I once performed at a golf course country club, a job that was obtained for me by an agent. I knew things would not go well from the minute I pushed my rock and roller cart through the front door and was stopped my the club manager who in no uncertain terms told me this door was for members ONLY, and I must bring my gear in through the kitchen/delivery entrance in the back. Ironically, he had me set my gear up just inside the main entrance, 100 feet away from the diners.

I was required to wear a tuxedo the entire time, including while setting up the equipment. Then I was told I have to remove my rock and roller filled with the empty cases and put it back in my van. Now, I was already sweating like crazy when I rolled the cart to the van in the nearly 100 degree f July heat with matching humidity. I had to wait about 20 minutes before I would play live music, so therefore, I put on a light-jazz midi file that I obtained from DNJ a few months earlier. With seconds of firing up the midi file, the manager came to me and said "You will have to either turn than down, or turn it off." Things went downhill from there.

I turned the midi down to the point where I could barely hear it over the AC unit that was cooling the huge room, which measured 150 X 200 feet. I got up to check the volume level and began walking through the room. When I was about 50 feet from the keyboard, I could barely hear the midi playing at all. At this point the club manager came up to me and said,"Sir, this area is strictly off limits to anyone other than members. When I told him that I was just performing a sound level check, he scowled at me with a somewhat menacing look and said, the music it much too loud, turn it down as I asked you to do"

With that I walked slowly back to the keyboard, turned everything off, went outside to my van and got the rock and roller cart, took off my tux jacket and bow tie, returned to the club and loaded up my gear and walked out the front door.

Early the next morning, the agent asked what happened and I explained it to her. She said she fully understood, and she was not going to take bookings from the country club again - this was the third time it had happened in a month. All of the other players walked out as well.

The only other annoying thing I can think of was when audience members, some very drunk, walked up and began talking to me as if I were not singing or playing, despite the fact they could see my fingers on the keyboard and my lips moving. More often than not, they wanted to request a song. I solved this problem by carrying a sheet of paper with me that contained a bunch of songs. I scribbled the titles of the songs on the paper, some in black ink, some in blue, a few in red, and several in pencil. In large print at the top of the page, I typed, place your request at the bottom and when I get through the others on the list I will get to it. Worked like a charm. Sometimes, I actually looked at the song they requested and played, but most of the time, I just never bothered.

Great topic,

Gary