I think all musicians experience annoyances at their gigs, ranging from being completely ignored, to having chip-on-their-shoulder types coming up to you while you’re playing; ostensibly to compliment you, but in reality to try and put you down (usually with the criminally cliché ‘So do you have a real job?!’).
So last night, having driven halfway around the M25 for 3 hours in Friday afternoon traffic, and unloaded all my gear, I was hoping for an uneventful night. In many ways it went really well – my new P.A. system sounded great, and I was playing with a fantastic bassist called Rob Anstey (who had been recommended to me by Gabriel Latchin). There was an issue however – and that was a certain person at the bar who obviously hated jazz, and really wanted to play early 90’s dance music at high volume instead.
While I was setting up, this ‘music’ was playing at ear pounding volumes, and I hoped it was merely the sort of music that caterers use to get hyped up and all the canapés out in time. It soon became clear that the music wasn’t just for the caterers though. We played an hour long set at reasonable volume, but we were interrupted by the girl from the bar asking us (while we were playing) how long we’d be going for as she was keen to get the 90’s music back on! I mumbled something about sticking to schedule (I can’t talk and play at the same time) and she went away somewhat sour-faced.
In the break I made a futile attempt to stop the girl at the bar from putting the same awful music back on at aircraft levels of decibels. I don’t have a problem with this kind of music for later, once we’d finished, everyone is pissed and they just want to dance, but it definitely wasn’t interval music.
In the second set, the inevitable happened – the person coming up to talk to you while you’re playing. He was quite friendly actually, but it meant that we curtailed our current tune so that I could finish the conversation with him. In the few seconds that we took to exchange pleasantries, the girl at the bar decided that it was time to put back on the awful music. After a bit of hand-waving to signal that we were still playing, she came over to us and had the cheek to say (in a superbly passive aggressive tone of voice) “If you stop playing it really does spoil the atmosphere, so please don’t.”
adamdyerjazz 