Bar fight

i have seen many many fights at gigs but most were minor scuffles / takedown / bouncer / get-out scenarios. the worst one involved a bottle / knockout & this guy created a huge puddle of blood from his head before the cops & EMTs showed up (he was actually OK despite the KO & the other guy went to jail). basically ruined the end of the gig.

RE gunplay: i once subbed out of a blues gig in a bad part of Atlanta in the mid 90s. the drummer who i knew a bit was shot in the calf during a drive-by at the club (BBQ place) AS HE WAS PLAYING. he was OK (some low caliber round that passed through) but i still remember how it could have been me or much, much worse.
 
Played a show at Lodz Uni, Poland. We turned up late due to traffic and poor Polish roads, and the riot police had been and arrested loads of people.

Prior to that played three shows in Ireland opening for NoFx, one in Belfast which went ok, one in the afternoon in Dublin which went ok and then one in the evening at a little town called Kill, yes you read it right 'KILL'. The venue was full of drunk 15 year olds, so later as we were packing away and while NoFx were on, the kids wanted more, NoFx said no... we had just finished packing away and it kicked off outside. We drove off with the van doors open and kids kicking and banging the van. Don't know what happened to NoFx.

When did you play Kill with NOFX? That's a pretty unusual place for a big band like NOFX to play. I'd expect Dublin and Belfast as they are major cities but Kill is a small village in Kildare. I'm not even familiar with it myself and I'm Irish, had to google it. It's apparently the 13th biggest in that county. Just seems odd.
 
I had a fight break out after the show while we were packing up, a stool came flying across the room and hit my floor tom, a friend of mine started yelling at the guy, my singer got in a huff and started marching over towards him, but the rest of us pulled him back, it escalated to fisticuffs fairly quickly, no idea who all was involved, one friend got mixed up in it, got knocked on his ass with people falling all over him, so another friend and I had to pull him out by his feet.
 
The only thing that I beat on are my drums - I'm definitely not a violent person, even back when I used to drink. Fortunately I've never seen a fight at any gigs I've been at - the worst was some "disagreements" that were settled before the fists began to fly.

If a fight broke out, I'd be concerned about myself and the band, but also about the equipment. We have thousands of dollars of investment, that can be destroyed in a matter of seconds during a brawl.

Maybe we should all put up the protective chicken wire like they did in the Blues Brothers movie. LOL
 
I wasn't playing in a band, but my friend and I were in a fairly decent bar. We were dancing with some of the ladies there and kind of just letting off steam after a long week. Not sure how or why this started but a fight broke out right as we were trying to leave the place. Some idiot threw the contents of a glass of whiskey and my face and eyes caught most of it. So my eyes are burning and I'm holding my hands on my face reaching for a handkerchef or towel, napkin or anything. All I hear is a lot of yelling and chairs and stuff being knocked over. I make my way to the bar and the bartender hands me a clean towel. When I'm down cleaning up, my eyes are all watery and still hurt, but my friend walks over and fills me in on the details I missed. Turns out he helped pull two guys off each other until security could throw them out.

Mix alcohol with tempers and cocky attitudes and you have a recipe for fights.
 
I've played to some pretty wild audiences but I can't remember any fights. We've had gigs invaded by punks, hippies, wharfies, bikies not to mention *gag retch* normal people. I remember a bikie had to go to hospital after his glass eating trick went awry.

Larry will be unimpressed by this, but I didn't notice anything of audiences other than if there were bodies on the floor passing back some energy. I was fully occupied trying to stay with a very good bassist and guitarist (who I'm convinced only kept me because we were friends).

Couldn't see a thing past the lights half the time anyway. The audience could have been committing mass hari kuri and I would have chugged along obliviously :)
 
When did you play Kill with NOFX? That's a pretty unusual place for a big band like NOFX to play. I'd expect Dublin and Belfast as they are major cities but Kill is a small village in Kildare. I'm not even familiar with it myself and I'm Irish, had to google it. It's apparently the 13th biggest in that county. Just seems odd.

May or June 1991. Belfast was the old Art college, Dublin was in Barnstormers and Kill was in some working man's club.

Also played in Wigan with them on same your. They weren't that big back then.
 
If you attempted to play a place in south Louisiana where there was no alcohol at gigs you would not have many options.
I play a place here in my area that is known for having the rough crowd of all the bars. Not what you'd just expect with bikers and stereotypes, but the guys here are always looking for a reason to get into it. Being as I'm in the house gig (Tuesdays) I've seen my share of fights. The was once an incident that was like something out of a movie. The guy puts the other guys head through the glass in the front of the bar...guy with injured head throws other guy through pane glass...then original guy's friends hits pane glass guy with the car on the way out. Pretty amazing. I've never seen weapons or knives or anything though, so I guess I'm lucky for that. Other than that I've never seen fights at anything except for the bars. Doing the wedding thing I've never seen anyone punch, but I've seen a few "disruptions"....
 
Man, that's never happened to me while playing.
 
"Invaded" by hippies? Damn, that must be horrific: I don't know how long I'd last against a protracted lecture about the virtues of composting.

Aww c'mon, Bad - there's not much funnier than having crazy people doing the whirling dervish on the dance floor.

The bike invasion was probably even funnier - one of the guys on the dance floor pulled his pants half down and did these rolls on the dance floor so the moon bobbed up with each rotation.

The punk invasion was scary at first. One minute we're on a break, the next it's like a herd of stampeding elephants as about 20 often ran down the wooden steps in their Doc Martens. But it turned out okay - they were just under age and trying to avoid the licensing cops who were in the upstairs bar.
 
is the number of barfights in any way related to the type of music the band is playing??
 
Seen a lot of bar fight. I watch the movie Roadhouse.....
we played a lot of roadhouses back in the day just like the movie some even had chain link fence between the crowd and the stage. it was always the bikers and the truckers fighting (drunken senseless idiots)
 
is the number of barfights in any way related to the type of music the band is playing??
it seems like the song Mississippi Queen will usually get a bar fight going. it must be the COW BELL!
 
haha.. yeah I've seen one, it was a bit awkward! My old band were headlining this event, and another band rocked up that had travelled up from another city that had missed their slot but still wanted to play, which wouldn't have left time for us to play. We all lived locally so I said just let them play because they travelled up and then just kind of stood at the side out of the way... but then what happened is everyone else from both bands just started setting up at the same time - i.e. both trying to plug into the same guitar amps etc, and eventually the two singers tried to grab the same microphone... then a fight broke out, in front of the audience too. Talk about awkward!! Our singer seemed to win 'the battle' and we played... I'm not proud of that though! Both the other drummer and myself were embarrassed about our bands and really apologetic to each other.

Caroline
 
I've been saying that we should practice Elton John's 'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting' just to break out in a situation like that, but nobody listens to the drummer's song suggestions!
 
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