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🕑 Added 2024-01-11 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
CHICAGO — An uneasy crowd braced for a long night at a local club after once popular ‘90s alt rock band Wheat Pigs opened their set with their biggest hit, annoyed attendees have reported.
“My husband and I were excited for exactly 15 seconds into the show when it dawned on me that ‘Pigs Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered’ was their only hit. I don’t think anyone here could name another song after their first album, but these guys are clearly plowing ahead,” said attendee Regina Wilson. “I just wanted a casual evening of late ‘90s nostalgia, and now I’m supposed to stand through 70 minutes of half-assed retreads and crap from their electronica phase? But we already paid the babysitter for the whole night, so I guess we’re stuck here.”
It did not take long after the opening of the set for the band to realize they made a grave miscalculation.
“Every county fair and nostalgia festival for the last 15 years people are always yelling out that damn song from the start, so we figured tonight we were giving the people what they wanted. After all we’ve had like nine albums since 1995, we assumed some people in the audience had heard them. Apparently not,” said lead singer Johnny ‘Swine’ Baker. “I mean why not hype up the crowd to stretch that energy across 12 deep cuts and a late career Ramones cover. How else could we get people out to commemorate the 25th anniversary of our maligned second album?”
Gavin Newell, who has booked dozens of shows for alt rock legacy acts, stated that his biggest priority is to avoid this exact situation.
“Every smart has-been band knows you’re not supposed to blow your wad right out of the gate with your biggest hit, unless you want the crowd to leave immediately after. I told these guys to at least hold out until halfway through or better yet at the very end of their set, now I have the club owner up my ass about non-existent liquor sales. I told Stroke 9 the same thing when they opened with ‘Little Black Backpack’ and they ended their set playing to just the janitor,” said Newell. “The trick is to tease the crowd for as long as possible, and maybe impose a four drink minimum to get them through the lesser-known shit without having to block the exits.”
As of press time, the crowd was seen running for the door after the band announced the encore would be entirely new music.
Article by Ben Friedman.
Comments
Jeremy _
Going to be honest: Live music sucks. It sucked a little when bands decided it would be cool to set the volume to 10, became even less cool when they set it to 11 and now in my experience live music is now set at volume 28 and, well... Seriously, musicians decided at some that the only way worth performing is with the entire audience absolutely face-front, fully engaged with them, not even able to talk to each other at a strong shout or have a drink.
