About 20 years ago, I found myself in a warehouse watching Jonathan Richman do his thing on a large archtop. Since this was 20 years ago, I was drunk and filled with more than my fair share of assholery. During a space between songs, 20-year-ago me yelled “Roadrunner!” in a voice louder than I am capable of these days. The scowls of my fellow audience members indicated that I had done something bad. He did not play “Roadrunner.”
I was, of course, very wrong to do that. The shame I felt after that was sufficient to bring about a rapid change in my attitude toward audience conduct during shows. Cut to last week: me and my partner are sitting in a beautiful theater in Charleston, SC–the very seat of Southern gentility. Some of our favorite musicians are making the magic only they are capable of on stage. Between songs they stop to tune…and then someone in the audience yells the name of one of their songs. After that, the floodgates open. For the rest of the night we were treated to hearing their entire catalog shouted from balcony to orchestra. The musicians did not like this. At all. Such was their professionalism that they did not pack up and leave right there and then.
This loathsome tendency–more often than not fueled by alcohol–did not begin with “Freebird” but it sure was popularized by it. On “One More From The Road,” people heard Lynyrd Skynyrd reward listeners screaming the name of a song by playing it. Thus marked a low point in musician/audience relations. Lest you still operate under the assumption that musicians are flattered that you happen to know the names of their songs, let me disabuse you. They already know you know their songs. That’s why you paid $45 a ticket to come see them. They aren’t flattered. They hate it. It almost always throws them off and all they can do while you are yelling is to stare at the setlist they meticulously prepared before the show. Please don’t let this happen again.
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Live Oak Blues 