Bar fights

Larry

"Uncle Larry"
Last Friday one of the main rooms I play....a fight between 4 guys broke out right near the bandstand. This is not the norm at this place. I was this close to coming out from behind my kit to act as a barrier, but it was unnecessary. The fight got pulled outside just in time. The stage is only about 4" above the floor, so we were right there close to the thick of it. We had to stop mid-song, but we played music for about the first minute of the fight..

We were having such a great night too, lots of pretty young women were gathered around the stage dancing and celebrating the holiday season, then the fight broke out.

It really changed the energy in the club after that. We recovered after a while, but a lot of the women left as a result.

Ah, that unmistakable holiday feeling...
 
Larry, don't put yourself in that position. I am a little over 6' 1'' and 230lbs. Your kit or anything on the stage is not worth getting hurt over or worse. Stay on the sidelines.
 
I was this close to coming out from behind my kit to act as a barrier, but it was unnecessary.

Makes me nostalgic for the days of chicken wire....

Agreed with the above. Every time I've gone to intervene, even in the slightest, I ended up with a jammed thumb, torn fingernail, or some mundane injury that made playing the rest of the night unpleasant.
 
Larry, don't put yourself in that position. I am a little over 6' 1'' and 230lbs. Your kit or anything on the stage is not worth getting hurt over or worse. Stay on the sidelines.
I appreciate the words of caution, thank you. The thing is my kit is so worth defending. I'd definitely risk getting hurt if it got to that point, because I'm stupid like that. I just don't care anymore. I'd be too upset with myself if I didn't try defending it and my kit got hurt. It would have been sort of accidental if a body came into my kit, no one was coming after me specifically. So I would have just acted as a buffer for my kit. I wasn't planning on fighting, just protecting. Luckily it didn't come down to that.

The other 2 band guys have a wrought iron railing between them and the crowd, but in the center of the stage right in front of the drums there is no railing, so bodies can and have knocked into my drums. Usually a dancer trips on the 4" stage riser.. But this was different. I may be bringing a chain to string across the railing gap to stop bodies from falling onto my kit when I'm back there for NYE. The place gets jammed and there is no dance floor so people just gather in front of the stage and dance.
 
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Well your drum kit is like family so you instinctively want to defend it from an assault. So was it just alcohol and young angst or a bunch of old dogs going at it? Was it a free for all or something sided 2vs2 or 1vs 3? You see what started it?
 
There is a different bar on top of the one I play at and that bar is where all the 20 somethings go. That bar closed down very recently so we got a lot of the younger crowd that night. The bar I play is a 30 to 60+ crowd. There were 2 younger 20 something guys fighting and their respective buddies jumped in.

So testosterone + alcohol divided by holiday = bar brawl.
 
Cymbal stands make good weapons. So do drumsticks. You can choke someone from behind with a stick too, think cops with nightsticks. Pepper spray is cheap and fits in a cymbal/stick bag easily.

I don't encourage getting involved unless necessary. If you have to, don't be nice about it. The quicker you can control someone, the quicker it ends.
 
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I have a set of Sabians with sharpened edges for the rougher gigs, just in case someone tumbles into the kit.

In case they don't get quite close enough, I can throw the splash like a frisbee. Stole that from Odd Job in Goldfinger! :)
 
I can count the bar fights at my gigs on one hand so this was a bit of an anomaly.

The place needs a bouncer near the door where the crowd is thickest because when it's crowded, you just can't get through the crowd fast. The bartender dudes ended up handling it but it took them about 30 seconds before they could get there.
 
The one time a little pushy-pushy started while my band was playing, we broke into (a terrible version of) this and that defused things nicely. Also, the enormous bouncers showing up helped.
OMG that's a scream. My band plays a chorus of that song too as part of the guitar lead in "Folsom Prison Blues" for laughs. I'll have to suggest that. At the time the fight broke out we were doing a "Born on the Bayou"/"Black Magic Woman"/"Third Stone From The Sun" medley. It was right when we went into the Third Stone song that it happened. I know y'all are just dying to know that. Mr. IP again.
 
"That ain't no Hank Wiliams song."

Time to bring out those Bruce Lee sticks.
 
Ha ha great idea.

I got some...

Little Walter's "Boom Boom Out Go the Lights"
Paul Simon's "The Boxer"
Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger"
 
Mama Said Knock You Out
Hammer Smashed Face (Cannibal Corpse song from Ace Ventura Pet Detective)
Free For All

Y'all y'all y'all y'all y'all, y'all!
 
WAR ! what is it good for? Absolutely nuth'n , Say it again Y'all.
 
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