# The "Stupid Stuff the Audience Says" Thread



## LeviathanKiller

Every now and _often_ we get people from the audience who come up to us and say things that just don't make any sense at all or they're totally hilarious. This thread is dedicated to those comments and the people who say them. 

Just remember dear audience, we love you, but you're crazy sometimes.


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## LeviathanKiller

An example post for this thread...



walleye said:


> *section 1:*
> 
> im in a 3 piece, with a 5 string bassist and a 7 string guitar (me). my girlfriend brought her friend to the gig, she loved it even though she also loves katy perry; confusing but flattering all the same.
> apparently halfway throuigh the set the following dialogue ensued:
> friend: i can't tell which ones making which notes!?
> gf: ones a bass and ones a guitar, the guitar will be the higher notes
> f: i can't tell which ones the bass and which is the guitar, they both look like they've got more strings than normal, i thought they were both guitars.
> 
> i thought that was funny - probably not as funny in print as it was talking in person about it afterwards
> 
> *section 2: *
> 
> some guy in the audience with guitar knowledge - said it to someone else who then relayed to me: "man when i walked in i thought it sounded like the best live guitar tone i'd ever heard, i walked up to the stage to see what amp and cab and realised it was some digital modeller. it would have sounded better if he had real tubes and a real cab."
> 
> i dont think he thought that sentence all the way through to the end
> *
> section 3: *
> 
> another guy commenting directly to me afterwards: "that was good man, but like, the bassist has 5 strings and you have 7, that makes 12 strings. if the bassist got a 6 string bass and you played a 6 string guitar you'd still have 12 strings between the two of you and you'd sound the same and have a better look"
> 
> ^^ thanks friend, i'll definitely consider that little pearl of wisdom.
> 
> people are great aren't they?


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## Alimination

hehe, can't say I've encountered anything of such.

Though there is one guy here in town known as "Patches". Always gets wasted and screams "KILL ALL POSERS" in between every other song. Sometimes steals the mic and says it through that as well. lol

but really that's as much as I've witnessed =/


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## Edika

For section 3 guy maybe he had OCD and wanted the instruments to have even numbers of strings instead of uneven hahaha!

There was a guy I knew that thought every band was copying essentially Manowar and Malmsteen. We went to concerts with him just so we can argue with him afterwards about this hahahahaha! I think after a few times he finally caught on to us and stopped expressing himself even though I am sure he never changed his mind!


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## oliviergus

My band played away from our hometown a week ago.

Then there was a wasted old man who steps forwards (while we are playing) and starts to scream "STOP IT!!!!" Then he headbanged some, puked and ran away.


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## Thep

I have a habit of shouting, "play Hammer Smashed Face!!" regardless of what band is on stage if that counts.


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## TheDuatAwaits

My friend Brandon asked Phil Bozeman to sign his foreskin at the end of Whitechapel's set...


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## walleye

i've only got one other one to share, a guy came up to me after a show years ago and said "man you'd sound better with a les paul" and i was like "hmm maybe he'll have a good reason, maybe he'll tell me the boosted mids from the gibson will cut more" so i said "oh yeah why?" and he went "because they fking rock bro!"


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## Blasphemer

Not necessarily what the audience said, but what I heard:

Dude: Man, you guys melted my face!
Me: What?! I hit you in the face?! I'm so sorry, man!

This was an actual fear, because when I play the only things I have control over are my fingers. My other limbs just kind of flail around, most of the time taking my guitar with them.


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## ZEBOV

FREEBIRD!


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## Moonfridge

ZEBOV said:


> FREEBIRD!



I shout that at like every gig I go to haha


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## metal_sam14

"play some Korn"

Gets shouted a lot around here.

other than that the kiddies at the hardcore shows can't really shout because their jeans are too tight.


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## iron blast

I get the whole Why are you guys trying to be like kiss thing with my band for us wearing corpse paint lol I've been told we'd sound better if we didn't wear paint too.


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## Dickicker

the best thing is when people yell freebird at one of my metal shows and i start to play it.


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## Alimination

Dickicker said:


> the best thing is when people yell freebird at one of my metal shows and i start to play it.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=foDpiNF3MYQ (watch around 1:20)


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## JunkMan13013

ZEBOV said:


> FREEBIRD!



/Thread really lol

Nothing weird has been ever said to me apart from "can you get me the singers number" which at the time was weird cause it was a well known fact that me and the singer were together, and he meant it.


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## GHost_QC

Almost every single gig in here, there is always some few bums that keep shouting "Wall of Death!!" or even "Puffokout !!" (Referring to a local band's song about taking a knife hit, but in french )

People here are crazy as shit (in the good way !), every single bands (either local or international ones) often state our town as one of the craziest place to play a gig 'coz, we aren't in great number as we live in a small town but every single motherfuckers in here knows that having a great metal shows with great bands is a privilege in such a small town  !


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## Asterix

More Cowbell.


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## VILARIKA

Slayer!


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## cwhitey2

After a show.

Kid: Hey what kind of pickups are those in your guitar? I like your tone. And i need new pups for my guitar.

Me: Oh, they are SD Blackouts.

Kid: OHHHHH....i don't want a black metal sound i guess ill just buy EMG's



I don't even play anything close to black metal...so i would like to know how he came to the conclusion they sounded 'black metal'. I was in a metalcorish band at the time.


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## LeviathanKiller

cwhitey2 said:


> After a show.
> 
> Kid: Hey what kind of pickups are those in your guitar? I like your tone. And i need new pups for my guitar.
> 
> Me: Oh, they are SD Blackouts.
> 
> Kid: OHHHHH....i don't want a black metal sound i guess ill just buy EMG's
> 
> 
> 
> I don't even play anything close to black metal...so i would like to know how he came to the conclusion they sounded 'black metal'. I was in a metalcorish band at the time.



rofl 

This reminds me of the time I went to a concert and the guys had just finished their set and they were packing up their stuff to let the next guys have the stage. I went up to the guitarist and was asking him about his gear and what patch he used on his RP500 cause it sounded amazing. Anyways, I asked him about his pickups or told him something and I had saw that they were EMGs. I was like oh those are active pickups right? And he was like oh no, these aren't active pickups.  I'm pretty darn sure they weren't the EMG-HZ so I was laughing inside my head thinking what's he gonna do when the power runs out?


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## cwhitey2

LeviathanKiller said:


> rofl
> 
> This reminds me of the time I went to a concert and the guys had just finished their set and they were packing up their stuff to let the next guys have the stage. I went up to the guitarist and was asking him about his gear and what patch he used on his RP500 cause it sounded amazing. Anyways, I asked him about his pickups or told him something and I had saw that they were EMGs. I was like oh those are active pickups right? And he was like oh no, these aren't active pickups.  I'm pretty darn sure they weren't the EMG-HZ so I was laughing inside my head thinking what's he gonna do when the power runs out?






Guy i know: "Oh tubes never fail, you should never have to replace them."

A week later.

Guy i know: Dude...it was tube!!!! So I bought this. (Proceeds to show me a single preamp tube)

Me: ....it never ended up being a tube...just _really_ shitty EQing on his end.


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## danieluber1337

I was at one of Opeth's shows on their recent tour...

This guys, drunk as FUCK! Some quotes:

"AMERICA!!!!!"
"DEMON OF THE FALL!!!!"
"PEARL JAM COVER BAND!!!!"
"SUCK MY ASS... AND LICK MY NUUUUUTS!"

He said the latter over and over and over. One time, he decided to switch it up, and said, "LICK MY ASS... AND SUCK MY NUUUUUTS!"

He then turned to me and said "Sorry, man, I'm just trying to have a good time..." "SUCK MY ASS........."

