Published Wednesday, September 22, 2010 12:12 PM
Updated Wednesday, September 22, 2010 12:12 PM
The truth is, anyone who thinks the guys in the band have it made have obviously never been in the band. If you’ve ever spent a weekend with six guys in one cheap motel room, if you’ve ever had drunk people get sick on your equipment, if you’ve never spent the evening fending off some idiot who wants to play your guitar – the one you saved two years for and undoubtedly costs more than idiot boy’s car – if you’ve never had the pleasure of dealing with that guy who wants to sit in for the drummer, or, God forbid, “Help ya’ll out and sing a little back up,” then you have no idea what that part of the world is actually like.
Take song requests. The general rule of thumb is that some very drunk and very loud moron is going to continually insist on songs the band just doesn’t do.
Where I’ve been, songs such as “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Gimme Three Steps,” and the granddaddy of all requests, “Free Bird,” are the tunes that try our souls. There seems to be some federal law mandating that every bar must have at least one drunk who believes he is the funniest thing on two feet who shouts “Free Bird” after every song. The law further stipulates that every band must employ a majority of members who absolutely scorn Lynard Skynard.
This is ridiculous, of course. Skynard is a great band – one of my favorites -- that gave the world many great songs. But that’s apparently the law – reason number five hundred sixty six why we need to shrink the government, and fast.
I can tell you that, as a part-time rock and roll road warrior for nearly three decades, I have played literally thousands of gigs in bars and events all over the Southeast and I can honestly say I’ve never, ever, not once, gone through a single evening without some booze-soaked cretin yelling, "Free Bird!"
Eventually, the musicians talk back. But you have to be careful.
When I was a good bit younger and a lot less worried about getting hit in a bar fight, I would invariably respond to whoever shouted “Free Bird” by flashing Mr. Finger Puppet and replying, “No charge!”
One night, we were playing some dump -- it had the hottest beer, coldest chicken wings and greasiest waitresses I ever saw in my life, and then at the height of it some homeless guy came stumbling to the stage and started playing our other guitar player’s harmonicas -- which is about the hygienic equivalent of allowing some dumpster diver to use your toothbrush.
We were having a rough night, playing to a hard drinking, hard-to-please crowd of redneck ring bangers and jukebox hecklers. We had long since begun retaliating to their stony indifference and unflattering commentary with a set list full of obscure punk songs played at decibel levels that could have knocked out building foundations.
At one point this monstrous guy in bib overalls and sporting lots of prison tattoos got up to leave. He was dragging his old lady along and both of them were staring at me. As they passed in review, they both showed me their finger puppets. Then they left the building.
It was then that I realized that my “no charge” line had devolved from mildly witty comeback to obnoxious autonomic response.
Fortunately, Farmer Deliverance and his Old Lady never returned, but it was an unnerving moment.
These days, I’ve mellowed out a good bit. I still probably won’t let a drunken stranger anywhere near my guitar – unless he clearly has the wherewithal to pay for it – but I will give most requests at least a perfunctory stab. I learned long ago that doing a couple of those a night can really fertilize the old tip jar.
But use your head. If I’m playing Kristofferson, don’t ask for Danzig. If I’m playing Danzig, don’t ask for Dan Fogelberg.
Then again, go for it. Some of those experiments can be pretty interesting.