The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #113541   Message #2416069
Posted By: Jayto
17-Aug-08 - 11:34 AM
Thread Name: Worst gig ever.
Subject: RE: Worst gig ever.
I was playing at a place called Jack's Guitar Bar in south Nashville (Nolansville Pike if anyone is familiar with the area). I had a standing gig with a buddy of mine Chris Knight and my brother Joey. Joey was still in high school so we would "sneak" him down after school to play the gig with us. We had several labels watching and talking to us at this point so every gig was packed with different label cats. This club was also packed with bikers. The unruly type not the "I'm going to jump on my expensive bike and ride to the country club." type. Well Chris had this song that he had written about a cop from the cops point of view. It was a very good song and very emotional. Someone in the crowd requested the song and we decided to do it. I am not gonna lie we had a reputation for being unruly anyway so our crowd was uhm not the calmest. We played the song and when we were done I heard someone yell "Bag it!" Chris walked up to the mic and said "Bag what?". Then this biker dude stands up and yells "The songs about cops!" Chris never blinked and said "I was thinking about doing it again and getting you to sing harmony with me buddy!" I tapped Chris on the shoulder and said "Man, forget him let's play." Then the guy yells "Bite my ass." Chris stepped back to the mic and said "I really don't think I want to buddy!" I reiterated my desire to play another song so he started strumming some chords. We fell in behind him playing. Half way through the song he turns and says "Let's take a break I am going to kick this guy's ass." I told my brother to hang out by the Kim Richey "one of our friends I knew would watch him" and hit the door if anything breaks out. I looked up and Chris was shaking hands with this guy so I assumed everything was fine. Then I hear a loud "No man F#### you!!!" looked over and Chris knocked that guy about 4 bar stools backwards. I jumped up but before I could move about 15 label guys were on top of the biker then about 20 bikers were on top of the label guys so here I went. It was a free for all then all of a sudden boom boom boom gunshots rang out. Everybody froze solid. I looked up and the bar owner was standing there with a pistol in one hand and beer in the other laughing. He grabbed Chris and said "Chris Knight meet Harry. Harry meet Chris Knight. Now you boys get back up there and play me some music." We laughed and jumped back up onstage and finished out set. After that the song became known as the fight song. Jack (the Bar Owner well co-owner Steve Earle was part owner for a while with him) loved that song and would always request it. The deal was we would play it but he had to shoot a hole in the roof so every Monday night you would hear 1 gunshot during our gig.