At an As I lay Dying show, this guy turns to my friend...

him - "Man... are you wearing flip-flops?!"
friend - "Haha, yeah"
him - "Well.... I'm wayyy to drunk to drive, man.. you want my soco and doctor pepper?"
(at this point, this dude is behind him, looking at me and my friend and smiling a sheepish smile, as if to say "Don't. Take. The. Drink.")
friend - "Nah, man, I'm good"

Same show, my friend and I are standing by this guy with a Chimaira shirt. Drunk dude shows up.

drunk - "Woah. CHIMAIRA IS the SHIT! All of the the rest of these motherfucks got other bands, but you, man, are wearing CHIMAIRA! I fucking love Chimaira!" etc...
shirt guy - "Well, I'm flattered.." or something to that effect
drunk turns to me - "Hey, man, you like Chimaira?"
me - "Yeah, I do."
drunk turns to my friend - "Hey, man, you like Chimaira?"
friend - "What's a Chimaira?" (he likes them, he's just fuckin with the guy )
drunk - "Oh, fuck."
drunk turns to the shirt guy - "Chimaira is the SHIT. I fucking love Chimaira."
friend - "Haha, nothing remains"
drunk gets a "fuck yeah!" look on his face - "YEAAHH! I love you, man!!"

five minutes later...

drunk is on the table outside the venue in the smoking area - "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" grand announcement! "MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE! I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE. THIS GUY, RIGHT HERE -" points to shirt guy "- LISTENS TO CHIMAIRA! CHIMAIRA IS THE SHIT!"

He does this like five fucking times.

At one point, we're all chanting, "Jump! Jump! Jump!" and he jumps! He almost falls over, haha.

I love fucked up people at shows xD

EDIT: The stuff at the AILD show wasn't really directed toward the band.. but I thought it was worth posting in this thread anywho


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## JohnIce

After a show, the guitarist from the opening band (using an EBMM JP6) starts this conversation with me:

Him: "Dude... I get that you're a great technical player, way better than me, but trust me, you know what you need? A humbucker guitar!"
Me: "I have 2 humbuckers in my guitar."
Him: "Ok yeah but like a DiMarzio, John Petrucci kind of thing. Believe me I know, and I'm telling you that's what you need!"
Me: "Both my humbuckers are DiMarzio, the bridge pickup is a Steve's Special which JP used in his Ibanezes..."

The conversation, thankfully, ended there 

Another nice one, playing with my country/folk pop band:

Random Guitarist: "That was a really cool tone! I could definitely tell that it was an AC30 but it sounded a little warmer than mine, did you mod it somehow?"
Me: "No the AC30 was for the acoustic guitarist, I used an Axe-Fx modeling a Twin Reverb."
Guitarist: "Wow never heard of that amp... where is it?"
Me: "It's in the rack next to the AC30."
Guitarist: "Oh, it's a modeler thing... alright but dude, you should seriously get an AC30, best amp I've ever owned!"


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## violent mouth

I shouted 'PLAY FASTER YOU CUNTS' TO BRUTAL TRUTH, kevin sharp then punched me in the head, Brutal Truth rule!
(oh he has since apologised to me)


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## Alberto7

I was playing a show with my old band, back in Madrid. All of a sudden I hear "TAKE ME HOME WITH YOU!" and I could have sworn it was a girl's voice. Started looking around the crowd desperately trying to find this girl so I could talk to her afterwards. It was just my friend being an ass. Needless to say, I was sad and disappointed


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## Geest

I get the same question after every concert, not really a funny one though:

>"Does your throat hurt after screaming and grunting like that?"
<"Nope, there's a lot of technique involved.
>"Really? Oh.. I thought it was just shouting you know, like: HURRRR" (They always need to give me an example, haha)
<"Hehe..yeh, no."


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## iRaiseTheDead

I haven't really gotten anything good yet, but there was one show we played where a guy in his maybe mid-20's came up and said "hey me and my girlfriend loved your set, I would have thrown down to you guys... but I didn't wanna be THAT guy" it was funny at the time


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## Andromalia

"You suck"


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## richcastle66

Andromalia said:


> "You suck"



this. luckily i was busying tuning and i didnt hear it, my band told me about it after.


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## FireInside

I saw Evan Brewer open for Animals as Leaders at the Key Club in L.A. and some kids kept yelling all sorts of things like "You are a God!" and "You fucking rule!" (he totally does). 

The ultimate was when one of them yelled "I want you to fuck my Mom!" Ha ha, Evan had a good laugh at that!


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## Danukenator

I don't often get to go to concerts but I made an exception to go to the Boston House of Blues to see Between the Buried and Me and, more importantly, Animals as Leaders. 

Now before they came on, right after this fuckin' awful band Cave In, people were all talkin' about BTBAM. These people had all seen them like 7+ times. As soon as they get to the, I think, first solo of Obfuscation one of the kids just starts screaming "Paul Waggoner, Have my babies!" over and over. After he each song he was like shaking with joy. Probably had to be there but it was really odd in hindsight.


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## Wolf ov Fire

Last gig I went to they had this alt/indie band with a douchebag bassist who just stood there frowning the whole time, and an effeminate frontman. They were playing some Beatles cover, when this skinhead  starts screaming and shit "YEAH ROCK ON I WANNA SEE A FUCKING MOSH PIT GODDAMNIT!!!" and prowling around in a circle hitting people. Keep in mind, this is an all ages small club of about 30 people, with a floor plan the size of a front lawn. And the frontman was totally crept out and shit, they got so uncomfortable.


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## Soubi7string

"WHAT THE HELL?! I THOUGHT THIS WAS A NICKLEBACK COVER BAND"
"7 strings! nice man! you like whitechapel or suicide silence" I glare at thee

and hecklers who try to mess with my pedals.


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## Blasphemer

Danukenator said:


> fuckin' awful band Cave In,



I'm going to have to disagree. I saw Cave In with Russian Circles and Boris, and I thought they were pretty sick. Now, they definitely fit better with RC and Boris rather than BTBAM and AAL, though.


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## nshaw12

I was at a local concert, and this drunk guy comes up to my friends & I and says, "I love you guys... not in the molestation way (because we were all 16 or so at the time)... in the 'beer, bratwurst, & noodles' way..." Throughout the show he kept yelling "Bratwurst & noodles!" every time he saw one of us.

Oh and later on I ended up next to him in front of the stage, he turns to me and gives me one of those wrapped dill pickles, unopened, and yells, "Bratwurst & noodles!" 

... and that was the last I saw of him.


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## metalhead9838772

Funniest thing that ever happened for me... I was with my band, and were playing a death metal set. A random guy yells "PLAY SOME AMON AMARTH !!!!", and our next song in the set was actually an Amon Amarth song.

Same show, I heard a girl yelling "RAPE ME !!! RAPE ME !!!" all over the place... And she was with her boyfriend...

Last thing, after that show, a guy gets near me and says (please note that I was playing with a borrowed Ibanez Xiphos) 
Random guy: Dude, I love your guitar, is that a Jackson Warrior?
Me: What? No, that's an Ibanez Xiphos.
Random guy: Really?  Fuck it, I hate Ibanez and their ugly guitars...
Me: But you just said you love it 
Random guy: I like Jackson Warriors, but I hate Ibanez Xiphoses (is that even a word?)
Me: They actually are the same fucking thing, dude!
Random guy: And? I don't care if they are the same shape, Jackson Warriors are cooler because the shape is different.
Then, he goes away.


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## guy in latvia

I've had so much random crazy shit happen at gigs, i dunno where to start.

since it would take too long to type and explain ill just say my favorite one. the vocalist of my band was saying "this song is dedicated to a little bird out there" *points to my girlfriend at the time*

after the show she comes up to me and says, "why did he call me a burger?"

i just couldnt stop laughing xD


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## kcyrowolf

My friend's band (Once a Wolf--worth checking out) were doing a small free gig at a local pub/venue. Half way through the set a homeless guy walks in, and head up to the front. He starts shouting random stuff at the band, and eventually the singer is just pissing himself on stage. He gets off the stage in between songs and talks to the guy, and ends up giving the mic to say something.

