Audience lack of respect for bands

[martthebass]

24 minutes ago, leftybassman392 said:

Another solution that nobody seems to have mentioned is to embrace the situation. Cocktail gigs, to be precise.

I spent a period where I would turn up to a wedding lunch, conference dinner or some such with a guitar and an amp, set up in a quiet corner where I wouldn't get disturbed or jostled, and spend an hour or two playing pretty much whatever I fancied for as long as I fancied playing it; as long as I played something that punters would recognise once in a while that was enough. Nobody's really listening to what you're doing as they have much more important things to do and talk about; but as long as they know it's there everybody's happy.

Not exciting for either player or audience, but if you're any good at it you can make fairly decent money (at one point I was asking - and getting -  £150+ an hour), and you don't have to share the gig fee with anyone. You do have to approach it in a professional manner though, both as regards material and technique - just rocking up and bashing out any old shite won't get you many return gigs. Oh, and most places will have a dress code of some sort as well.

I now await the flak from the 'if I had to do that I'd have given up years ago' brigade. Before you do chirp though, remember this: there are many ways to earn a living in the music business; screaming to be heard over a room full of noisily inebriated and disinterested ne'er-do-wells is only one of them.

If bass is the only instrument you play (covered in a forum topic recently) it may be more of an issue of course...

All power to your elbow mate!  If I only played what I like I'd be lucky to do 10 gigs per year.

[Dad3353]

4 hours ago, The59Sound said:

That quote was by a french man so of course it was hell for him; everyone stunk of cheese and ate snails whilst wearing a beret and riding a bicycle with a stick of bread hanging out the front! 

That's not a stick of bread. 

...

 

[Happy Jack]

Don't be a pain, Douglas.

Woe there! Bilingual puns ... what is this site coming to?

[JellyKnees]

20 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Don't be a pain, Douglas.

Woe there! Bilingual puns ... what is this site coming to?

That's un oeuf of that... sorry

[Bluewine]

8 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

the older I get the more I think that is true, one of the reasons I don't go to many gigs anymore is the idiots I have to put up with when in a big crowd, and why anybody would want to go to Glastonbury is totally beyond me

edit, don't mind a big crowd when I'm playing a gig though 

You wouldn't like Summerfest, the crowds are overwhelming. Personally, I love it.

Blue

 

[Woodinblack]

18 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Last time I saw McCartney he had 45,000 in attendance.

Yeh, something like that would be of zero interest to me. Almost certainly some professional video going to be made of it, so you might as well watch that and get a better view.

 

7 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

You wouldn't like Summerfest, the crowds are overwhelming. Personally, I love it.

A festival is different, you are going for the whole experience, not just to see some band.

[Happy Jack]

9 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

You wouldn't like Summerfest, the crowds are overwhelming. Personally, I love it.

Blue

 

Pah! Call that a crowd?

We've got the World Cup coming up, which means that our pub gigs starts to look like this:

[dmccombe7]

I don't need to worry about world cup gigs. Never gonna happen here. 

Maybe this tho 

Edited April 26, 2018 by dmccombe7

[Happy Jack]

Ah yes, We Have A Nightmare.

[Bluewine]

In the States, for bar bands, when the put you in a room separate from the bar, no matter how good you are your doomed.

Blue

[EliasMooseblaster]

19 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

In the States, for bar bands, when the put you in a room separate from the bar, no matter how good you are your doomed.

Blue

I had a weird version of this a few years ago. My colleagues at my old job were very excited about the fact I played in a band, and booked us to play at their summer party. We set up in the venue, but it was a hot day...and everyone gradually buggered off to the terrace outside. The way the building was arranged meant that we couldn't see the terrace, and therefore couldn't see the audience. We could hear a bit of applause from outside, so we soldiered on for a bit, and people drifted in and out - they had to walk past us to get to the bar, after all. We ended the first set a bit earlier than planned, and I had a quick chat with the organisers. Did they want us to keep playing? Only, people don't seem especially interested...

"Oh, I think people are enjoying it. We can still hear you outside. It sounds great, but it's a bit hot in there."

We were getting paid either way, and to be fair a few more people did filter in and get a bit more involved during the second set. Now, I've done my fair share of "background / cocktail music" with assorted jazz bands, so I'm used to being ignored by an audience I could see. The inverse - being enjoyed by an audience I couldn't see - was certainly a new and peculiar experience.

[Happy Jack]

Now this is a whole nother thang, the 'audience outside, band inside' nonsense.

Even in my short (10-year) gigging life, I've encountered this more times than I'd have believed possible.

Having played to an empty room, you get a constant stream of punters on their way to the Gents as you're breaking down, and they all say how great you were, and you think, "well where the f*** were you while we were playing, mate?".

This pic was taken over five years ago, where the entire audience (in the pub) comprised a Border Collie.

Meanwhile there were 50 people in the car park enjoying the unseasonal heatwave in October.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Happy Jack

[KevB]

I had one of those at a wedding gig once at a golf club,  they buggered off out on to the terrace but we could still see them. It was an odd one in that we go tbooked by the parents of one of the people getting married but on arriving at the venue neither the couple nor their friends seemed that bothered about having a live band. We seemed to go down OK with some family members though so you just soldier on through it get paid (well) and go home.

[EliasMooseblaster]

Yeah, I'm certainly no stranger to "audience outside, band inside" - I think just made this case particularly strange was the disembodied applause that could be heard from outside between songs!

[FinnDave]

On 23/04/2018 at 18:40, steantval said:

Let’s not forget the kn*bheads who spend the best part of a live concert looking at it through their mobile phones 📱 

I assume you mean vocalists? We used to have one who'd check her Facebook between verses.

