Joseph Arthur, whose music I love, was in town so I went to the show Friday night. I’d say I got my $10 worth (no less, but no more).
Joseph kept telling the sound guy to turn down the monitors (after every song, plus multiple hand gestures during each one). The lead guitarist was a blonde woman wearing a fur-lined hat with earflaps. When she got too hot, she took off her jacket (not the hat, naturally) and was wearing this super-sheer blouse with two little panels that hid her nips. When she started making somewhat sexy moves with her guitar, she got some appreciative yells from the audience. So the bass player (brunette woman) threw a bunch of water at her and called, “That’s cleaner, at least.” Someone in the audience then threw a beverage or two at the bass player.
Shortly after that, Joseph said, “Just replace these monitors. We’re going to take 5.” Joseph came back onstage and a couple of solo songs before the band trouped back onstage, only now the bass player was blonde and the lead guitarist was brunette. I assume they sealed their resolve to get along by trading wigs, and possibly making out a little.
The last song rolled around at the 90-minute mark. The drummer – who I swear to God looked EXACTLY like Pony Love, only my husband promised me it was a guy – got really into it. Really, really into it. Knocked over one of the drums, broke sticks and just kept grabbing more to bang away. Joseph wandered back to him (her?) and was clearly laughing about it, and when he got back to his mike the drummer seemed to deliberately throw a stick at him, which missed by two inches and whacked and audience member in the face. Joseph was trying to apologize to the person who got hit but the drummer was still going apeshit and kicked and/or pushed every part of his (her?) drumkit over and off the little platform and then walked off.
At that point Joseph called out “Good night!”, the remaining band members left the stage, and house lights and music came on. They were done.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such open animosity during a performance before. They were all technically really, really good – the songs were well crafted, the feel was excellent, but it was a weird night.
I haven’t witnessed it but some of my friends have gone on tours (in vans with 5-7 guys) where they got so sick of each other that it erupted in violence on stage. Just imagine spending 10 hours a day in a van with the same guys/girls for 3 months straight (be sure to include the rank smell of the van in your imagination) and then add drugs and/or alcohol. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. Obviously bigger bands avoid some of this but I imagine it’s the same thing to a lesser degree.
Well, it sure wasn’t to that degree, but I did see a Simon and Garfunkel reunion concert a few years ago that was…tense. They pretty much didn’t look at each other at all, until one point late in the show when Art was really getting into it (my goodness, someone get the man an egg shaker! He desperately needs something to do with his hands!) and sort of play punched Paul on the shoulder, to get a scathing WTF look in return, at which point they moved a good 15 feet apart and studiously avoided one another again.
I hung out after the show with one of their musicians (a FOAF), who was far too professional to say anything, but just sort of smiled an affirmation when I mentioned that couples counseling might be in order.
I really wanted to see Simon & Garfunkel when they toured together recently, but I was worried I’d see that same tension, too. (It didn’t help that the tickets were astronomical.) Did you kinda expect that going in, or did it surprise you?
They’ve always had a soft spot in my heart and so when I listen to their music, I pretend they’re best friends (I’m married to a musician so I know it’s not realistic generally speaking, let alone acccurate for them specifically).
Well, there was one underground concert that I went to where the lead singer of a certain band pulled a semi auto pistol (.45) on the audience. He waved it around and pointed it at the collective audience and dared us all to come and get some. They also beat some poor schlub from the audience with a 2X4. That was some pretty freakin’ open animosity.
In a Broadway performance of Saturday Night Fever in 2000 the Tony character was being played by an understudy. Apparently the female lead was unhappy with his moves, and apparently the sound guy forgot to turn off her mic when she left the stage. For a good five minutes you could hear the girl offstage going on and on and on about how his dancing sucked, how he was too weak to carry her, how he was so ugly, and how the lead player better be ready tomorrow. It was quite painful to listen to.
At a U2 Joshua Tree concert at RFK, Bono did the “hey, anyone out there who can play guitar?” bit. A guy was chosen to go on stage, was fitted with Edge’s hat and poncho/shawl thing, and then proceeded to get kicked off the stage, for he didn’t know any chords. Bono yelled at him: “When I say who can play guitar, I want you to tell me the truth!”