The guy started claiming it was his birthday, saying "fucking Mickey Mouse in the house!" (I think he was referring to himself) along with other nonsense. He then stuck around for the rest of the set and started begging afterwards, once the band has finished playing. Very random.


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## DoomJazz

After the main band finishes their set, either me or my drummer ends up shouting

WHERE THE FUCK IS NICKLEBACK?!?


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## Vostre Roy

We had a place named "Le Triolet", wich closed more than a year ago. It was a little bar where we could just come and play if there was nothing on schedule that night (there was never anything planned). We played there a couple of time, lets say that people there were more used to rock cover bands, but they were quite open minded when it came to metal. Here are the two funniest things that happened to me there.

#1: After a little gig with my band and our drummer's rock cover band, we went outside to smoke a cigarette. Some guy who had listened to our set just threw the horns at us and yelled: "MEGADEEEEETH!". Close, but so far at the same time lol

#2: Before our first "official" gig, we decided to play there as a "rehearsal" gig. There was like 5 people in the bar, and there was that old drunk man (around 60 years old, that could barely stand on his feets) that was in front of us during the set. After we're done playing, he came at us:

Drunk man: You guys are playing an agressive music, but I liked it!
Us: Well thanks, it was actually a rehearsal for our gig in a month
Drunk man: Well I'll be there, you guys rock!

We thought "yeah, he'll barely remember that he saw a band playing when he'll wake up tomorrow". You guys should had seen our face when the guy actually shown up during our gig. Never understimate an old drunk man's parole lol


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## monkeywrench

1+ Freebird


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## MitchellJBurgess

I was once half way through playing Classical Metal X for like, a hundred people?
With a wireless
So it wasn't just like, a small showing.

But anyway, I heard somebody, while I was half way through the song, they yelled out "DO MORE SWEEPING".

I ended up just looking at them funny, not quite knowing what the fuck I was supposed to do.


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## Fiction

I hope you did more sweeping.


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## avenger

The stories of the crazy drunken people at shows reminded me way to much of myself.

One guya t a show came up to me after and asked me to sign his album or soemthing (I was tanked). I wasn't even playing the show in any of the bands nor was I even really writing at the time but I played along and scribbled obsence words all over his album then scriggled a signiture. Couldn't stop laughing when I remembered that the next morning.


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## havocvulture10

Alberto7 said:


> I was playing a show with my old band, back in Madrid. All of a sudden I hear "TAKE ME HOME WITH YOU!" and I could have sworn it was a girl's voice. Started looking around the crowd desperately trying to find this girl so I could talk to her afterwards. It was just my friend being an ass. Needless to say, I was sad and disappointed



 foreveralone

Thats fucked up haha


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## cwhitey2

Andromalia said:


> "You suck"



my one friend, at every show, after our first song always yells we suck 

i just agree and then proceed to throw down


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## the fuhrer

danieluber1337 said:


> I was at one of Opeth's shows on their recent tour...
> 
> This guys, drunk as FUCK! Some quotes:
> 
> "AMERICA!!!!!"
> "DEMON OF THE FALL!!!!"
> "PEARL JAM COVER BAND!!!!"
> "SUCK MY ASS... AND LICK MY NUUUUUTS!"
> 
> He said the latter over and over and over. One time, he decided to switch it up, and said, "LICK MY ASS... AND SUCK MY NUUUUUTS!"
> 
> He then turned to me and said "Sorry, man, I'm just trying to have a good time..." "SUCK MY ASS........."



I think that may be an inside joke or something. At the show in Orlando there was a drunk black midget (Not really a midget, just really short) with dreads yelling the same stupid shit over and over. LICK MY NUTS SUCK MY ASS!!!! It was pretty annoying, so was the rest of the crowd though.


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## damigu

"FREEBIRD!!"

i heard someone yell that out at a meshuggah show!


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## iamdunker

I once yelled "Get off the Junk" to a national(who i won't name) who was totally fucking twacked on heroin during his set. He canceled all shows after that gig and actually went to rehab. I am sure i was not the only contributor to his new found soberness but I am sure I helped.


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## damigu

the worst i've ever heard was at the meshuggah show in chicago in february 2009.
the lineup was the faceless, cynic, and meshuggah.
some asshats were were heckling cynic, yelling for them to get off stage so meshuggah could come on.
that's just extremely disrespectful to both cynic and meshuggah--don't they know that a lot of times it's the headliner that invites the opening bands on tour with them?
those people should have just stepped out for a smoke and/or sat at the bar during the cynic part of the show.


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## guy in latvia

Reminds me of when I saw the black crusade tour in Amsterdam 3 or so years ago.

Machine Head headlining, supported by shadows fall, arch enemy, dragonforce and trivium.

There were 2 guys in front of me constantly screaming for all the bands to fuck off, waiting for MH to get on. They were smoking up the entire time, and shouting like a bunch of tools, by the time MH came on stage, i noticed them sitting at the back on a bench totally passed out.  made my day!


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## Moolaka

We have always had a friend that yells "You suck!" at us from the back of the bar. It really eases my nerves for some reason, I tend to be that friend as well.

I asked a dude what tubes he was using in his single rec, he looked at me like I was a moron and informed me "You can only put Mesa tubes in a Rec.", which is garbage. I looked at my vocalist and we both just shook our heads. They weren't so good either.

Used to get flashed a lot from the front row, sorta wish we never had (buhh).

The bassist and I would always get off from the rest of the band at the last riff in the last song. Once we got off so horribly...it was blatant and atrocious even for us. We eventually just locked in where we could and cut it a few bars short. Afterwards both he and I had people complement us on our "crazy off-time breakdown"  . We still joke about that.

In my last band a lot of times people we know would walk up and just start yelling shit into the mic between songs, those show's were always a blast.


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## highlordmugfug

When I saw DTP, Cynic, BTBAM, and Scale the Summit last year, there were guys calling Cynic "hippie bullshit".


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## Rick

"Why does that guy's guitar have 7 strings on it?"


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## bradthelegend

At one of our last shows, we were starting our last song (which has a clean guitar intro) and people in the audience were talking so loud that you couldn't hear the music. So our vocalist shouted "Hey!" into the microphone to get people's attention, and a bunch of kids shouted "HEY!" back.  Kids around here just want you to play breakdowns.


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## jordanky

I had a guy try and convince me for about twenty minutes trying to convince me that my Axe FX was actually a Line 6 POD. 

Also, it's fun playing local shows, because most of the kids around here don't know anything about gear. If it's not a 5150/6505 or some type of Line 6, Crate or other stuff like that, they have no idea what it is and make fun of it. A kid told me that my Soldano was an 'off brand Crate Blue Voodoo'


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## Blasphemer

highlordmugfug said:


> When I saw DTP, Cynic, BTBAM, and Scale the Summit last year, there were guys calling Cynic "hippie bullshit".



Same here when I saw that tour in Boston. Some dude yelled "You're gay and your music sucks!"

I REALLY wanted to just haul off on the guy...


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## TravM

jordanky said:


> I had a guy try and convince me for about twenty minutes trying to convince me that my Axe FX was actually a Line 6 POD.
> 
> Also, it's fun playing local shows, because most of the kids around here don't know anything about gear. If it's not a 5150/6505 or some type of Line 6, Crate or other stuff like that, they have no idea what it is and make fun of it. A kid told me that my Soldano was an 'off brand Crate Blue Voodoo'



I love my 5150... But totally would if I had the $$$$ for a snax II


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## Alpenglow

Only story I've got is some 13 year old girl messaged me on facebook about how I was apparently "amazing" at guitar and went so far as to say I'm basically famous and that was why she was messaging me 3 months after my band broke up... I'm 15. My band played maybe 15 shows total, last year.


