Dealing with hecklers...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
In my years of playing live, I had to deal lots of hecklers. Twice I jumped in the audience to try and fight them (which was foolish) and once I stopped the show to have a conversation, which was admittedly lame, but overall I could usually take ’em down in the between-song banter. I have some stock takedowns, but I generally just go with the flow. As you may imagine from reading this site, I’m pretty quick with the mediocre wit.
In any event, the best artist I’ve ever seen on stage consistently dealing with hecklers is Billy Bragg. I think, by this point, people heckle him just to get him to do his thing between songs. On the tour he did with Wilco doing the Woodie Guthrie stuff, people heckled him between every song, and I couldn’t really figure out why someone would pay $45 to see a headliner then talk so much shit, until it occurred to me that dealing with hecklers was kind of his stock in trade, and as entertaining as the show itself. Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers) is another one I’ve seen who’s pretty good with that sort of thing.
In any event, I just watched the Kevin Smith pwnage from ComicCon the other day, and have to say that this is more how I’d deal with a heckler than how Billy Bragg would. My thought was always that, well, I have the last laugh for two reasons. (1) I have the microphone, and (2) you paid to see me. So while you might not be entertained, I’m still leaving with your money. That always made me feel better.
How do you deal with hecklers? What’s your favorite takedown?
22 comments
Best at dealing with hecklers? Hmm, not sure. Definitely not Michael Richards.
Best drunken between-song banterer? Bob Pollard all the way: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/20957-relaxation-of-the-asshole
""Rolling Stone just published a list of the top 100 guitar players of all time-- and they included Joan Jett. How can you fuckin' put Joan Jett in the top 100 guitar players of all time? Ahead of Pete Townshend! Rolling Stone sucks! They can blow me forever! If anyone here is from Rolling Stone they can blow me. You want some payola? Here's some payola, motherfuckers!"
i was at a rollins band show in miami long time ago.. early 90's i think..end of silence tour.. there was one really drunk heckler laying into henry in those quite moments of various songs. he just kept playing and looked madder and madder. it was twisted. he had these two fat guys w/him on stage in diapers w/masks on and anyone who would go up on stage to stage dive would get seized by the fatties and grinded on and they would try and take the persons pants off. it was an interesting stage presence and kind of hilarious at times. eventually the drunken heckler got shut up by some chick in front of the stage.
i never get hecklers but usually get someone coming up to the stage and saying "do you have any hip hop?" or "can you play a beat?"
my friend who plays live a lot and DJ's says that whenever someone asks him "do you have any (insert genre here)?" he says "yeah.. i have tons" then goes back to playing his set.
pete townsend deals w/hecklers or people who try to jump up on stage by cracking them in the head w/guitar. thanks abbie hoffman!
Yeah the whole "do you have any (party music/trance/hip hop/lcd soundsystem/whatever)?" thing is a super annoying beast of a different kind than hecklers. That shit kills me especially when I'm doing a live set. And sometimes they're not even making requests, they just want to talk-- when we put on a show with Bounte last month it seemed like he couldn't get 5 minutes peace without someone trying to have a conversation during his set.
Doesn't seem like I ever had any ongoing heckler issues where I had to come up wtih a stock line. I did kick a guy in the face with steel toes on after he spit beer all over me (note-don't spit beer on guitarists when your face is within punting range of their feet). That was surreal.
I posted some thoughts on heckling with some interesting examples a little while back. http://leafcutterjohn.com/2007/04/23/hecklers-the-art-of-two-way-communication-or-not/
That third example is good. You can either ignore a heckler (which in my experience emboldens them) or engage them. If you choose the latter course of action, you have to keep the majority of the audience on your side, or else it just gets sad real quick (as in the case of the acoustic guitar player dude.)
In my experience, the bigger the room, the easier it is to deal with. The Hive Mind is easy to turn, but the smaller the audience, the more individuality can be expressed, and the more free will people will exhibit. This leads to shit like fights, which are always bad, no matter what. (Never mind potential lawsuits, it's just unprofessional.) Of course, the smaller the room, the less likely you are to have security.
But all that said, the end can always be accomplished with words alone. If you actually _invite_ the person to fight, the whole audience turns on you instantly.
