Last
night's gig was at Club Voltaire and involved me MCing a music night
for four different musicians, each doing around forty-five minute
sets to a small assortment of their common friends etc. The crowd
seemed warm initially, and very responsive to my material –
although to be fair this was only in response to my opening chunk –
but each time I took the stage they were less enjoyable to play in
front of, with the night finally turning into a hugely frustrating
and infuriating experience.
During the second break in which I did about twelve minutes of material, the crowd were fairly rowdy and I failed to calm them down, but I'm not sure whether this was a failure on my part or not. I could hardly tell them to shut up because as far as it had gotten, they had been fine during the musical acts, and I was the only comic of the evening. Their interjections were not mean-spirited at all, and they seemed to be listening to most of what I had to say – and indeed all of the musicians. When at one point I asked them a mostly-rhetorical question with the aim of going into some more material but instead they all piped up into general discussion of the matter, I only blamed myself for letting loose the reins. “I did ask them a question,” I chided to myself, “this is what I should expect, really.” After about a minute of unruliness I managed to regain their attention with a stern tone and a leading story, but I could feel myself getting aggressive, and I wanted to tone that back in my next set, “so as not to risk losing them”, I thought.
After that though, in the third and fourth sets I did between acts, they got worse, and I think they must have taken my passivity in the first instance as an unconscious cue that their interjections were okay. They weren't okay, they were basically heckling me, although in a kind-spirited way, without realizing they were in any way ruining my set, but still, they were heckling nonetheless. The worst part was when I introduced a bit with the line, “do you want to know the saddest thing that's ever happened to me? // When I was nineteen, I ate garlic paste on toast.”
This is CLEARLY (or so I thought) an obvious piece of hyperbole aimed at getting the audience's attention before I launch into the explanation of why that was the saddest point in my life – therein lie the jokes. Before I could get to the justifications though, one woman from the crowd yelled, “oh you have lived a sheltered life!” Now, how the fuck am I supposed to take that? That, a clear attack on my authority as the MC, but levelled in such a passive way as to seem like a joke. As far as I can tell, there's no way I can take that while still remaining on happy terms with it's owner, but unfortunately, that's what I tried to do. I tried to laugh it off and smiled as the audience laughed over the top of this woman's continued passive-aggressive jeers of, “ooooh okay, let's hear about your story then!” As if it was her who was allowing me to perform for her on the stage. The worst part was, in that moment, that was the case, because I fucked up, and let it happen.
So what would I do differently next time? Next time, when faced with laughing, passive-aggressive hecklers ignorant of their own negative input into the show. I've been thinking about it a lot (obviously) and I'm not completely sure yet, but I think after listening to Patrice O'Neal's new album 'Unreleased' I think the key is to maintain the assumption that everything that is happening is happening on my terms. I needed to teach her that what she was doing was not helping the show, and was in fact hindering it and making it worse. I did go some small way towards that after she tore me down by asking her, “okay, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?” But she came back with, “no you're telling the story!” At which point I should have said, “that's right, so let me tell it, but before I do, let me tell you why what you just said was ignorant.” I could have tried to teach her something about the mechanics of comedy – I'm sure she already knew intellectually what these are: that the leading phrase of that particular bit is deliberately ridiculous or shocking to get the audience's attention preceding a justification/explanation of it, with jokes. The fact that she interrupted though – even if she did have her own jokes and must have thought that she was making the show better because of the subsequent laughter – means that she didn't instinctively understand what was going on. She needed to learn, and I wasn't quick enough to teach her.
God damn it. Just talking about it is frustrating me again. That's the only way to learn though, I guess, and a gig like last night's should prove a valuable learning experience in identifying a heckler immediately. Never again will I give a heckler the benefit of the doubt and, subsequently, my good temper. I don't want to lash out viciously at a heckler either, but that woman last night spitting her unintentional passive-aggression needed to be dealt with better. I fucked up.
When she said goodbye after the show she was lovely, and I probably need to reinforce that fact – that she was a lovely person for coming to see a show at all – but I was feeling way too dark to engage her in any sort of farewell. I tried to explain to her friend briefly what had happened, but it was too soon after, so my words came out jumbled and pointless. They seemed to enjoy the show though, which is the main thing too, but to be honest, I would have rather them not enjoy the show, had I been able to find a way to maintain my dignity as a performer by holding the stage and not giving in to the will of the crowd. Always learning. Always watching.