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## Albionic

When i had a death metal band in the early 90's the death metal scene wasn't what it is now (in the uk atleast) and we had a great vocalist who could cover anything from black metal to full on benediction style stuff and people always used to come up to me and say.

"you guys can really play i love the music but you gotta get a proper singer"

as if we were iron maiden or somethin.


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## AxeHappy

"You just made that solo up."


Yeah...what's your point. Improvising=King in my books.


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## sage

"Are you sure you were really playing? It didn't look like you were playing all that stuff... I think you were just air guitaring to a CD."

lol


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## Quikblade

Went to see the Black Dahlia Murder back in january and there was an old guy (mustve been about 60-70 pretty sure he was drunk) wandering around outside the venue looking lost. 

Once hey had stopped checking the tickets he mustve came inside and mid set made his way up onto the stage. The vocalist gave him the mic and i cant remember exactly what he said just remember he came across as having no idea what was going on.  

Found it pretty funny at the time.


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## synrgy

One of my old bands got the "Play some Skynard!" heckles at the first public gig any of us had ever played. We didn't respond at that gig, but during our next few practices we put together a palm-mutey, metal version of "Sweet Home Alabama", so that we'd be ready the next time it happened.


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## EcoliUVA

One from the opposite end of the spectrum (regarding the comments on ERGs):

I live in "suthun virginny". Lots of bluegrass bands here. I don't really listen to bluegrass, but there was a band at a beer festival. Some guy was playing what looked like an 8 string ukulele. 

I asked him what is was. Country feller: "It's a mandolin." 

Me: "A wha?...I've never seen one with 8 strings" - still thinking it was a fucking ukulele in my drunken stupor.

Derp. I fail at musics, and sobriety.


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## LeviathanKiller

I need to hear moar.


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## AliceLG

The only one I can remember: in a Megadeth concert, Endgame tour, right before Mustaine went full-christian-rightwing-conservative, they had a projection of Bush's face turning into McCain's when playing "Washington is Next". An incredibly drunk friend of mine, who can't speak english for dear life, starting raving that Bush was the best, while everyone looked at him like WTF?! 

Oh, I just remembered another one: I was playing in a party with an "ensemble band", or that's what we called ourselves. Basically, we were a bunch of musicians and after a couple of songs there would be a different guitarist, bassist or singer, or some of us would switch instruments. Anyways, it was my first gig with the "ensemble" and even when the designated drunk friend of the band had never heard me play, he kept screaming after each song something like "When is the skinny guy playing?!" (I'm "the skinny guy"). Funny as hell, and when it was finally my turn to step in, to play "Fade to Black", he stepped in, took the mic and started warbling the first verse


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## guy in latvia

Always awesome to have those designated drunk friends!


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## Gemmeadia

One of my favorite bands _It Prevails_ was playing a local show with some of my friends' bands. One band that was playing was OBVIOUSLY influenced by IP (you know those bands that its like.. really?). 

I was joking to my friend next to me how much they LOVE It Prevails and that they are definitely #1 on their band's myspace top friends and that they are going to go hang out with the band after the show and say how much they can relate to the music, etc

The best part was that the vocalist was standing right in front of me with his gf laughing his ass off haha


----------



## davisjom

Well, my friends band just got done playing at a local bar. and this guy (we dubbed him "drunk guy") tried moshing in this place. mind you it's just a local bar, so its small as hell. and he jumps on stage and yells into the mic "i'm sorry for all you PUSSIES! but this is a fucking METAL SHOW!!" my friend Jason responds with "but you're hitting little children!" needless to say we all got a kick out of that while drunk guy was being escorted out of the bar


----------



## noUser01

I love it when someone rips a crazy solo and just SHREDS all night and some guy comes up to you and goes "That was cool man, you're pretty good. But can you play the Stairway solo?" it's always funny because he honestly never knows TOO much about guitar and isn't sure how hard it is compared to some crazy prog solo. 

For the record I don't know the Stairway solo, nor can I shred. Dare to dream...


----------



## flint757

Well most solos of that era aren't that fast  (in comparison to today's metal bands that is)


----------



## McBonez

"You're a good guitar player, considering you're a drummer"


----------



## LeviathanKiller

We need more stories in here...


----------



## will_shred

when I was at a Skeletonwitch show some dude yelled to the vocalist "I WANT YOU TO HAVE MY BABIES"


----------



## snizzlepizzle

I play a six string bass. I broke my C string and D string in the same song. A guy says in between songs, "Well at least you have four more!"


----------



## Malkav

During a Guthrie Govan clinic that happened in Cape Town a bunch of very drunk and very annoying guys were sitting in the 3rd row from the front (I was in the front row ) and everytime he asked if anyone had a question they kept yelling "play high fives!!!" in what is a very afrikaans accent...It was quite a face palm moment but Mr Govan handled it quite well explaining to them that what they were doing was in fact making a request when he had asked for questions...They continued to do it throughout the rest of the clinic anyway...

Also when Tosin Abasi came down here for a clinic and asked if anyone had any questions at the end somebody actually asked him if he finds any mind altering substances conducive to songwriting...He said he finds occasionally Marijuana can be quite conducive...Literally received a standing ovation...That's Cape Town for you


----------



## Konfyouzd

"Play Freebird!"


----------



## Experimorph

It's a custom in Finland that somebody yells out "Play Paranoid!" at every concert. It's got a story behind it but I can't for the life of me recall it.


----------



## Konfyouzd

Sabbath story? Find out now and tell us...


----------



## Frankb7stringer

Me and my band Rise, My King just played a show called the Schools Out Bash. All high school kids apart from me and the drummer. We were one of two metal bands out of 6 or 7 the rest were pop punk bands. The other metal band was called The Auroras Demise I think. 

It seems like their scene douche vocalists favorite line was "suck my asshole." So it was funny when this chick said "no thanks, I'm straight"


----------



## M3CHK1LLA

if an audience of 1 counts, i have a story.

a friend and i decided to bring our amps & electric guitar to work and play together during our lunch hour. this backwoods, hillbilly, country bumpkin dude that worked with us came in and watched us play a song.

after we were done he asked, "how come there ain't a big hole in the middle of your guitars?"    


im guessing all he had ever seen were "grandspas guitars"


----------



## AliceLG

Opeth concert 2 weeks ago. Someone yelled "Mikael, how are your cats?"


----------



## MetalBuddah

Saw The Faceless on the Metal Alliance Tour last year in Baltimore, MD and it was several months before Autotheism was released. At one point after they played their first song, I yelled "When is the new record coming out???" Michael just looked directly at me with a dirty grin  Then, they played Deconsecrate and once Michael started to singe I heard sever people shout "WHAT THE .... IS THIS?"

Also...saw Opeth on the Opeth/Mastodon/Ghost tour and got the usual requests for FREEBIRD from the drunks in the back of The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD. Fantastic show. The real winner with comments was Mikael. If you have never seen Opeth live...do it. Granted, he might have been a little loopy from splitting his head open two days before be he was hillarious

At the Animals as Leaders show I went to in 2011 I did hear several people asking Tosin to have their children


----------



## Konfyouzd

snizzlepizzle said:


> I play a six string bass. I broke my C string and D string in the same song. A guy says in between songs, "Well at least you have four more!"


----------



## InfinityCollision

AliceLG said:


> Opeth concert 2 weeks ago. Someone yelled "Mikael, how are your cats?"



Don't leave us hanging like that, how are they?


----------



## Experimorph

Konfyouzd said:


> Sabbath story? Find out now and tell us...


