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We Can Make It Better


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Tonight's event's should go unspoken, but this is not the case. I thank the band and those of us that can put this past us. If this childish behavior continues, we might not ever get to experience live music again, do you really want to see live music behind a bubble? A reality check needs to be taken, you're fucking this whole thing up for the ones who really deserve be there. I thank Jeff and you fellow VC'ers for standing your ground, together through music we can change the world!

 

Thank you...............Donna, Miss Chris, and Edie

 

 

We Can Make It Better

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Thanks, Oceanman, and let's just add that, as an audience and their band, we DID make it better. :yes What a triumphant and joyous ending we had, to one of the most bizarre concert experiences I've ever had! :huh Whoa, what a night.

 

Jeff, Wilco, you continue to amaze and inspire. Tonight's concert was beautiful, and you managed to take lunacy.....skeins and skeins of it!....and weave it into music and love.

 

As we all sang in Jesus Etc, "our love is all we have". :wub

 

I must sleep.....Edie, Chris and I have miles to travel in the early a.m. Concert details will doubtless be forthcoming from others who were in attendance. Jeff, you handled the night beautifully, and band, the concert knocked my socks off. I still haven't found the blamed things.... :P

 

Glenn, that is one kickass solo in LNGCA! :thumbup

 

Now let's all get a good night's sleep, and maybe tomorrow it won't still be a full moon.....or whatever it was....! :stunned

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this is what someone posted over on the flaming lips board that frequent at a lot more:

 

"so i went to see wilco monday night in springfield, mo. during the first encore, some drunken frat boy jumps on stage and starts doing the "look at me, i'm on stage" dance. jeff tweedy kinda gave him a "not cool" look but kept singing. then the guy put his hand on jeff's head like he was going to whisper something to him, and to my suprise, nice guy, folk singer, jeff tweedy, punched this guy right in the fucking face! finaly security came out and got the guy. the cool thing was jeff didn't pull and axl rose (scream at the audience and leave). he calmly explained he didn't want to do that but, it's scary when some nut jumps on stage. then he picked up where he left off and finished the song. very cool.

 

i personaly wish he had continued beating the guy on stage until someone begged him to stop. after the dimebag darrel incident, anyone who approches a band on stage should know better."

 

:blink

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???

 

Tugmoose, the very very brief story is this: in addition to drunken & aggressive people in the audience, one of whom Jeff had to deal with early in the concert from stage's edge, there were also two separate incidents of audience members walking/jumping onstage in the middle of the band performing songs. (Two different songs!)

 

It was pretty freaky, to say the least, and the second one, a guy, put his hands on Jeff, and Jeff understandably went off on the guy's drunken, fool ass. (no serious damage to anyone) I'd've killed him if it had been me, and I think everyone in the audience felt pretty much the same.

 

Where the hell was security??? :realmad

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this is what was posted over on the flaming lips board that i post at a lot more:

 

"so i went to see wilco monday night in springfield, mo. during the first encore, some drunken frat boy jumps on stage and starts doing the "look at me, i'm on stage" dance. jeff tweedy kinda gave him a "not cool" look but kept singing. then the guy put his hand on jeff's head like he was going to whisper something to him, and to my suprise, nice guy, folk singer, jeff tweedy, punched this guy right in the fucking face! finaly security came out and got the guy. the cool thing was jeff didn't pull and axl rose (scream at the audience and leave). he calmly explained he didn't want to do that but, it's scary when some nut jumps on stage. then he picked up where he left off and finished the song. very cool.

 

i personaly wish he had continued beating the guy on stage until someone begged him to stop. after the dimebag darrel incident, anyone who approches a band on stage should know better."

 

:blink

 

Some serious inaccuracies in that report.....no face-punching occurred. Jeff handled it with real class after the initial freaky get-this-lunatic-off-me natural reaction.

 

It all happened very quickly. Kind of surreal. Jeff just wanted to sing "Airline to Heaven".

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You know.....please don't label every idiot male as a frat boy. I'm one, and I'm pretty doggone respectful at shows.

:blush

 

to be fair, no one on this board made that comment, they were quoting someone from a different board.

 

Sorry you guys had to have a show interupted, but glad you guys still had fun!

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You know.....please don't label every idiot male as a frat boy. I'm one, and I'm pretty doggone respectful at shows.

:blush

 

 

which makes me wonder, WAS he a drunken frat guy? :P Im somewhat trepidatious about the crowd composition at WVU, where they feature not only drunken frat boys but also a crazed football culture.

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So this guy in a Son Volt t-shirt lunged at Tweedy with a bowie knife. Jeff reached in his pocket, pulled out one of Jay Bennett's dreadlocks and strangles the dude with it while bludgening the dude's buddy, a Warner Brothers executive, with Pat Sansome. Here's a clip.

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What was wrong with it was that it was the last incident of several that securuty failed to take care of. Wilco acted as their own security three different times during the show, and those of us on the floor had to act as security at least twice. I really have never experienced anything like it.

 

The dude jumped up during a song, put his hands on Jeff's face and yanked on his head as if to kiss him. It was creepy as hell. I felt violated watching it, and as I said, it was the last of several breeches of the night.

 

The band are pros. And Tweedy was a hero to a couple of teenagers last night.

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There is certainly something amusing in the fact that the security weren't there to 'protect' the band from this guy, and then ultimately it's this guy who could've done with some secutity himself to protect him from the band. I wonder at what point, in his mind, it changed from him thinking it'd be fun to get up on stage and touch/kiss jeff tweedy to him suddenly realising perhaps he shouldn't be doing this? I assume he won't be doing that again, anyway.

