Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: GUEST,Ely
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 10:02 PM

I don't perform enough to need them, but one musician in particular that I go to see as often as I can always comes up with little zingers. One night at a bar, there was a group of under-attired college girls hanging around, more in the hopes of being picked up by a minor Austin celebrity than for the sake of the music, and when they got too giggly he paused mid-verse to tell them that their mother was waiting outside to pick them up.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 09:49 PM

Joe F--and probably put him to sleep, effectively getting rid of THAT problem! LOL!

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 09:37 PM

Is that your own brain or are you breaking it in for moron?
eric

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 08:59 PM

According to a story retailed by Bertrand Russell, when heckled by a drunk during a political debate, Mr Gladstone would fix the miscreant with his terrific eye & say: "May I request the gentleman who has, not once but repeatedly, interrupted my observations by his interjections, to extend to me that large measure of courtesy which, were I in his place and he in mine, I should most unhesitatingly extend to him." Tradition has it that that speech, suitably delivered, would not only shut a man up but sober him up on the spot. If so, it is well worth memorizing.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 08:02 PM

Not really an insult but a very quickfire heckle from our resident fuuny man. I asked the audience what thirty years of marriage meant, as I was about to sing a song on that subject: "AGONY" he shouted and brought the house down!

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 06:29 PM

Danny Kyle had quite a few answers. 'Lean against the wall, pal,' he would say. 'It's plastered as well!' or, if someone hissed ... 'Your bra's leaking missus!'

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Mooh
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 06:19 PM

Shit, me too! Quick on the draw Dick! Mooh.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 06:17 PM

I have never been in situations where this was a problem. I'm with Sorcha. The audiences I see are at the very least polite. The performers have no need to trade insults.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 05:59 PM

bugger, I was about to post that one.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 05:57 PM

Be careful with this stuff--you're apt to alienate the non-hecklers. A gentle comeback is to gaze at the heckler musingly, and say , "You know, I remember when I had my first drink."

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 05:48 PM

A friend has been the regular Monday-through-Thursday act at a good-sized bar for years. He decided that since most hecklers are drunk, and being drunk is basically a self-induced for of insanity, the only way to beat 'em is to be crazier than they are. His response to hecklers is to go into his "crazyman" routine replete with screaming, crying and whatever other bizarre behaviors he can come up with without getting fired or arrested. The bar regulars come to watch him go off on the hecklers as much as to hear him play.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: GUEST,Andy
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 04:46 PM

One of the best I've heard was " don't peek too early son." Then there was a pause. And then he said, " your dad did".

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 03:48 PM

Why is it Len, you always start these threads after a gig at O'Ryans??

LOL

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 03:25 PM

I have never needed them. My audiences appreciate us.

Subject: RE: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 02:40 PM

Dunno really, but Christy Moore (about halfway through the Planxty gig) when his name was called out by a member of the audience, shouted back, "You just woke up?"

Subject: Your Favourite Audience Insult/Comeback?
From: GUEST,Len Wallace
Date: 29 Feb 04 - 01:51 PM

Hi gang,

When one performs in a pub you inevitably will get a nasty heckler, someone shouting insensibly for a song. Sometimes you just can't get an audience to applaud no matter how hard you try. Or sometimes, even with a great audience, you try some audience participation and find that it falls flat and no one will join in.

So, QUESTIONS:
What's your favourite insult? Your favourite comeback? Your favourite way to goad an audience?

When I try and get an audience to participate and they won't I'll try the old Tommy Makem line, "Join hands and contact the living!" or just stop and murmur in exasperation, "God sakes, I'm playing for Presbyterians again!"

A pal of mine was once confronted with an audience member who kept goading him. Finally my friend turned to the guy and said, "What's your problem? Do I come over to where you work and tell you how to sweep a broom?" On another occasion, when a group of drunken louts starting demanding a song and he couldn't make out what they were saying in the din of noise he responded, "I'm sorry. I can't understand what you're saying. I don't speak shitface!"

So, what are the lines y'all use?

Len Wallace