It refers to Black Sabbath, yeah. Apparently the meme originated in the early 80's as an inside joke within the community of musicians in Tampere, where the phrase was often used in satiric local magazines and radio shows. A writer and reporter for a popular magazine used the phrase in his comics and yelled it out loud at rock shows. People hopped on board the bandwagon.


----------



## UV7BK4LIFE

I was bringing my own pedalboard to the stage, a huge monstrosity with a Whammy IV and a Morley wah on it to start with. I heard someone say 
"Man, that sucks dragging the guitarists' pedalboard around. Why do you want to be his roadie anyway?" I shrugged, mumbled "oh, well..." and moved along. 

And then later on the evening, the intro music starts, I go on stage, and spot the guy standing there where the pit is going to be, staring back at me. Golden.


----------



## AliceLG

InfinityCollision said:


> Don't leave us hanging like that, how are they?



I actually don't know. Mikael quipped this piece of awkward humor back: "How do you know about my cats? That is very weird."


----------



## Stealthtastic

I always ask metal vocalists why they're so angry and why they yell alot


----------



## scottro202

A few weird things have happened to me at gigs. I'll name a couple.

1) An old hippie dude (probably in his late 50's, early 60's), during our cover of "Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath, ran behind the stage and tried to stick a bowl filled with a certain green substance in our drummers face to hit it! Funny thing is, our drummer at the time was one of the few who doesn't smoke 

2) Same gig as above, some guy while I was packing up was talking to me for about 20 minutes about how good I was at guitar (flattering don't get me wrong, but after a certain point it seems absurd, even as the person who apparently possess these godly shred abilities  )

3) "Dude, does your bass player trip mad acid?" This one's funny because the bassist of this band was blind, and he doesn't wear sunglasses so when he was on stage he tended to look high  

And of course I get a few people after every show going "Is that a... SEVEN STRING?" And once I explain people who aren't named Korn do in fact own 7 string guitars, they look at me with either understanding or further confusion.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

A Danish girl told me when I was outside the pub smoking that "it sounded like you were tuning the whole time." I raised an eyebrow at her and she immediately laughed it off and started backpedaling. It's really too late to tell me you like my band...

Dude inside the same pub yells from the back "you suck!," I don't think he's ever gotten that many middle fingers at the same time in his life. It's not a proper bar show without at least one person yelling "you suck!"

"You guys ROCK! You sound like [insert band we sound nothing like]." 

"There was a vortex of wind and I just had to get the f*** out of there." -spoken by my friend while enjoying mind-altering substances at a festival, we apparently had a huge gust of wind lift up the plastic stage covering right at the crescendo of an epic ballad, and it was just too much for his brain and he had to go sit. Many people gave raving reviews of the same event, in fact it was all I heard about whenever anyone talked to me that day. Naturally, I started telling people we did it on purpose. Need more speakers...


----------



## tyler_faith_08

I've heard a lot of the common things (freebird, you guys know any Zeppelin?, etc.), but one dude started reciting the preamble to the constitution between one of our songs. We were all just like, "yeah dude, go ahead." 

Another guy screamed F*** YEAH!!! RON JEREMY!!!


----------



## TheWarAgainstTime

My band's old vocalist's girlfriend was at a show and had me lean over the edge of the stage so she could whisper into my ear...

"Hey Greyson, tell Justen that the whole crowd can see his wang through his shorts"


----------



## Mouth Of The Harlot

There is this one guy who comes to all of our shows, and he shouts "PLAY SOME SKA!"
He refuses to talk to any of the band members after the show, whenever we try to approach him he literally runs away like a 5 year old child. Still pretty cool though, he comes to EVERY show, and we still have no idea who he is.


----------



## Hemorrhage

Experimorph said:


> It's a custom in Finland that somebody yells out "Play Paranoid!" at every concert. It's got a story behind it but I can't for the life of me recall it.



Man, does this happen often or what... Especially on the smaller gigs, you cant avoid hearing this.


----------



## DespoticOrder

Saw a show with a few black metal and blackened death bands. Hate, from Poland, was one of them if you're familiar. Anyways, they somewhatttttt (heavily) resemble Behemoth and are regarded as their brother band. Anyways, I think my friend and I were the only ones to recognize them, and after the show they were looking at us, too, pleased that we knew who they were. So we walked up to them while they're expecting some compliments or whatever probably, and we're just like "NERGAL! What are you doing here!? Did you beat that cancer!"


----------



## rectifryer

"Play the list!"


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Last Friday, a guy comes up as we are setting up onstage "danceability is key, man!" He was well-intentioned to be sure, but it was lucky for him our set happened to be danceable anyway. I wonder what response did he expect if we didn't have "danceable" stuff? 

"Good point, dude! Belay the 20 minute black metal tunes, boys, we need some dance punk in here ASAP!"


----------



## jonajon91

Another from the audience perspective. There was a thing on at my university last night where Wheatus were playing (they did teenage dirtbag) and I was expecting pop/punk/rock all night, but when I got their I noticed the bassist was playing a six string fretless carl thompson bass! much like this





I managed to find him post gig and he was so happy that someone recognised, we spent the night talking about basses and bassists!


----------



## sniperfreak223

I got this one at our last gig, while setting up for our "slow" song, which features an acoustic intro.

"Acoustics? YOU GUYS ARE ....ING PUSSIES!!!"

my response, "actually I am, aren't you?"


----------



## SeanSan

Killswitch Engage played here a couple of months ago.

Some guys got pretty drunk before KSE even went on, they got worked up and couldn't wait for KSE to get onstage. They started chanting "SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN"

The entire audience went along 

And one guys screamed "JESSE YOU'RE SO HANDSOME" in between their songs. xD


----------



## TheAmercanLow

There's this one local band, that whenever we play a show with them, they shout "drum solo." Why is beyond me. Maybe because our drummer tuned their drummers kit before they went on.


----------



## Abrod

At the BTBAM show- The Safety Fire was up first, small, small crowd at first. A single moshing dude screaming "JUGALLOOOS MUTHA....AAAAA" between songs. He was thrown out.


----------



## Buckett

After every show:

Drunk guy: DUUUUUDE! is that 8 strings? Danm... do you know <insert name of player who uses more than 6 strings>? He's awesome! You should totally check him out!

I just smile and nod. Sometimes i pretend to write the name down promising to hear them later.

and of course:
1+ Freebird
and
1+ Slayer


----------



## sonnybb

At our first show, our old guitarist had a guy come up to him and ask what we played. He told them we're a metal band to which the guy responded: "Whoa! are you gonna play some Pantera? You should play some Pantera!".....this all happened in the bathroom.
When we're loading in, I always get asked where I'm going by the staff because I don't look like I'm in a band....


----------



## LeviathanKiller

This thread needs more content. Revive bump haha


----------



## Arkhanum

Last year I went to an At The Gates gig in september. I managed to get to the front row and there was this short girl who was doing all this kinda black metal stuff (think of Abbath doing his weird black metal "dancing"). I couldn´t help but laugh at it. Got noticed pretty quickly by her, who then just proceeds to blush and stand still lol. I kinda felt bad but that was hilarius lol.


----------



## lewis

i played my last gig, we were main support I believe (months ago) anyway our set for the show flies straight in to not waste time. During the small space between the end of the first song and the start of the 2nd, our singer was talking about bits and pieces and after about 10 seconds of talking, in a space annoyingly, an american girl (we are in the UK) who was dating our bassist shouts out "Tell us who you are" in the most teen, american, nasally accent/way, Ive ever heard. 

Our vocalist then had to kind of end what he was saying, and awkwardly throw in who were were directly afterwards to answer her because the whole venue heard it. It was totally cringe worthy tbh. What he was saying was building up nicely to announcing our name and what the next song was called, but it was ruined instantly by this type of Heckler.