Peace, Taco.
During the second break in which I did about twelve minutes of material, the crowd were fairly rowdy and I failed to calm them down, but I'm not sure whether this was a failure on my part or not. I could hardly tell them to shut up because as far as it had gotten, they had been fine during the musical acts, and I was the only comic of the evening. Their interjections were not mean-spirited at all, and they seemed to be listening to most of what I had to say – and indeed all of the musicians. When at one point I asked them a mostly-rhetorical question with the aim of going into some more material but instead they all piped up into general discussion of the matter, I only blamed myself for letting loose the reins. “I did ask them a question,” I chided to myself, “this is what I should expect, really.” After about a minute of unruliness I managed to regain their attention with a stern tone and a leading story, but I could feel myself getting aggressive, and I wanted to tone that back in my next set, “so as not to risk losing them”, I thought.
After that though, in the third and fourth sets I did between acts, they got worse, and I think they must have taken my passivity in the first instance as an unconscious cue that their interjections were okay. They weren't okay, they were basically heckling me, although in a kind-spirited way, without realizing they were in any way ruining my set, but still, they were heckling nonetheless. The worst part was when I introduced a bit with the line, “do you want to know the saddest thing that's ever happened to me? // When I was nineteen, I ate garlic paste on toast.”
This is CLEARLY (or so I thought) an obvious piece of hyperbole aimed at getting the audience's attention before I launch into the explanation of why that was the saddest point in my life – therein lie the jokes. Before I could get to the justifications though, one woman from the crowd yelled, “oh you have lived a sheltered life!” Now, how the fuck am I supposed to take that? That, a clear attack on my authority as the MC, but levelled in such a passive way as to seem like a joke. As far as I can tell, there's no way I can take that while still remaining on happy terms with it's owner, but unfortunately, that's what I tried to do. I tried to laugh it off and smiled as the audience laughed over the top of this woman's continued passive-aggressive jeers of, “ooooh okay, let's hear about your story then!” As if it was her who was allowing me to perform for her on the stage. The worst part was, in that moment, that was the case, because I fucked up, and let it happen.
So what would I do differently next time? Next time, when faced with laughing, passive-aggressive hecklers ignorant of their own negative input into the show. I've been thinking about it a lot (obviously) and I'm not completely sure yet, but I think after listening to Patrice O'Neal's new album 'Unreleased' I think the key is to maintain the assumption that everything that is happening is happening on my terms. I needed to teach her that what she was doing was not helping the show, and was in fact hindering it and making it worse. I did go some small way towards that after she tore me down by asking her, “okay, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?” But she came back with, “no you're telling the story!” At which point I should have said, “that's right, so let me tell it, but before I do, let me tell you why what you just said was ignorant.” I could have tried to teach her something about the mechanics of comedy – I'm sure she already knew intellectually what these are: that the leading phrase of that particular bit is deliberately ridiculous or shocking to get the audience's attention preceding a justification/explanation of it, with jokes. The fact that she interrupted though – even if she did have her own jokes and must have thought that she was making the show better because of the subsequent laughter – means that she didn't instinctively understand what was going on. She needed to learn, and I wasn't quick enough to teach her.
God damn it. Just talking about it is frustrating me again. That's the only way to learn though, I guess, and a gig like last night's should prove a valuable learning experience in identifying a heckler immediately. Never again will I give a heckler the benefit of the doubt and, subsequently, my good temper. I don't want to lash out viciously at a heckler either, but that woman last night spitting her unintentional passive-aggression needed to be dealt with better. I fucked up.
When she said goodbye after the show she was lovely, and I probably need to reinforce that fact – that she was a lovely person for coming to see a show at all – but I was feeling way too dark to engage her in any sort of farewell. I tried to explain to her friend briefly what had happened, but it was too soon after, so my words came out jumbled and pointless. They seemed to enjoy the show though, which is the main thing too, but to be honest, I would have rather them not enjoy the show, had I been able to find a way to maintain my dignity as a performer by holding the stage and not giving in to the will of the crowd. Always learning. Always watching.
Peace, Taco.
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