Five times awful rock audiences improved live recordings

Few things in life bum me out more than having a show by a band I love ruined by a jerky audience. (Looking at you, dude who loudly sang along with every Bonnie "Prince" Billy song at Logan Square Auditorium. You too, drunk bros who heckled Cloud Cult at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds last summer. And don't get me started on every crowd with whom I've seen Wilco.) I have to admit, though, that sometimes a poorly behaved audience can help to create some memorable music moments. Most of the time that doesn't become evident until after the fact, but when it does it can be something kind of special. Here are a handful of occasions when boorish, clueless or just plain inexplicable crowd conduct yielded historic (or at least momentarily pretty cool) results.

Antagonistic New Yorkers at a Lou Reed show

Take No Prisoners is the rare concert album that puts as much emphasis on the banter as it does the music, and for good reason. This is a perfect pairing of Lou Reed and a hometown New York City crowd circa 1978. Both are cranky, combative and ready to start swinging at a moment’s notice, but only one has quick wits and a microphone. The running narrative of the album reveals that Lou showed up late for the set, giving the crowd plenty of time to get drunk and resentful. New Yorkers, if you aren’t aware, don’t have a reputation for dealing with disappointment quietly.

There are too many incredible interactions for me to enumerate here, but a few highlights include Lou threatening to stop singing until everybody shuts up (the crowd calls his bluff), Lou demonstrating to a heckler how easily he can be drowned out with guitar feedback, and Lou pre-emptively quoting Yeats at the interlopers: “‘The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with a passion and intensity.’ Now you figure out where I am.”

The best part is that most of this isn’t between-song banter - Lou’s fighting the crowd right smack in the middle of his songs, and neither he nor his band ever misses a beat. Heck, the opening track alone, a splendidly greasy, eight-minute rendition of “Sweet Jane,” yields a tour's worth of memorable quotes:

• “You ever put a quarter in those machines, man? Y’know, like the bear that plays basketball… I guess they never put a quarter in me, huh?”
• “Where were you on the list when they called you for Vietnam?”
• “We’re just here to make out. You bend over, we’ll put the head in. You don’t like it, then we’ll talk about it.”
• “Fuck Radio Ethiopia, man, I’m Radio Brooklyn. I ain’t no snob, man.”
• “If you write as good as you talk, nobody reads you.”
• And of course, a vicious “SHUT UP, YOU!” wedged seamlessly into the “Villains always blink their eyes” segment.

Some of the annoyance is doubtless genuine, but at the same time Lou clearly relishes the back-and-forth and the songs crackle with nervous energy. Any which way, it makes for some compelling listening.

Stage-diving Nazi punk at an SNFU show

In 1991 venerable Canadian punks SNFU put out their purported farewell album Last of the Big Time Suspenders, a mix of rarities and live cuts that serves as a solid document of what turned out to be the band’s mid-life rather than its finale. Near the end of their atypically anthemic cover of Eddie Money’s outlaw ballad “Gimme Some Water,” lead singer Ken Chinn stops singing for a beat to point out “That asshole jumping off the stage is wearing a swastika on his t-shirt, obviously too young to understand the serious connotations of such a fuckin’ stupid thing.” There’s a brief pause while the audience begins to buzz, then Chinn launches right back into the chorus. The electricity of the moment is undeniable. You almost feel sorry for the dimwitted Nazi kid getting his ass handed to him so succinctly, but mostly you just want to cheer on Ken Chinn’s righteous indignation.

Unruly Englishmen at the Isle of Wight Festival

The infamous 1970 Isle of Wight Festival has long been a standard-bearer for badly behaved audiences. Reports vary on what exactly caused the crowd's discontent and on exactly how ugly the scene really was, but by most accounts a bunch of angry young Brits made life miserable for everyone assembled for good chunks of the festival. The crowd was especially hard on several acts who had the temerity not to rock. Joni Mitchell famously told the audience they were “acting like tourists” before breaking down in tears and leaving the stage.

Kris Kristofferson took a different tack, responding to the deafening boos with his trademark laconic acidity. Kristofferson sounds both exasperated and amused as he assures the crowd that nothing short of rifle fire will stay his musicians from making their appointed rounds. His band, playing what was only their fourth gig, then ambles into a particularly low-key rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee.” There aren’t many contexts where Kristofferson’s classic sketch of lost love and misspent youth could be taken as an act of passive-aggressive defiance, but that’s absolutely what it is here. Punctuated by the songwriter’s parting bird-flip to the crowd, it’s a perfect rebuttal to a bunch of ingrates.

Ironic loudmouths at Built to Spill shows

Built to Spill is the kind of band that tends to take a little time between songs, largely because they’re top-flight musicians who care about sounding their best on every number. Unfortunately, plenty of concert goers interpret pauses in the set as an invitation to yell out song requests, and anyone who’s been to a show in the past four decades knows that means someone’s gonna yell out “Freebird.” During their 2001 tour, the band opted to respond to that ubiquitous holler by going ahead and playing “Freebird.” And not just a tease or a sarcastic nod - the whole damn song, note for note. As a guy who unabashedly loves both Built to Spill and “Freebird,” getting to see that live stands as an all-time highlight of my concert-going career.