----------



## Element0s

I used to be a notorious heckler back when I lived in Edmonton. I also developed a reputation for telling bands "what I _really_ thought after their gigs. Usually when I was asked, but sometimes I went in unsolicited anyways because .... it, life's too short for boring bands and mediocre gigs. Results were mixed. Sometimes you see the lightbulbs go off in people's heads and they say "oh wow, I had no idea" or they get super indignant and defensive. 

Nowadays I mostly scream Queensryche lyrics or Thin Lizzy guitar melodies at people. Or Manowar. People really get annoyed when I say things about Manowar


----------



## Insomnia

Element0s said:


> I used to be a notorious heckler back when I lived in Edmonton. I also developed a reputation for telling bands "what I _really_ thought after their gigs. Usually when I was asked, but sometimes I went in unsolicited anyways because .... it, life's too short for boring bands and mediocre gigs. Results were mixed. Sometimes you see the lightbulbs go off in people's heads and they say "oh wow, I had no idea" or they get super indignant and defensive.
> 
> Nowadays I mostly scream Queensryche lyrics or Thin Lizzy guitar melodies at people. Or Manowar. People really get annoyed when I say things about Manowar



Why be purposefully rude to people trying to express themselves, who've spent the time to write and practice and have the guts to go up on stage? Like, if you go up to them afterwards and say 'oh, I thought 'x' part went on too long' or 'your lead tone is kinda wack' then sure, but heckling them in the middle of a gig? Just why?


----------



## bostjan

**Biker in audience drinks wax out of a burning candle**: "Play Steppenwolf!"


----------



## endmysuffering

Dat necro.


----------



## bostjan

Me playing with my band, wearing a silly hat.
Drunk: "You're a Green Beret!"
Me: "No, see, my hat's neither a beret nor green."
Drunk: "I am an Army Ranger. Green Berets are p***ies! You ever been shot?"
Me: "Umm no." 
Drunk: "You gotta get shot! It hurts like hell. Grow some hair on your damn chest!"
Me:  "Dude! Look at that helicopter on the TV behind the bar! What kind do you think that is?" ***disappears***


----------



## Rachmaninoff

Last weekend, playin' hard rock stuff all night.

One moron comes along:

- Hey, now play some Jamiroquai !!!

...


----------



## bostjan

Drunk: "Play Iron Maiden!"
Band: plays "Run to the Hills"
Drunk: "None of that stupid Judas Priest ....! Play Iron Maiden!"
Band: plays a sarcastic rendition of "Breakin' the Law"
Drunk: "Woohoo! Alright!" *** gets up and does the weirdest-looking dance I've possibly ever seen ***


----------



## Mathemagician

Insomnia said:


> Why be purposefully rude to people trying to express themselves, who've spent the time to write and practice and have the guts to go up on stage? Like, if you go up to them afterwards and say 'oh, I thought 'x' part went on too long' or 'your lead tone is kinda wack' then sure, but heckling them in the middle of a gig? Just why?



"Notorious Heckler". He says so right there. Right before he brags about being so cool for telling people they're bad at something he wasn't even doing.


----------



## LeviathanKiller

bostjan said:


> Me playing with my band, wearing a silly hat.
> Drunk: "You're a Green Beret!"
> Me: "No, see, my hat's neither a beret nor green."
> Drunk: "I am an Army Ranger. Green Berets are p***ies! You ever been shot?"
> Me: "Umm no."
> Drunk: "You gotta get shot! It hurts like hell. Grow some hair on your damn chest!"
> Me:  "Dude! Look at that helicopter on the TV behind the bar! What kind do you think that is?" ***disappears***



At least you got out of there before he got to the part where he was going to offer to shoot you to help you out.


----------



## Furious_Beardsley

I was at a Walls of Jericho show years ago (2007 or 2008?). Sea of Treachery and 36 Crazyfists opened up. All night long a couple of kids kept wanting to jump into the pit and do their kicks and .... while everyone else was trying to mosh. One dude finally got pissed off and he shoved this kid, who was probably a foot taller than him, all the way across the floor into the crowd.

The kid who was shoved was kicked out of the venue.


----------



## ZXIIIT

Was at a friend's show a few weeks ago, we've known each other for a few years, so I know their music and how we kid around. During the middle of their set, they finished playing and I drunkenly yelled out "Free Bird!" and everyone by the stage laughed, then they actually stared playing Free Bird. My friend asked me to come up and sing, and I only know that one line, so I embarrassingly declined and got the band a round of shots.


----------



## TedEH

At one of the first shows I ever played, there was a guy who kept shouting "play a song about dragons!", so eventually our singer announced a song as "sure, here's a song about dragons!" (Obviously the song was not about dragons.) When the song was done, the response was "Thank you for playing a song about dragons! I am extremely pleased! I like dragons!"

I've got a recording of it somewhere. Good stuff.


----------



## Element0s

Insomnia said:


> Why be purposefully rude to people trying to express themselves, who've spent the time to write and practice and have the guts to go up on stage? Like, if you go up to them afterwards and say 'oh, I thought 'x' part went on too long' or 'your lead tone is kinda wack' then sure, but heckling them in the middle of a gig? Just why?


For fun, mainly.

Seriously tho: I'm not saying that I would criticize them while they were onstage. I'd save that for after. Most of my actual onstage heckling happened with bands who I knew personally, which happened to be most of them. Most of the time we had a laugh.


----------



## bostjan

I think I already shared this one, but maybe not...

I was playing at a house party. Someone in the band knew someone who knew the people throwing the party. It was a cool setup outside with BBQ and jarts and stuff.

Then it got dark, and people started getting a little bit freaky. It was all pleasant, though, nothing scary at all. This dude came up to me and said: "Do you guys take any requests?" I started to tell him it depends, but the drummer cut me off and said, "Sure! We can play anything!" So the guy says, "I want to hear, umm, I wanna hear some Wutang!" Well, there you go, that's why I never say I'll take requests, because the guy might ask for Wutang, and we obviously can't pull that off, even if we had time to prepare. We just kind of ignored the guy after that, but he kept asking for Wutang.

After a while, there were some fireworks, and we started playing again, but Wutang guy was quite noticeably missing. I figured he went home or passed out somewhere. An hour and a half later, I'm packing my stuff in, and I hear "Why didn't you guys play any Wutang?! I waited all ****ing night to hear it and you ****ers didn't play it!?" I turn around and the guy is an inch away from me behind me. I'm usually pretty difficult to sneak up on, so I just didn't know how to respond, so I just sort of gasped. "I thought you left..." I retorted. Then the guy kept like stumbling into my way while I was trying to load out, always mumbling about how we led him to believe we were going to play some Wutang, then disappointed him.

#1 It seemed like such a random thing to request from a hard rock band.
#2 The guy got really creepy and spooky while we were packing out.
#3 I still have nightmares about him randomly appearing behind me talking about how we should have played Wutang for him.


----------



## Element0s

Ah man, we had this crew of dudes in Edmonton who would shout "WU-TANG" at every show they went to. A couple of them guys played in a thrash metal band and a pack of us showed up to a gig with picket signs that spelled out W-U-T-A-N-G like a bunch of goons.


----------



## lewis

just as our vocalist goes to say his first line of non singing dialogue

Vocalist - *Breathes in to start talking*

Crowd member shouts before he can talk * "TELL US WHO YOU ARE"* in the most nasally american accent you will ever hear. Was dead quite in that 3 second space so her shouting was incredibly loud.

Was so awkward because what was prepared then kind of had to be abandoned for "Oh ok we are....."

was awful


----------



## Science_Penguin

Random drunk guy- "F.ck Target! I do cocaine!!"

...Seems benign enough. The problem is, he screamed it from on the stage... into the microphone... while we were playing...

I don't know how we didn't see him run up there in the first place, but, luckily for us, it was during the keyboard intro to one of our heavier songs, which meant our drummer was able to get up from his set, force the guy off the stage, then get back just in time to bash out his remaining frustration.