I wondered, sure. It didn’t ruin my evening, though. They were consummate professionals and sounded amazing, of course.
And thanks to that FOAF, I go in for free in the 8th row. Woot, as they say.
Oh, my god, I cannot tell you how it felt to hear those voices singing together live for the first time ever. I used to listen to my mother’s Central Park Concert LP’s over and over again as a kid, but I never thought I’d get to hear them in person. I was in tears for every single song. It was simply amazing, despite the apparent tension.
Oh, well, if animosity towards the audience counts…I once saw Jean-Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers drop his bass (klonnng!), jump off the stage, and chase an audience member out of the club. He reportedly tackled the guy in the parking lot and tore the film out of his camera–apparently the guy had been getting up J.J.'s nose by prowling around in front taking photos. The rest of the band just sort of twiddled their thumbs until J.J. came back.
Here’s one for the jazz fans: I’ve seen open animosity at a jazz club. About 8 or 9 years ago I went to hear the Joe Henderson Sextet, which was divided between veteran jazzmen (Henderson, George Mraz, Lenny White) and younger hotshots (Stefon Harris, Conrad Herwig, Fareed Haque).
Unfortunately, Henderson had bronchitis and couldn’t perform. So his band performed without him, and it quickly became clear either that Henderson the leader was the only player holding the ensemble together, and/or the personnel had been chosen by the record label (not sure how often that happens in jazz). Anyway, the veteran rhythm section had no patience with the lead-instrument youngsters, and really just phoned in the performance – kept up the beat and nothing else – while the younger guys tried, and failed, to generate some energy and get the crowd excited. It was embarrassing.
I thought I was going to witness one of the Davies brothers’ infamous on-stage fist fights at a Kinks show (LA Sports Arena, February 1985) but Ray ended up turning his back on Dave for the rest of the night. They cut the set short, only played about an hour, whereas every other time I’ve seen them they played between 1 h 40 mins and 2 hours.
When Guns N’ Roses opened for the Rolling Stones (LA Coliseum, Fall 1989) Axl was verbally abusing his bandmates for doing “too much dancing with Mr. Brownstone” and threatening to break up the band. Damn, just how much drugs do you have to do to be told “that’s too much” by Axl “I-beat-up-incredibly-hot-supermodels-when-I’m-wasted” Rose? A year later, Steve Adler was out of the band.
Not so alarming considering the stories of others, but Joe Jackson can get a little pissy with his audience. I saw him in the early 80’s at a small hall in Munich. The crowd was composed entirely of college students who, evidently, weren’t taking him as seriously as he was taking himself. Finally, after many attempts to get the crowd to sit still and listen, he turned the microphone toward the audience and shouted “There ya go! Listen to your fuckin’ selves!” and stormed off the stage.
The one time I saw the Kinks, around 1983, somebody in front of the stage somehow got hold of Dave’s Les Paul during “You Really Got Me,” leading to the song going on without any lead guitar while Dave engaged in a tug-of-war, pulling on the guitar’s neck while this idiot had it by the body.
While not exactly animosity, Van Morrison’s relationship to his audiences ranges anywhere from aloof to prickly. I’ve heard of more than one show where he barely even acknowledges that there are other humans in the building.
Paul Westerberg at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco a few years ago finally jumped off the stage mid-song to slap a persistent heckler across the face before storming off (though he did sign his CD afterwards). Right when he started playing old Replacements songs, too! That guy deserved to be slapped.
I was very disappointed when Robin Trower came to Sydney, this would have been in the early 80s perhaps. Instead of the fantastic trio I knew from the albums, James Dewar had been taken off bass and just did the vocals. Some black dude called something like Rusty Nails was on bass. He was grinning like a maniac the whole time but James Dewar was mightily pissed off. He walked off stage at every possible point, sometimes even between verses in a song, and stood there chatting with the roadies and (it appeared) making fun of the rest of the band.
