A few weeks after this the same place was in the news, someone had been shot there. It ain't worth it! Seems if you're a musician, you either get treated like a king or like dirt, one or the other. We'd go from concerts with stars (king treatment) to dance halls (dirt, human jukeboxes) from week to week. It's just the way it is, hasn't changed in the 32 years I've been a musician.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 19 Aug 2002 9:12 am

My method is to wrap my fist around my steel and give em a fast hard punch in the thigh while I'm still playing. That way they just get a charlie horse and they stop bothering me. I've only had to do it a few times.

Bob

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 19 Aug 2002 9:55 am

it's no wonder some prefer playin'in Church !
a couple a weeks ago somebody put a beer on my Twin while we took a break and when we got back on to play it had spilt on the stomp box the guitar player uses. Goes to show that you can't leave for 10 minutes !
at least there was no Fistacuffs
Steel don't like juice heads...

John Steele (deceased) · Post by **John Steele (deceased)** » 19 Aug 2002 10:09 am

Sure, it's not a new story, it's gone on forever, but.... from my perspective it's happening more often than ever before.
I had to sit back and ponder the reasons a while ago after having our stage barnstormed by an obnoxious drunk, and I have come to the conclusion that Karaoke Machines are part of the equation. Ever since those godforsaken machines appeared on the scene, it's gotten dramatically worse. "You too can be a star" Ugh.
-John

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 19 Aug 2002 11:15 am

Just part of the music business....takes me back to the 1950's when I was working with a bass player/singer who drug his cord across my "Bandmaster" and spilled a glass of beer into it's guts (his beer)...ruining it! This guy is well known today and to this day probably doesn't remember it...but I do as we went hungary getting it repaired. www.genejones.com

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 19 Aug 2002 2:54 pm

You can do what you want but some drunk guy or gal just ain't getting up there wailing on my guitar no matter what. If it's a bonafide steel player that's different but Jo-Blo ain't gonna cut it. It may be fun for the guy that's making a fool of himself but it's not funny to anyone else and it sure isn't entertainment. If they want to sing OK but nothing else unless they can really play. Sit-ins on any gig should be limited to two songs period. They don't ruin the gig for you and don't wear out their welcome. Never any profanity!

Dyke Corson · Post by **Dyke Corson** » 19 Aug 2002 6:30 pm

Been there, done that!

I'm getting a restored wood neck PP back from Cass and I'm already paranoid about taking it out!
When I was a kid I got a brand new MSA wood body and the first night on stage I had a drunk knock a mic stand into the front of it!
A four hour wedding is already too long in my book. I have always tried to be on time and I hate it when the band has to start late and play later because of the late start.....I can relate to yer frustration!! Hang in there

[This message was edited by Dyke Corson on 19 August 2002 at 07:35 PM.]