How to Heckle Properly and Embarrass Yourself

Heckling a musical act, or some other form of live entertainment, seems to a popular choice of activity for the modern day douchebag, although most have little or no skill in that particular field, offering only a quick dig at the performing individual (or individuals) before making themself scarce, or an intended wit that usually displays as much originally as shouting "play Freebird!". However, tonight, I may have been in the presence of a genius of the art.

Of course, even beastiality and televangelism has its geniuses. But sadly, it is common nature that, unlike music, sex, or backgammon, for example, the better you are at these particular practices, the more embarrassed you stand to become.

I was at the Royal Concert Hall, the event being Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet, performing numbers from his album The Juliet Letters, and classical arrangements of other songs, including a wonderful version of the Dubliners song On Raglan Road. But not everyone thought it was so wonderful.

After a couple of numbers, Elvis began to introduce the next song, when a lone voice piped up from the seats up top, talking adjacently to Elvis before he noticed the heckler, and stopped to listen. Now, it was hard to understand quite everything this woman was saying due a strong, possibly alcohol fueled Glasgow accent - Elvis joked later that "I think she was Norwegian" - but the gist of it was that she had paid for a ticket to see Elvis Costello, the rock musician, not a classic concert. Around this time, the rest of the crowd started heckling the heckler, obviously less patient about the matter than Costello, and an usher came over to tell her to be quiet. Funnier still that even when her companions tried to silence her (I'm pretty sure I even saw one attempt to physically cover her mouth), she persisted, showing less signs of shutting the hell up for the greater good than Morrissey.

The ushers then closed in to ush her out, and sensing (correctly) that she would probably be heard until she was physcally out of the building, Elvis and the band started the next song, which at least dampened her complaining, although it could still be heard over the music until she was ejected. End of song, and Elvis returned to what he had tried to say before the previous song, which turned out to be a joke about advice from his father.

After the interval, he confessed that he couldn't really get his head round what had made the woman believe she was going to see a rock concert. "Seeing 'The Brodsky Quartet' on the poster," he noted, "of course, you're going to think of death metal." He dedicated another song to "our dearly departed", and before the encore announced that it had "been a pleasure to play for all of you".

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable concert, despite whatever our "Norwegian" friend may have thought. As an aside, Elvis finished the final encore, bowed and left the stage to mostly seated applause. The audience then got to their feet to collect their jackets and whatnot, before Elvis and the quartet came back out for a final bow. Well, I guess that's one way of always getting a standing ovation.

Ciao for now.