You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Handle a Bad or Hostile Crowd - #71

Episode Date: April 11, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam discuss some tips for handling a not-so-friendly crowd. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to talk about how to handle a bad or hostile crowd. So I don't usually carry a gun. But if I did... Oh, wait.

Oh, we're going to be nice to them, though, right? I think so. But, I mean, they might be carrying guns. We're talking about bad or hostile. They could be bad and hostile. That's possible. And I don't think we're talking about bad as in good. No, I don't think so.

All right. Yeah, I mean, have you ever had an experience? Everybody has. If you've been in the game this long, you're going to get a crowd every once in a while that is either not into it or sometimes aggressively not into it. Right, right. Yeah, you don't know if you're going to get a $100 bill or a tomato thrown at you at any moment. But sometimes, I mean, you can almost sense it coming into the club or theater sometimes if there's a little bit of hostility. Sometimes it's something that has happened in the community or in politics or something that has.

has nothing to do with outward hostility towards you. But sometimes it's just sort of a hostile thing. I mean, it's weird, though. Why would you buy a ticket to something that you're hostile for? But it does happen. It does happen, oddly enough. Yeah. Or, you know, maybe you're in a situation where it's like, you know, it's not a concert

situation, but you're, you know, playing at a restaurant or bar or a club or something, and there's a crowd there that's like a business convention is in town. They don't know you. They don't really care about it. They don't want to know you. They don't want to know you. They're running around like a chicken with their head cut off because they're out of town for two days. Right.

Wife and kids are at home and they're ready to be total jerks to anybody. So what are some strategies that we can implore here to make it a little more fun for us? Or even less hostile perhaps. Or possibly more hostile. I mean, maybe you want to egg them on. Well, okay, well, let's go there first then. Okay. The first idea is just to play as out as possible.

This is my favorite thing. Yeah, I mean, just really go. far left, random, just avant-garde, as we would say. Just play totally out. And so it's kind of like killing them with kindness, but the opposite. Yeah. Killing them with dissonance. Yeah, kill them with dissonance.

Maybe they'll even forget where they are, or you'll kind of just scramble their brain. Who knows? I've done this before where it's just like, oh, you know, you want to talk and make fun of us on the gig, right? You hate jazz? Yes, what? You're really going to hate jazz. You're really going to hate it.

I love that one. Okay. Number two is to play as in as possible, kind of the opposite. Yeah, the converse or the inverse. Like, how can you hate this? This is so beautiful and groovy. Right. Right. Just go straight Mr. Magic.

Just make it straight Mr. Magic. Or Breezing, or maybe Breezing. Straight Mr. Magic. How do you get any more in than that, right? That's great. Well, along those lines, too, if you really want to kind of turn them around and be Mr. Nice Guy, you could just bust out, you know, some pop classics. Even more pop than Mr. Magic, you could just...

Like, wind beneath my wings. Oh, yeah, exactly. Or even just like a hit of the day or whatever. But that's nothing like, you know, turning hostility around, you know, like giving them some ear candy, as we say. Yeah, if you got a room full of business guys and you pull out Mustang Sally, you never know. Although maybe you don't want that good attention now, you know. That's right.

Because then you got some drunk people up on the stage with you trying to sing along. I mean, at a certain point, is this still a jazz gig even? No. I mean, there's a certain point where you're trying to survive, physically survive. Well, that brings us to number four, which is head to the bar. Abandon ship. We've done that on other. We've talked about that on another episode.

A regular strategy of this podcast. Head to the bar, right, is to abandon ship. Well, you know what? So for number five, if you're heading to the bar, how about don't even head to the bar? Just offer everyone in the club free drinks. Wait, I'm not paying for free drinks from people who are. being hostile towards me. If you want to pull, we're talking about ways to handle a bad or hostile crowd, you know, nothing like a free round for everyone. The drunker they are, the better you sound.

Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Yep. That brings us to, uh, if you offer them too many free drinks, that brings us to number six, which is call the police. Listen, I'm not ashamed to say that things have turned violent on gigs I've been on before. I mean, we're in Missouri, let's be honest here. That's right. And, uh, you know, but don't be... Is this an open carry gig? Don't be too scared to call some reinforcements a la the police department if you feel like things are getting a little too hostile. I've actually had this happen on like not with like ignorant crowds that don't know anything, but more like people who are like, you're not playing the real stuff. Right. Oh, right.

Oh, you're not out enough. Spruels. Remember sprules? Yeah, that's true. That's right. Well, hold up. Now, when we were coming up with this list with our extensive preparation over the last few hours, Maybe we misunderstood each other because I actually thought this last one here was called the jazz police.

Oh, call the jazz police. You're trying to call the actual po-po. Oh, no, yeah. Mine's better. Well, it's a higher level of authority. You run with a sophisticated graph. Well, you know, no, call the jazz police. You know, there's always some jazz police type people lurking around at most jazz gigs.

So if the prevalent or predominant vibe of the audience is hostile, then you can kind of you're almost sort of targeting your musical or even auditory message from the mic towards those couple of lurking undercover jazz, please, and get them on your side, and maybe they can go around and make a couple apprehensions in the crowd. Shh. Yeah, exactly.

Shut up! Dig it, man, dig it. Well, I hope this helps. And, you know, if you're really having trouble with people hearing what you're playing, just tell them you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. If you liked what you heard, please leave a rating or review.

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