----------



## Winry Ember

There's always that one dude in the crowd that really wants to hear Free Bird... But maybe that's just because I live in Texas xD


----------



## bostjan

He doesn't want to hear Free Bird, he wants to draw attention to himself.


----------



## LeviathanKiller

A call to play Freebird is really a call for help


----------



## feraledge

Science_Penguin said:


> Random drunk guy- "F.ck Target! I do cocaine!!"



I love this. It just feels like both sentiments are probably equally heartfelt and sincere.


----------



## boogie2

"There's always that one dude in the crowd that really wants to hear Free Bird... But maybe that's just because I live in Texas xD"

My resonse used to be to flip them off and yell "NO CHARGE!".


----------



## jonsick

sniperfreak223 said:


> I got this one at our last gig, while setting up for our "slow" song, which features an acoustic intro.
> 
> "Acoustics? YOU GUYS ARE ....ING PUSSIES!!!"
> 
> my response, "actually I am, aren't you?"



Someone shouted that to me at one point to. My instant response: "You are what you eat!"


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

feraledge said:


> I love this. It just feels like both sentiments are probably equally heartfelt and sincere.


And cocaine induced. Classical cocaine animated insanity. Also, just wanted to point this out: Yes, random "drunk" guy. Emphasis on the quotations.



lewis said:


> just as our vocalist goes to say his first line of non singing dialogue
> 
> Vocalist - *Breathes in to start talking*
> 
> Crowd member shouts before he can talk * "TELL US WHO YOU ARE"* in the most nasally american accent you will ever hear. Was dead quite in that 3 second space so her shouting was incredibly loud.
> 
> Was so awkward because what was prepared then kind of had to be abandoned for "Oh ok we are....."
> 
> was awful


Awful? That's hysterical. I don't see how that is "awful." 

You should've kicked her out and taken her coat. "No coats. Get her out of here and take her coat!"



Element0s said:


> Ah man, we had this crew of dudes in Edmonton who would shout "WU-TANG" at every show they went to. A couple of them guys played in a thrash metal band and a pack of us showed up to a gig with picket signs that spelled out W-U-T-A-N-G like a bunch of goons.


Amazing. This is exactly how you deal with hecklers.


----------



## DudeManBrother

We played a show without a singer years ago: in the middle of a song, a homeless guy came the the door and was shouting, “do you need a singer?” and was shoved outside by the door guy. After our set; we were loading the van and the guy was sitting on the sidewalk singing Alice In Chains as his “audition”. I told him we are a death metal band and require a different style of vocals but appreciated his interest and bought him a subway sandwich


----------



## marcwormjim

Ah, the ol' "Subway Singer" con.


----------



## bostjan

DudeManBrother said:


> We played a show without a singer years ago: in the middle of a song, a homeless guy came the the door and was shouting, “do you need a singer?” and was shoved outside by the door guy. After our set; we were loading the van and the guy was sitting on the sidewalk singing Alice In Chains as his “audition”. I told him we are a death metal band and require a different style of vocals but appreciated his interest and bought him a subway sandwich



About 2 years ago my band's practice space was in an abandoned antique store right on the main retail drag "downtown" (as much as a town of ~5k population can have a downtown). There are curtains up in the big windows in the front of the store now, but back then, there were not. We figured it'd be good exposure for us, since we could rehearse and sort of advertise at the same time. Well, one particularly nice day, this rather disheveled fellow came through the door and was shouting something, so we stopped playing for a moment and he announced that we would be the perfect band if we had a tuba player and that he was going to be right back to prove it. Sadly, we never saw him again. I guess I'll never know what we would have sounded like with a random vagrant playing tuba with us. 

While I'm off topic, I'd love to relate just how entertaining and, often, frightening, auditions can be. Out of all of the crazy shit I've heard as a musician, the lion's share of it has been not at gigs, but at auditions. Whether I'm auditioning for a new band, and they guys are collectively a little crazy or just have weird values, or if I'm inviting someone I barely know to my house to audition for my band...whoo...

I'd be surprised if any of my more entertaining stories about auditions would pertain to many people still pursuing music as a hobby, even, but I'm not going to name anyone just in case, and I'll keep quotes brief.

"No, I only play _*standard cover songs*_, nothing like you guys are talking about." (We played CCR, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Beatles, etc. in that band, and he was answering an ad that made that clear.)
"You guys play metal? Awesome! I only want to play really heavy stuff." "Like what?" "Only really heavy killer metal stuff!" "Like what bands?" "You know, not any of that p*$$# stuff people call metal, that's not really true metal." "Like, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Death?"  "Who?" "Like Death Metal, or what?" "Yeah, death metal, like Ozzy...or Nickelback!" "Did you just non-jokingly call Nickelback death metal?!"
"Play something that sounds like robots." "What?" "I want you to play a riff that sounds like a robot?" [plays random 12-tone serial lick] "Dude! Perfect! This was meant to be - it's like you can read my mind!"
"You need to learn to play more like Steve Vai, and your drummer needs to choke his cymbals more like an eagle!"
"Do you want to see the knife collection I keep in my car?"
"You have a really big basement. Can I move in?" (we smiled and chuckled) "No, seriously, I honestly don't know anyone in town and I don't have a place to stay. I only have, like two cardboard boxes that I'd need to take out of my van."
"I really don't feel like performing right now, but I don't think it's necessary...I mean, look at this" [then gestures to own body] "I mean, you'll have no problem booking with _this_ on stage!" [winks]


----------



## prlgmnr

bostjan said:


> "You have a really big basement. Can I move in?" (we smiled and chuckled) "No, seriously, I honestly don't know anyone in town and I don't have a place to stay. I only have, like two cardboard boxes that I'd need to take out of my van."



Terrifying, but also a missed opportunity for possibly years of great stories.


----------



## bostjan

In that case, the guy seemed really nice, but also something was a little bit off, you know. Like he'd make a joke, and we'd chuckle, and then he'd follow it up with "No seriously...". His musical style was not at all what we were going for with the band, and it became evident pretty much right away, then we were kind of in that classic awkward situation of "how long do we jam with this guy before we break the news?" Usually, I try to get that out of the way as quickly and unambiguously as possible, but this guy was really desperate to join the band, and it just made everything really awkward. When we told him "thanks, you're good, but we just aren't interested," it got really weird when he acted like we were messing with him and refused to leave my house for the next ten minutes.

Last time I went looking for a drummer, I got some really interesting phone messages and a few weird conversations. It's probably too recent to share anything publicly, but one dude assaulted me when I told him he wasn't really what we were looking for. I decided after that point that even though we were no longer doing auditions at my house, I was going to have to vet people a lot more before even meeting face-to-face. I don't care how desperate I get to fill a vacancy, it's not worth having an unstable dude try to bite you.


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## lewis

bostjan said:


> In that case, the guy seemed really nice, but also something was a little bit off, you know. Like he'd make a joke, and we'd chuckle, and then he'd follow it up with "No seriously...". His musical style was not at all what we were going for with the band, and it became evident pretty much right away, then we were kind of in that classic awkward situation of "how long do we jam with this guy before we break the news?" Usually, I try to get that out of the way as quickly and unambiguously as possible, but this guy was really desperate to join the band, and it just made everything really awkward. When we told him "thanks, you're good, but we just aren't interested," it got really weird when he acted like we were messing with him and refused to leave my house for the next ten minutes.
> 
> Last time I went looking for a drummer, I got some really interesting phone messages and a few weird conversations. It's probably too recent to share anything publicly, but one dude assaulted me when I told him he wasn't really what we were looking for. I decided after that point that even though we were no longer doing auditions at my house, I was going to have to vet people a lot more before even meeting face-to-face. I don't care how desperate I get to fill a vacancy, *it's not worth having an unstable dude try to bite you*.


