This Band Sucks

My brother and I often meet my parents for Friday and Saturday happy hour at a local bar that has always tried too hard, but failed miserably, at being awesome. By bar standards, this place is dead until about the time happy hour ends at 8, and I kind of like it that way. The handful of happy hour people are mostly regulars I know, so I have free reign over the jukebox and pool table.

Part of the reason that this places fails at being awesome is that it books more crappy bands than good. Generally, I could care less. I usually head out of there by 8 or 9, anyway, to avoid the influx of douche that will take up residence for the rest of the evening. It's not uncommon for a band to set up during happy hour, and occasionally the band will tune their instruments and warm up a bit. If the band is good, no worries. If the band sucks, then my happy hour is less than awesome.

During one happy hour, a band set up shortly after the bar opened at 6. This band was not good. In fact, they were quite terrible. So terrible that they needed to warm up for over an hour, only to return and warm up again 2 hours later before they were to perform. Any good song (i.e. song I actually liked) they played was done poorly. The money I put in the jukebox was wasted, it was too loud to carry on a conversation, and the happy hour vibe was "suck."

By the time the band was done warming up, and happy hour was almost over, I decided some retribution was in order. I, in my drunken state, decided that unplugging as many cables as possible from the closest amp would do. The setup in this bar is such that with the stage being raised and up against the general bar area, leaning over to pull a few chords was rather easy. The unplugging process took less than a minute and I kept an open eye to avoid being caught. (Not that I cared about being caught since I wasn't damaging their equipment.) My only regret is that I didn't stick around long enough to see if my handy-work caused a truly embarrassing scene, or if it resulted in some minor confusion that was quickly resolved before they launched into their shitty first set.