I remember one incident that sums up my method of dealing with troublemakers for better or worse. At the end of the night a guy came up to me and I thought he was going to say "I enjoyed the music" or something. Instead, the guy said something like "you guys don't know a C chord from F." After I got done telling him off (he was smaller than me), he apologized and left. My friend in the band, whose philosophy of life is like Uncle Dave's, was mortified.

The guy unknowingly got his revenge when he returned the following week. He was seated with three or four bigger guys. I was convinced that he had brought back some friends to inflict a beating on me at the end of the night. I was looking over my shoulder the whole time I was packing up but the expected problem never materialized. I realized that the guy was probably drunk when he insulted me and likely had forgotten the whole thing.