Sarah, I would tend to agree with you to a point with liking SOME hecklers...

We do alot of pub gigs, and usually the heckling is very light hearted and a laugh, gives us all a bit to fire back at, and we get a good relationship going with the pub audience.

Very rarely in a pub have we had any major problems, recently though I got a little freaked when one rather scary looking man, came over and decided to start rearranging my mics, talking over my voice mic and moving my bodhran mic whilst I was playing...

Cooly, I asked him to go back and leave me alone. I told him, he was really annoying, rude, and if he didn't go away I was going to loose my temper. Basically he wanted both mics on my bodhran (arghhh!) as he liked the bodhran.

He was though quite an agressive character, I noticed the lads in the band all their heckles rising and their faces getting redder, looking at me and asking if I was alright.

In the end I had to stop playing, stand up, take the man to one side and tell him in no uncertain terms that he had better go sit down, before I called management.

This happened anyway, the landlord had noticed and came over to help out...

Apart from that, in sessions I have only ever encountered one seriously horrid heckler, and the rest of the pub listeners were enjoying the music, came over to us and said, never mind him... We're enjoying it.

Ella