Devil Girl at a Rolling Stones show

I don’t know how close to the stage the young lady captured on the Get Yer Ya-Yas Out! album could have been standing, but her voice comes through clearly enough that she almost seems to have a mic of her own. And what a voice it is: flat, toneless, devoid of passion yet somehow frighteningly insistent. “Paint it black,” she drones. “‘Paint it black. Paint it black, you devil. Paint it black.” 



Now, you might think she’s just requesting her favorite Rolling Stones song, but there’s a grim imperative in her delivery that convinces me that she’s actually demanding that the devil (which could be any of the Stones, but I presume to be Mick Jagger because c’mon) paint the intangible “it” black. The Stones pay her no mind, although they do break into a spectacularly inspired rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil.” Her spooky doggedness is perfectly in keeping with what was simultaneously one of the band's darkest and brightest periods. (The performances captured on Get Yer Ya-Yas Out took place just weeks before the Stones' fateful Altamont concert.) The woman is never heard from again. I understand some fan journal tracked her down a while back, but I'd rather not learn the details of her real-life existence. As a mystery interloper on a classic performance, she’s one of my favorite people ever.

"Bird is the word" or "Lord knows we can't change"

It’s impossible to make an objective statement about what is funny. Humor is perhaps the very definition of a subjective topic, an unknowable abstract with as many interpretations as there are human beings. There are, however, some things which can be definitively declared not funny. Among these I would include certain diseases, various human-on-human atrocities and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. And, of course, yelling “Freebird!” at a concert.

The latter is an especially curious case. It is possible to imagine a time when yelling “Freebird!” at a concert may have been amusing, given the proper context. Say you were in the crowd at a Roberta Flack show in 1975 and some wise guy took advantage of a long pause between deeply felt acoustic ballads to holler a sardonic request for “Freebird.” In that setting, the irony of his suggestion may have been enough to provoke a titter or two. After all, Ms. Flack is a very different kind of artist than Lynyrd Skynyrd. The notion of her performing a Southern-style electric guitar anthem, particularly one of such recent vintage, would have been patently absurd.

But it is no longer 1975, and very few of us are currently attending Roberta Flack concerts. (Though not for lack of trying – get that booking agent of yours in gear, Roberta!) Whatever novelty there once was in yelling “Freebird!” at a concert has long since faded away. And yet the yellers persist, not to be swayed by obsolescence or standards of civility. At any reasonably well-attended rock show, especially one at which alcohol is served, shouts of “Freebird!” are almost as inevitable as getting stuck standing next to a jaded guy in a tight t-shirt who spends half the set explaining to his friends how the band isn’t nearly as tight as the time three years ago when he saw them play to a tiny audience in a sketchy dive bar in downtown Austin. Any time a show is lagging, or just when you’ve reached the point in the evening where all the morons start yelling unsolicited requests from the back catalog, you’re going to hear “Freebird!”

I understand the thinking behind yelling “Freebird!” at a concert. It’s an instantly identifiable, solo-heavy song popularized by a band whose music is frequently enjoyed by a demographic that many music aficionados think of as socially inferior. Trouble is, it also kicks major ass.

I am an unashamed lover of “Freebird.” From the bleeding, mournful opening guitar lick to the broken weariness of Ronnie Van Zandt’s vocal to the five-minute frenzy of dueling guitars, it’s a masterpiece of ‘70s album rock. In a just world, “Freebird” would be just as revered by the cognoscenti as any of Pink Floyd’s broody soundscapes or Led Zeppelin’s derivative caterwauling. Instead, for reasons that probably have as much to do with Yankee disdain for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Southern heritage and good ole boy image as with actual musical merit, it’s become a punchline without a joke.

I’ve seen artists have a lot of disparate reactions to shouts of “Freebird!” Most of them simply ignore it. Some get upset – I once saw Eels front man E stop the show to eviscerate a heckler with something along the lines of “‘Ooh, I’m gonna go to an Eels show and yell ‘Freebird’ at the band!’ That’s awfully fucking clever, asshole.” Some put their own spin on it – David Cross used to have a bit in his stand-up act where he’d present an award to an audience member who he dubbed the one-millionth asshole to yell “Freebird” during a performance. But by far the best reaction I’ve ever seen came from Built to Spill, who simply played “Freebird” note-for-note, beginning to end. It was a thrilling performance that I suspect was wasted on much of the audience. I wish more artists – Roberta Flack, say – would take that approach. There is no shortage of people I’d love to hear covering this song, though I guess that would just make matters worse by inspiring a non-stop barrage of “Freebird!” shouts at every concert everywhere.

I suppose it’s sort of a compliment that “Freebird” has spent 30 years as the go-to song for guys who love to yell things. You would think that over that span of time, another ironic hard rock anthem would have emerged to take its place. If it was me up on stage, I know I’d be much more insulted to hear someone bellowing “Every Rose Has Its Thorn!” at me, or “Nookie!” or “Whatever the Name of That Godawful Kid Rock Song That Mashes Up ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Werewolves of London’ Is!”

But for the time being, “Freebird” endures as the popular favorite. If anything is going to kill it off, it may be that very popularity. “Freebird!” has been yelled long enough and loud enough to push it well past cliché status. People are still yelling it, to be sure, but lately they’re more likely to be met with a groan and an eye-roll than a polite chuckle. Maybe things really are changing for the better, or maybe audiences are just all laughed-out from guys yelling “More cowbell!” That one’s never going to get old!

- Ira Brooker

(Photo courtesy of this dude.)