-CR
Gotta agree with Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs) being adept at dealing with hecklers. I once saw the Whigs play and someone in the crowd made some nonsense comment which I cannot recall (probably something like "play some Skynyrd man" or some such shit). The show was in Vancouver and so after a few back and forths Dulli says, "Ok, well, you are the second ugliest Canadian ever. After Geddy Lee." I nearly pissed my pants.
J.
As an aside I saw Billy Bragg boo'ed off stage in the early 80's opening for Echo & The Bunnymen in NYC.. I admit that at the time no one knew who Billy Bragg was and Echo & The Bunnymen are known for their thuggishly witted audience. Cruel days to be sure.
I'm glad my girlfriend made me go to that show.. What a savage bunch.
I've been playing 'off-stage' lately in brewpubs and I'm amazed how many times people want to talk to me while I'm playing!. WTF?
I was lucky enough to see the late Andreas Segovia play solo classical gtr (no PA) in a 2500 seat audtrium. A woman with cold, coughed constanly so he stops in the middle of a piece and stares at her. After a very looong minute or two, everyone was starting to feel uncomfortable and is looking her way. She became horrified and left.
c'mon angels,
Who here has heckled? I told Damon Che to shut up and he got me good. Then I told him to shut up. It was a draw. Unbelievable drummer but still a fucking a hole.
I am shocked when you are talking about professional touring artists having problems with hecklers. A common thing to do is have a couple of guys in the audience (usually a couple of the more thugish roadies when they aren't doing their roadie stuff), and let them quietly take care of any trouble makers before it turns into a big problem.
But I mean, usually it doesn't get to that point... usually the venue bouncers are already far too eager to rough someone up, and take care of anyone acting obnoxious.
I hate hecklers, but I would hate it if I paid good money for a ticket and had my time wasted by an artist responding to a heckler. The one time I can remember that I saw a music act get heckled, 99% of the people in the audience (myself included), didn't even hear the heckler and had no idea any heckling was going on until the guy on stage was cursing into the microphone. Mostly, everyone was just kind of confused, and the whole thing just felt very awkward, and I to this day can't remember who the artist was or anything about the concert except it was just kind of lame and uncomfortable all around.
Several years ago I got a 1.5 liter cola bottle (full of liquid, definitely not cola) was thrown at me, missing my face by an inch and hitting my SE-1, damaging its patch selector (actually, it broke both the potentiometer and the knob) - fortunately, I could see the bastard standing in the first row, just before the edge of the stage. I rushed out with the bottle in my hands, stood on his fingers (I'm 6 ft 5 in, 209 lbs) and poured the liquid all over him. The liquid - as it turned out - was urine and the rest of the crowd went just crazy, cheering and whistling. Thank goodness for that.
Having said that, I'd rather take spitting and beer thrown at me for two hours instead any hard objects or broken bottles, whatever. Probably the weirdest thing that has landed next to me on stage was a ten-inch dildo. That would hurt too. :-)
I'd say it's up to the band's personnel to take care of the clowns. If it's the venue gorillas, it's trouble. Those people don't usually deal with hecklers too often and like to exaggerate quite a bit. If anyone gets hurt, it comes back to you. Band name + people hurt = bad rep.
Bill Hicks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdKpR9qNtg
I saw the Stranglers in the mid 80s when, I guess, they were trying to be a little more... mature... Some guy at the front insisted on gobbing at them; they stopped mid-song, roadies grabbed the guy and there was a good ten minute scuffle on stage while they tried to shove a banana up the guys arse. They gave up eventually so nicked his shoes and threw them in the crowd instead.
Punk rock.
Hmm, I don't remember any hecklers except this one HC Metal/Punk/Post Hardcore gig, I don't even know the bands name, and it was in sweden. They were loud as hell and the main goal of the night was to mosh, jump, bodyslam, and maybe get in to a fight - or that's how it seemed to me. So, anyway, some guy went to scream at the vocalist right in the face. I can't understand swedish in middle of loud HC Metal, so I have no idea what he said, all I know is that the vocalist took a swing at the guy with the microphone, and the guy dropped like a wet rag, bleeding on to the stage. A roadie came and gave new microphone to the guy, and they continued. Mind you, music didn't stop at any point.
Rather hands on approach, that.