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"OK here's the deal: You guys have to stay down there, or this thing won't work out." I was so shocked when I saw Jeff manhandling that guy, and it was pretty scary too. I thought the show was really great other than that low point. Pretty cool venue as well.

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Some serious inaccuracies in that report.....no face-punching occurred.

:(

 

I was thinking that was the coolest Wilco concert report ever.

 

The band should hire someone to come up and be stupid and then give him a serious beat down so that word of their belligerence will cause people to stay off the stage. Maybe it could be a nightly thing, kind of like a rock 'n roll version of Bez.

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I really have no problem with Jeff Tweedy hitting/man handling (or whatever he did) a drunk person who gets up on stage or telling some drunk in the crowd to cut it out, or even someone getting punched in the crowd because they are acting drunk, or any such thing. All that is totally fair enough to me. If you act like a prick to people then you deserve to be punched. But, it is just an annoyance, nothing more than that. It's simply a distraction from what's going on up on the stage, but so is someone singing the words in your ear, or shouting for their favourite song, or dancing on your toes - these things aren't security risks even though they infringe on my personal space. These people aren't doing it to piss me off, they are doing it because that is what they do in those situations, just like the guy that got up on stage. He's a stage-getter-upper-a, and that's what he does. He'll probably do it another band's concert and the crowd will all cheer in unison and his heart will soar like a bird.

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:lol

 

Someone sings loud in my ear it is an annoyance. Someone puts their uninvited hands on me it is a security breech.

 

You can't see the difference there?

 

Well yeah, there is a difference. The uninvited hands mean I can still hear the music I went to see, unless they put them over my ears - then I'd be pissed.

 

It's a bit like someone you don't know in a bar coming up to you because they are drunk and hugging you and giving you a kiss on the cheek, compared to someone soberly coming up to you and hugging and kissing you because they want to violate you in some way or other. There is a massive difference. This guy hasn't invented jumping on stage, you know many people have done it before him, and the reason they do it is to get up there and have a dance and touch the person they've gone to see - not to violate the singer in some way or other.

 

I personally find it ridiculous that anyone would want to hang around after a gig and shake the band's hands and have their picture taken with them as though they are some attraction that you have to be photographed with simply to prove that you were actually there. That want to do that comes from the same place as this drunken guys misadventures, but the band accepts people doing that, so it's ok - other bands don't. I am not saying they should not have a right to choose what they do or don't do with their fans, because of course they should have that right, my point is that this person is being viewed like some sort of criminal freak security threat rather than someone who fucked off a lead singer in a band who was trying to just put on a music show. Nothing more.

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Well yeah, there is a difference. The uninvited hands mean I can still hear the music I went to see, unless they put them over my ears - then I'd be pissed.

 

It's a bit like someone you don't know in a bar coming up to you because they are drunk and hugging you and giving you a kiss on the cheek, compared to someone soberly coming up to you and hugging and kissing you because they want to violate you in some way or other. There is a massive difference. This guy hasn't invented jumping on stage, you know many people have done it before him, and the reason they do it is to get up there and have a dance and touch the person they've gone to see - not to violate the singer in some way or other.

 

I personally find it ridiculous that anyone would want to hang around after a gig and shake the band's hands and have their picture taken with them as though they are some attraction that you have to be photographed with simply to prove that you were actually there. That want to do that comes from the same place as this drunken guys misadventures, but the band accepts people doing that, so it's ok - other bands don't. I am not saying they should not have a right to choose what they do or don't do with their fans, because of course they should have that right, my point is that this person is being viewed like some sort of criminal freak security threat rather than someone who fucked off a lead singer in a band who was trying to just put on a music show. Nothing more.

 

 

I can't really tell by your post if you are trying to empathize with the guy that went up on stage or chastising those that are making a big deal out of it (including Jeff Tweedy). If you are trying to get inside this guy's head and figure out why he thought it was fine to be an ass, I can sort of buy that - if you are saying that Jeff and others are overreacting by punching the guy or thinking he was a threat - well, I have a really difficult time buying that.

 

Your analogy or example is pretty poor. First, Jeff is not just another guy at a bar subjecting himself to physical contact with the patrons. He is performing and most (obviously not all) people at a concert are there to listen and focus on the band. Second, Jeff and his band do not receive every penny that we pay for our tickets. Part of the assumption is that the venue is going to provide security and safety measures so the band can do what they are being paid to do - perform their music with hopefully minimal distractions from the audience. Third, standing up on stage with lights glaring at you from all angles can be a very vulnerable position. Fourth, I don't buy for a single second that intoxication should give you a free pass at your actions and display. If I'm at a bar and a stranger attempts to make unwanted physical contact with me, I'm first going to try to be polite or discreet - but if it continues, I feel justified in taking stronger measures. Just because somone is drunk doesn't mean the rest of us have to put up with their behavior when it directly affects us.

 

I also think your whole fans waiting after the concert actually hurts your argument. Being in a band (or being popular) gets you more attention. Most of it is positive, some is negative - someone jumping up on stage during a performance is generally considered negative attention.

 

If you really believe that we're all getting worked up over nothing, I suggest your test out your theory by going to a concert and going up on stage and initiating physical contact with the lead singer. I hope you choose a hip-hop rap concert. Let me know how it goes. :P

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