Put Up Your Dukes

Hilotrons did a show at the Manx last Monday night. I was really looking forward to it, cause there was going to be a whack of new material and some covers of songs I really like.

Now I like the Manx. But I am not a huge fan of seeing shows there. It's a nice cozy venue and all, but anyone sitting stage left can't really see the band. This leads to a lot of talking, even if the Stage Lefties are there specifically to see said band.

But at least it's a bunch of people murmuring, so it's mostly white noise. Annoying, but not interfering so much.

Then these guys come in. Three guys in suits, drunk, "on a pub crawl", Suit 2 slurrily announces to Suit 1 and Suit 3. If you frequent the Manx, you've already got this memory buried in your brain. They were cleaned up frat boys, thinking that the Manx was just another Elgin Street pick up bar.

But they weren't there to pick anyone up.

The HLT launch into a cover of the Snailhouse gem God Created Monsters. You can't hardly hear it, the white noise and the Suits' bray above that. The Beard stops the song, says "You all shut the fuck up for this song, it's quiet. It's my favourite song by Mike Feuerstack."

Most people shut the fuck up. This just makes the suits louder in comparison, like they overshot their conversation into the gap between songs. Yknow, except for the song actually playing and all.

My blood pressure rises, I can see people around me giving the Suits dirty looks. Something needs to be done - we're not even a minute in to the song. Why should my enjoyment of this be wrecked by someone else's rudeness? In a move utterly unusual for me, I stand up, lean over the table and say "Hey." at them. They don't hear me. I yell "Hey!" at them, and that gets their attention, 6 bleary eyes on me. "Wanna keep it down for two minutes? I'm trying to listen to this song."

I bit the words off pretty short, so it wasn't quite as polite as that quote would have it, and it's possible there might have been some finger pointing going on.

Quite a scene. They were all pissed cause they were drunk and felt I was disrespecting them after they'd been to the funeral of Suit 1's grampa. They got a bit up in my face about it and I felt weird and on display and trembly. My face stayed bright red and my hands shook for ages. People congratulated me and teased me for the rest of the night. Teased in a nice way.

Why should it be so hard to ask someone to keep it down? It's endemic. Asking people at a movie, or the neighbours upstairs to be quiet requires minutes of steeling oneself. How is it that a bunch of people came up to me and said, "Yeah, I wanted to say something, thanks for doing that"? Are we that afraid of even little confrontations?

My pounding heart said yes.