I normally just lurk on this forum, but these comments are so good I registered. Here's my vote for the best heckler pwnge ever:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bGD6bLEfmjc
Some random fan rushes the stage and Maynard from Tool judo tosses him and chokes him out. And he keeps singing while the band never misses a beat. I guess technically this is not a "heckler", but still very funny.
Dealing with people that get on stage during the show is a whole separate ball game. I was usually for it with SMG. Until they touched me. After that, it was on.
My worst personal experience was when some asstard grabbed the mic stand while I was singing and pushed it in to me so that the mic whacked me in the mouth, cut both my lips, and broke the ends off my two front teeth. I'm fairly certain this was in Cincinnati; I know I have it on video (VHS, natch.) I grabbed the guy by the hair and pulled him up on stage, then pitched him in to the pit.
But generally speaking, I'd leave people alone that got on stage until they started to annoy me. Then I'd either give 'em a good shove back in to the pit or a quick shot to the kidney, _then_ a good shove.
But for that type of music, bottles and shit flying up on stage was quite normal, as was stage diving, so it's just something I (and the rest of the band) dealt with; part of the show and all that.
-CR
I got thrown out of an Acid Mothers Temple show for yelling "Ritchie Blackmore!" at their beardo lead guitar wank artist. I was bored, and they were boring me. Something had to be done.
In counterpoint, what's the general opinion of bands who get directly physically involved? When I was younger and went to shows, if a musician got off stage with a mic and actively jumped into the crowd, I was often impressed. Then I grew up a bit, and I'm not sure. It usually ruins the quality of the music in my experience, and that is best case scenario and assuming the musician is sober.
Worst audience-on-stage experience I had was at a show in Sacramento. And by stage I meant "area of the floor in which the audience decided not to occupy by respecting the band's arbitrary placement of large metal objects". And by "show" I mean "large racket created by means of sloppy banging on said large metal object with other metal objects and power tools in the back of a record shop". One audience member (known to be slightly mentally unstable, as it would turn out) runs up on "stage" and grabs an unattended SkilSaw (tm) and tries play along.
Luckily for everyone involved, I accidentally cut through the power cord with my own power tool not 2 minutes before, rendering it useless. Not that anyone else watching knew this, but she was quickly "ushered away" after seeing that the SkilSaw didn't work.
That was a rarity, though. Usually, it was the band engaging the audience. We got bored with being a spectacle that people didn't react to. Seriously, you had to have your wits about you when we were playing nearby.
I'm kinda the same way (re: fighters were cool when younger, not so much now), but I gotta admit, I'm always entertained by clips of Dave Mustaine flipping out and getting pissed at fans (and he does it all the time) just cos he cops that whole 80's thrasher arrogance thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMo-Xh6dDGY
Axl Rose freaking out on the audience was/is entertaining too, even though he's just an asshole all around by from what I can tell.
In the documentary Dig!, some guy heckles the Brian Jonestown Massacre at a sparsely populated gig, and Anton promptly kicks him in the face from up on stage, snapping the guy's head back with considerably force... which promptly landed him in jail, booked for assault with a deadly weapon.
I've seen a member of a local misogynist/shock/comedy/grossout band called The Shit Thieves get so fed up with a heckler that he picked up his mike stand and whacked the guy in the face with the butt of it. Happened to be recording the show and the THUD of the mic stand making contact came through quite nicely. :)
I've been heckled by a drunks who wanted Stone Temple Pilots instead of the acoustic country we were doing, and wouldn't shut up no matter how nicely we explained that we were playing acoustic guitars while wearing cowboy hats and embroidered western shirts, and maybe he was in the wrong place. Eventually his appalled girlfriend hauled him off. Been annoyed by drunken and surly lesbians who were absolutely incensed that I wouldn't play a Jewel song for them, and would not stop berating me. Eventually, after many polite refusals, I told them that I'd be more inclined to play anything they wanted to hear if they were more inclined to put something in the tip jar for once. This seemed to (finally) shock them into silence, and I quit the gig at that bar shortly thereafter.
On the other hand, one of the waitresses consistently requested my originals by name.
Any time you play music in front of people who are drinking, you're running the risk of someone who wants to get involved, and thinks yelling at you is more entertaining then listening to you.
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