And the crowd goes… WTF????

When will I learn to trust my intuition? You know, I don’t have a clue when a show is going to be transcendent, but I can smell a train wreck a mile away, and while I have this gift, I seem always too willing to get on the train.

That was a “run on” sentence, and it’s part of my well-established style.

I received an IM a while back for a dude named Qwertybob Haystack (Ohhh naming names) who informed me he got my name from a Billboard at the Jam Shack. That should have been enough red flags for me to just walk away then. The Jam Shack has become a zoo. People seem interested in doing everything but listen to music there. It is a venue I never want to see again and won’t after my current run is over. But I digress.

Let’s talk about Qwertybob.

First off, he booked me for the 23rd, and had my appearance listed as the 25th on his placard. It seemed somehow he was sure I was playing the 25th and was not even online when I got there.

My notices were already out and people where already showing up. Luckily I could change the parcel media with the group tag. More half-ass venue owners need to give this power to performers. If you aren’t going to show up, at least the show can go on.

I put out my tip jar, and a pretty decent crowd is popping in. Go to change the media URL and can’t do it. I did check and could do it beforehand. Seems you can’t change media from the stage, you have to get off the stage, fly over the barrier, and change the media settings from the audience. And why the hell is there a barrier? Is he afraid people are going to rush the stage?

Anyway, the show gets underway, a pretty good crowd for a new venue is having a good time and about four songs in, Qwertybob shows up. He informs he needs to address the audience from “The Mic”. I’m not sure what he means by that. Does he need the stream back? Is he going to use voice chat? It seems he just wants to get onstage and type. But there is a make believe mic on stage.

The odd thing is, the only person to crash on stage was Qwertybob himself. The barrier didn’t even slow him down. SECURITY!!!!!

He made some “Glad to have you out” type comments and vanished from the stage. I don’t know why the hell he felt the need to stop the show to make these comments from “The Mic”. From the haze of my confusion, it’s time for me to get things back on track. I look out in the audience say hello to a few of my regular supporters, and see POL Arida in the back. I mention him by name, and comment he’s the best singer/songwriter in Second life and if you have not seen him yet you are missing a treat.

I kick in to Johnny Boy, and POL goes poof. About mid way through the song I get an IM from POL, and figure I’ll read it after the song. Shortly after I get the IM I see Qwertybob whining about how the venue has only gotten 100L$ in tips so far. I’m thinking, “Yeah that is a good way to encourage people to tip the venue. Bitch about how cheap they are”. New venues just don’t get big crowds or big tips. Most of the established venues don’t make much in tips. The fact venue owners’ pay so much out of pocket is one of the reasons I don’t charge them a fee.

Anyway, the song ends and I read POL message. And it seems he’s been ejected from the venue. I’m thinking what the fuck? And as I think that I say, “POL has been ejected” into the mic.

A good number of the audience members are POL fans. Natasha checks the “About land” section and find that POL has not just been ejected, but actually banned from the parcel.

Things get ugly really fast. People are saying what the fuck and frankly I don’t know why he was ejected and banned. I’m quite pissed off my own self because POL is one of the few Musicians I count among my friends in Second Life. I even made a point to identify him as the premier singer/songwriter in Second Life and Qwertybob still banned him.

I was ready to bail. But that would not really be fair. While I was quite upset, people had come to hear my music and it would be wrong of me to show disrespect to them while attempting to display my displeasure with Qwertybob.

I did play the remainder of the hour, mentioning I would not be playing Qwertybob’s venue ever again and asking people to refrain from tipping the venue.

After the show was over, I got a message from POL explaining what had happened.

POL Arida: hey sorry what happened there...well not sure actually. I was given a dance to do for your Johnny Boy last night and triggered it...I did not think it had music and tried to stop, but they guy said stop....and within 5 secs I was Piff OUT. I did then say he was a fucking egocentric prat and that I was trying to stop it, but he just said fuck off basically. Not a nice person. Anyway, you meet these people and I hope it did not fuck up your gig.

So the entire unpleasant incident could have been avoided if Qwertybob just took a moment to find out what the situation was instead of pulling the trigger. POL was responding to the show and “River dancing” to Johnny boy. That is what I invite people to do and he didn’t know the animation had a sound track. POL realized his mistake immediately, but had to wait for the animation to run its course. Qwertybob’s mistake was acting in haste and basically engendering a good deal of Hostilities towards himself and his venue.