[FinnDave]

I experienced the opposite to the 'band inside, audience out in the sun' problem when playing at an autumn festival at a pub on the Thames. The bands were outside, on decking over a bit of the river, and when we went on at 9 pm, it was getting chilly. By the time we'd finished the first set, only the most hardy were outside to listen (and the most nicotine-addicted). We played the second set in hats & gloves and huddled around the fire eaters laid on by the pub as a means of keeping warm. We were basically playing to large empty field, with full PA, lights, etc. but no one watching us.

Inside the pub, people were having a good time, enjoying the music (so they said) and keeping warm. I just wanted to set fire to something, preferably the pub, simply to warm up again.

[discreet]

24 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

I assume you mean vocalists? We used to have one who'd check her Facebook between verses.

In our band that would result in extreme verbal followed by a punch in the hogans. And quite right, too.

[FinnDave]

4 minutes ago, discreet said:

In our band that would result in extreme verbal followed by a punch in the hogans. And quite right, too.

She did get a lot of verbal about it, but we were unsure where she kept her hogans.

[dmccombe7]

52 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

I experienced the opposite to the 'band inside, audience out in the sun' problem when playing at an autumn festival at a pub on the Thames. The bands were outside, on decking over a bit of the river, and when we went on at 9 pm, it was getting chilly. By the time we'd finished the first set, only the most hardy were outside to listen (and the most nicotine-addicted). We played the second set in hats & gloves and huddled around the fire eaters laid on by the pub as a means of keeping warm. We were basically playing to large empty field, with full PA, lights, etc. but no one watching us.

Inside the pub, people were having a good time, enjoying the music (so they said) and keeping warm. I just wanted to set fire to something, preferably the pub, simply to warm up again.

Sorry for laughing but that just about sums up the British climate in a nutshell. Totally unpredictable.

Dave 

[FinnDave]

2 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Sorry for laughing but that just about sums up the British climate in a nutshell. Totally unpredictable.

Dave 

It does sound funny now, several years later! Though to be honest, low temperatures on the river on an autumn night aren't so much predictable as unavoidable!

[rushscored4]

Just now, rushscored4 said:

We had exactly the same thing at a beer festival run by Warrington Rugby Union Club. Outdoor stage set up on the back of a wagon 100 yards from the clubhouse. By the time we went on as the last act all the punters had buggered off inside in the warm to finish off the last of the barrels whilst we plodded on with about 6 people dancing outside including my missus and her mate!

When we were packing up in the car park next to the clubhouse all these people were staggering out telling us how great it sounded from the bar... 

 

[mcnach]

On 4/23/2018 at 15:25, Happy Jack said:

All fair enough, but ultimately it's our job to entertain them.

If I'm being ignored by the punters then it might be because they're all self-obsessed, selfish Mr and Mrs Silly Billy who should have been drowned at birth.

Or it might be because I'm not doing enough to entertain them.

Just saying ...

 

 

Sure. But that's not the issue, is it?

The issue is that some members in the audience decide that they don't need to pay attention (and that's their right) and subsequently they prevent others from enjoying the show. It's not about what the band thinks or not... 

Just like when I go to the cinema. If an idiot three rows down finds the movie boring and wants to start playing with his phone illuminating everything or chatting away, we are going to have a problem. 

[mcnach]

On 4/23/2018 at 20:12, Grangur said:

For all we know, if @skankdelvar 's socially-atomised numpties were real socially-atomised numpties they might even have been texting each other!

Regrettably the world is changing and not for the better. Mrs G and I went to the cinema the other day and various folk talked through the film.

I believe the comon view now is, "the band on stage are suppliers of a service. If I chose to talk through your performance that's my prerogative." After all, I might pay a decorator to paint a wall. If I chose to draw over that wall next day, it's my choice."

 

which is fine, as long as your drawing doesn't extend to your neighbour's wall...

[mcnach]

On 4/24/2018 at 12:52, 4000 said:

Ditto.

I went to see The Musical Box at Manchester Apollo a few years back; the missus had bought me a ticket (£30 a head IIRC) for my birthday. Anyone who knows that audience knows that they sit and listen. A group of guys several rows back, probably in their late fifties - and absolutely hammered - talked at ridiculous volume all the way through every song, despite various members of the audience asking them to be quiet. They were reported and one removed, but the rest just carried on regardless. At one point an obviously exasperated woman stood up and very politely asked them to consider that everyone else wanted to watch the band and could they please be quiet, and was told to go away in no uncertain terms. What made this even worse was at the end of the gig one of them went up to her and threatened to beat her up outside; she had to ask security to escort her out. Appalling. Why they weren't all slung out I have no idea.

Thankfully the same idiots weren't at the Lowry last time I saw TMB.

 

 

They behave like that because they know people will not intervene.

If after they threats what they get is the other people around them stand up and mob them out, they'd think twice next time. Same reason why two idiots in a bus can make a trip a nightmare for 30 or more people travelling along. If one person stands up, they rarely get back up. They act like bullies because we let them.

I almost end up fighting an idiot behind me in the cinema. Nobody stood up for support and both of us almost got kicked out. It was only at the end that an older couple intervened and told the cinema staff who was the trouble, and the idiot and his two mates were expelled (while making noise and throwing their drinks around). 

It frustrates me no end that collectively we allow a small minority spoil it for the rest, when we have it in our hands to stop the bad behaviour, and it would not require any violence at all.

[mcnach]

On 4/25/2018 at 06:39, The59Sound said:

That quote was by a french man so of course it was hell for him; everyone stunk of cheese and ate snails whilst wearing a beret and riding a bicycle with a stick of bread hanging out the front! 

 

No, but I'd pay to watch it.