99 times out of 100 heckling is not okay, it is crap. No matter how terrible the band is, heckling is generally ‘crap’ in the following circumstances:

- the band you are to heckle are the headliners. This is dumb. Almost everyone in attendance has shown up and put down their money for whomever you’re about to jeer. Some may have traveled from afar. Unless you got free tickets to a Creed concert, it is crap to heckle the headliner.

- the band you are to heckle are a local band that’s opening. This is like taking your frustration over your divorce settlement out on a kid working the MacDonald’s Drive-Thru. Super lame.

- the band you are to heckle are modest and well-meaning, if complete shit. Give them their twenty five minutes of stage time. Shoot some pool in the back or whatever.

Heckling is never crap however, when I am doing the heckling. I have consummate taste and have only twice heckled in a situation where not heckling was the better and truer strategy. I am a pretty-good heckler. There are many people in the alt-country scene in my hometown who find my attendance baleful.

At a Modest Mouse show in Vancouver several years ago I had an entire floor of women and their boyfriends ready to lynch me b/c I was giving some pretty-boy band from LA with a cute singer a hard time. “When’s Tori Spelling going to show us her tits!!â€

i've only ever heckled anyone once: this crap band called vpn, who were opening for the frogs. they looked just like every "alternative rock" band currently in circulation on mtv and radio, fronted major "rock star" bullshit attitudes, and sounded just like everclear. after they'd played several near-identical songs, i yelled "play another everclear song", which got some laughs. i was right in front, very close to the singer (there was no stage), and he looked pretty perplexed. he announced the next song as "another everclear song". it sounded, you know, just like everclear. have since seen their album in several dollar bins and wish i could say the same for everclear themselves.

in any case, heckling is not crap, especially if the band is particularly smug, or if the heckling is particularly funny (unlike mine). i think it's hilarious when my band gets heckled, because we rarely if ever say anything on stage...

i heckled us maple once. i was polite about it though, i shouted only to the point where the group of grad students around me waiting to see pavement could hear. after putting up with half an hour of wheezing and trebly guitar skronk i witnessed the guitarist with the scarf on switch from his out of tune les paul to a tele, i yelled(again, not loudly) "what's the point of switching?" it illicited a couple chuckles.

i'm most proud of heckling the audience while a member of the audience several times. at a built to spill show where every moment of silence was met with 'woo hoos' and song requests i finally yelled "i like yelling" my friends laughed and since we were right at the stage the band heard and laughed too.

whiskerando wrote:

i heckled us maple once. i was polite about it though, i shouted only to the point where the group of grad students around me waiting to see pavement could hear. after putting up with half an hour of wheezing and trebly guitar skronk i witnessed the guitarist with the scarf on switch from his out of tune les paul to a tele, i yelled(again, not loudly) "what's the point of switching?" it illicited a couple chuckles.

Signore! The joke, she was on you!

Salut!

Signore! The joke, she was on you!

yeh i know, my friend responded to my shouting with "dude, it's because the tele has more shrill treble, also he can continue his jerkass ironic rock posturing."

it still sucked and there was still no point.

I like to yell "Play something you know".

Not Crap if it gets laughs.

Still Not Crap if it's deserved.

Ultimate Crap if it is simply "Freebird!". Someone kept shouting that up at the last Shellac show in Boston, and Steve duly embarrassed the guy who instantly shut his trap.

I used to do it for very bad bands and specially to educate my kids that it was ok to express yourself.

Anyway, the last time I remember significantly heckling was when John Zorn played some kind of Jazz festival near Paris, musta been the late 80s. He was talking all the time, music was great and I really dug it, but he seemed to be thinking he was at a Jazz Festival and the whole crowd was made of Jazz buffs in opened collars smoking cigars sipping brandy so he kept asking the crowd stuff like "oh, and this band Blind Idiot God what label were they signed to ?" or "Extreme Noise terror, yeah, what was the name of their last EP ?" and although I knew all the answers this was too STOOPID, so when he said "ok, this is the last piece for tonite and blah blah blah and japanese pedophile torture and blah and blah" I just yelled "what about the last speech for tonite ?" and he was SO pissed off like he had been just waiting for this from this whole crowd of Jazz buffs that he hated so much and he said something really stoopid again against his imaginary jazz buff hates that were not there anyway

so, later on, as he was strolling outside with the rest of the band, I did not even go to talk to Fred Frith because of all that stoopid blah blah that we endured from stoopid John Zorn.

Heckling is an artform in the hands of professionals. However, it only serves to embarrass amateur practitioners. A good rule of thumb: don't heckle unless your soul is on fire with contempt.

Bands that I have heckled:
The Polyphonic Spree ("I am immune to your charms!" - Empty Bottle, Chicago IL)
Shellac ("Fuck you." This was actually more of a dialogue. - Otto's, DeKalb IL)

The only time I have ever witnessed "Freebird!" being funny was at this Melt-Banana show several years back. It was more of a plea than a command.

"Freebird?"



I like heckling. It occassionally breaks the tension of a shitty show or the band has fun with it and run with it.


Faiz