How's this for onstage crowd baiting?

"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind."
- President Bush, 2/8/04

VERSUS

"I want to be the peace president."

- President Bush, 7/20/04

In November 2001, I saw Ted Leo play at the Bowery Ballroom in New York. This was a couple months after 9/11, each day felt tentative, all of us who lived in New York were all freaked-out, etc. But I was also getting a little fatigued by everyone having to put in their two cents about 9/11 in every available public forum. I don't mean news reports--I mean things like a certain alt-weekly having a bunch of rock critics write about the records they dug out of their collections to get them through that first awful week. So when Ted Leo, after a few songs, started in with some between-song banter about how it's "a strange time to be in a rock band," I thought, "Here we go..."

"Yeah, it's been really weird driving around the country these last few weeks," he said, "playing shows and talking to people about what's been going on..."

The crowd was pretty hushed, since by now everyone could instinctively tell when someone was going to wax philosophical about the State of Things. So I will forever be indebted to my friend Jon, who, at that moment, yelled out, "Why--what happened?"

The shocked looks on the faces of the emo kids next to us were priceless.

The mention above of the "Easter Bunny" incident reminds me that I was at the infamous Volcano Suns "bunny suit" gig. After the raffle, the bunny head was empty, and the evening's most annoying mosher grabbed it, put it on, and went running through the audience several times. As I remember it, during one of the rhythmic breakdowns/transitions/pauses in one of the songs (before the band exploded into the next section), Peter Prescott yelled, "Hey Mr. Bunny Head! Fuckin' watch out!" This phrase stayed in my active vocabulary for years.

best shutdown ever, from Bill Callahan (king of the anti-banter) to a dude videotaping a Smog show at Fireside:

"It's not a vacation."

Videotaper dude put his camera down after that.

hstencil wrote:ah well the Coctails were playing a club date at Sudsy Malone's (that's right, Cincy's own bar/laundromat) after playing the same day on the Lollapalooza second stage. This was the day that Yow got arrested for taking off his pants on the main stage (I wasn't there, but that's what happened, right?). It was on the local news. Anyway, a few of us drove up from L'ville for the Coctails show, and I remember you making some sort of funny jokes about it, but I don't remember whether it was on stage or not. Oh well. Great show, btw (though I think I got a speeding ticket on the way home).

Thanks. Sorry for the ticket. Send me the bill. I'm not going to pay it or anything. It would just be fun to have.

This will only be amusing to those die-hard Simpsons fans among us:

I remember watching the International Noise Conspiracy in Hoboken back in '01 when the singer went into this long winded rap about brotherhood, solidarity, "the man keeping us down", blah, blah, blah, in rather broker English. When he was done testifying and while it was still quiet, some genius in the audience yelled out, "Don't you hate pants?!" ala Homer heckling Krusty's stand-up routine.
I know my description doesn't come near doing it justice, but if you're familiar with that scene I'm sure you can appreciate the sentiment.

Has anyone seen Calvin Johnson play solo?
I saw him and it was great. All kinds of hilarious tangents, Q & A sessions, and 'sensual' posturing. He talked to us about playing in cemetaries, van accidents, and coloring inside/outside/over the lines. I can't remember any specifics, but I highly recommend him for a stage banter title.

Then he would turn around and go stand in the back corner of the stage to try and remember the chords to his next song.

At a show in Davenport IA, Mark Arm told a story about Mudhoney getting lost in town before the show. While driving around haplessly, they happened upon a policeman who gave the band directions back to where they were staying.

"Which," as Mark Arm said, "goes to show that there are some nice cops. But he was still a cop."

I was just speaking to a friend on msn and she told me this:



bow down before me, peasants, for i am awesome and i walk among you says:
do you know who linda ronstadt is?

All the corpses here are clean, boy says:
sounds familiar, but no

bow down before me, peasants, for i am awesome and i walk among you says:
well, she's a country/bluegrass/spanish singer. kind of old school.

bow down before me, peasants, for i am awesome and i walk among you says:
she was doing a show at this hotel in vegas on the weekend, and she dedicated one of her songs to michael moore. and like a hundred people booed her and walked out of the show, and the owner of the hotel had her bags packed and kicked her out.

Thanks. Sorry for the ticket. Send me the bill. I'm not going to pay it or anything. It would just be fun to have.

Sorry, I lost it long ago. This was like 1996, right? I think I just paid it (hopefully!) and forgot about it.