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## Unleash The Fury

bostjan said:


> In that case, the guy seemed really nice, but also something was a little bit off, you know. Like he'd make a joke, and we'd chuckle, and then he'd follow it up with "No seriously...". His musical style was not at all what we were going for with the band, and it became evident pretty much right away, then we were kind of in that classic awkward situation of "how long do we jam with this guy before we break the news?" Usually, I try to get that out of the way as quickly and unambiguously as possible, but this guy was really desperate to join the band, and it just made everything really awkward. When we told him "thanks, you're good, but we just aren't interested," it got really weird when he acted like we were messing with him and refused to leave my house for the next ten minutes.
> 
> Last time I went looking for a drummer, I got some really interesting phone messages and a few weird conversations. It's probably too recent to share anything publicly, but one dude assaulted me when I told him he wasn't really what we were looking for. I decided after that point that even though we were no longer doing auditions at my house, I was going to have to vet people a lot more before even meeting face-to-face. I don't care how desperate I get to fill a vacancy, it's not worth having an unstable dude try to bite you.



I know what you mean! I play in a metalcore/deathcore type band currently and we were auditioning drummers. I told the guy over the phone that we were really heavy, so if its something you think you ca........"oh yeah i love heavy shit where do you live ill be right there!!!" 

The guy shows up with no sticks. Whatever. We give him sticks and he gets behind the kit and hes holding the sticks the classic way, like one hand to the side and holding that stick through his middle and ring finger. As if hes trying out for a marching band or jazz band. I was cringing so hard and the whole band instantly knew he wasnt the right fit.

I just gave him the usual "alright well we got a few other guys who wanna try out but uhhh..... Well keep in touch!


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## Unleash The Fury

bostjan said:


> In that case, the guy seemed really nice, but also something was a little bit off, you know. Like he'd make a joke, and we'd chuckle, and then he'd follow it up with "No seriously...". His musical style was not at all what we were going for with the band, and it became evident pretty much right away, then we were kind of in that classic awkward situation of "how long do we jam with this guy before we break the news?" Usually, I try to get that out of the way as quickly and unambiguously as possible, but this guy was really desperate to join the band, and it just made everything really awkward. When we told him "thanks, you're good, but we just aren't interested," it got really weird when he acted like we were messing with him and refused to leave my house for the next ten minutes.
> 
> Last time I went looking for a drummer, I got some really interesting phone messages and a few weird conversations. It's probably too recent to share anything publicly, but one dude assaulted me when I told him he wasn't really what we were looking for. I decided after that point that even though we were no longer doing auditions at my house, I was going to have to vet people a lot more before even meeting face-to-face. I don't care how desperate I get to fill a vacancy, it's not worth having an unstable dude try to bite you.



I know what you mean! I play in a metalcore/deathcore type band currently and we were auditioning drummers. I told the guy over the phone that we were really heavy, so if its something you think you ca........"oh yeah i love heavy shit where do you live ill be right there!!!"

The guy shows up with no sticks. Whatever. We give him sticks and he gets behind the kit and hes holding the sticks the classic way, like one hand to the side and holding that stick through his middle and ring finger. As if hes trying out for a marching band or jazz band. He attempted to play what sounded like some metallica song. I was cringing so hard and the whole band instantly knew he wasnt the right fit.

I just gave him the usual "alright well we got a few other guys who wanna try out but uhhh..... Well keep in touch!


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## marcwormjim

He auditioned twice?!


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## auntyethel

The South African metal scene is almost exclusively populated by brutals bands with screamer vocals. We're a lot less heavy with only clean vocals, music more akin to 90's Dream Theater (sort of, kind of, much worse obviously). After a set, a guy comes up to us and tells us we're really good but would be much better with a screamer instead. Can't imagine a better fit.


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## TedEH

We recently just found a new drummer too, and the process was definitely painful. I dunno how this turned from stupid stuff the audience says, to stupid things said during drummer auditions, but I'm down.

Lots of "yeah, I normally play jazz, but I'm starting to learn some metal now". Lots of "I can totally learn this" attitudes, which is great, but not what we want right now. Most of the guys who came out didn't know how to play/jam any of the random cover songs we suggested. No Metallica, no Megadeth, nuthin. Had to sit through an awkward System of a Down cover at one point since that was the most metal song the guy could come up with.

Actually had a pretty funny experience while auditioning a guy recently-
He came in to "just hang out" while we jammed 'cause he said he wasn't ready yet- which is fine, we had sent him some songs but he was too busy to really learn them, whatever. I think we figured he'd just know some cover tunes and we could jam out and it'd be fine. I mentioned to him on the way that I had been filling in on drums just to be able to jeep jamming until we find a guy, so when we got the the jam room, he insisted we jam without him first, which I didn't think was a good idea, but he insisted, so we went through a few songs. As soon as we started jamming, his face just sort of dropped - like "ah man, I thought he said he wasn't really a drummer". Completely intimidated the guy I think and put him on edge the whole time once it was his turn, so I dunno if his drumming was off cause he was trying to compete with me, or that his nerves were shot from having to try to match what I just did, when I have something like 9 years experience with these songs. Lesson leaned I guess - always let the new guy go first.


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## bostjan

Also, some people just get nervous at an audition, as in they behave like crazy people- but then you find out later that they are okay. I'd say that everyone gets nervous at an audition, actually, but most people act it out by talking too much, talking not enough, fidgeting, etc., but when I lived in Detroit and would run an ad in the alt press looking for musicians, I can honestly say half of the responses were from people who were genuinely "extra." ITKWIM. 

One guy introduced himself to each person in the band using a different name- and each name was totally different, as in different nationality. "Hi, I'm Pablo." "Hi, I'm Claude." "Hi, I'm Sigfried." "Hi, I'm Bob." WTF is your name, dude?! At first I thought he was trying to be funny. But then, everything he said was just so over the top, I knew that the whole thing was going to be super funny to talk about later, but that the audition was going to be a waste of everyone's time. The interesting thing was that this dude could really sing impressively, except he had this weird sort of Tommy Wiseau accent that came through strongly in his singing voice.

I'm guilty myself, of not really strictly following my own protocols. If I'm auditioning people for a band, I always start out with "Here's a list of influences/songs we jam to/bands that sound kind of like us, here's what we are trying to go for as a band, here's what we are looking for from you, here's what our schedule is generally like, etc." But after umpteen auditions, I usually devolve into "the information is in the ad," or "here's our youtube/website/whatever," and obviously, the overall quality of communication drops both ways. When I audition for another band, I usually start out too quiet, and come off too timid at first. I feel like I've aced a few auditions, not because of me so much as because the audition was laid out in a very unambiguous way, and that taught me how to set up auditions after that, but man, after being so careful to lay everything out in the most pleasant format I can think of, there's always two or three really rough auditions in a row at some point and it's just so hard to keep it together after that.

I'm sure Jared Dines has a video of how typical auditions go. 

I used to play in a pretty fun band, and we often had people invited on stage to jam a song or two, usually people we barely knew. Sometimes the people had a hard time fitting into the groove or whatever, but there were a few people who totally blew me away, like, dude, this random guy can wail!


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## prlgmnr

I tried out on drums for a band the other day, and I tell you what, I feel a lot better about it now.

I managed to tell them my actual name and everything.


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## bostjan

I wonder if I could do a hidden camera show where I try out for different bands and act like the weirdest dude possible at every one and see if the band members would even react.


prlgmnr said:


> I tried out on drums for a band the other day, and I tell you what, I feel a lot better about it now.
> 
> I managed to tell them my actual name and everything.



That automatically should place you in the top 50%  ... unless you introduced yourself like "Hi, I'm @prlgmnr , former drummer for _The Who_!" or similar.


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## LeviathanKiller

This thread just gets better and better


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