Drove out to The Circle "A" Ranch to see Johnny Thunders with DL, with her nephew G Jr meeting us there.
The doors took forever to open, then the wait for any band to play seemed like an eternity. The vibe was pretty bad even before any music started.
For a line-up, we had Joe Christ and the Healing Faith, the Nervebreakers, and then Thunders.
The opening bands were terrible.
Then we waited forever for Thunders to come out.
When he did, he played (I can't remember the order) Gloria and Pipeline, and they sounded great - real energy. But, then he went acoustic, and by the time he was warbling through Joey Joey Joey by Dylan, a heckler in the crowd was "getting" to Thunders.
After some words, back and forth, another song began but the audience member threw a beer can at Thunders, hitting him in the head or chest (from my vantage point).
Thunders tried to "threaten" the heckler, and somehow, he sort of tumbled or fell, off the stage into the crowd. I couldn't really see what happened too well, but it didn't seem as though Thunders really had it together enough to do anything.
Somehow, the headliner was returned to the stage, and tried to play again, but by this time, we had enough and left. I recall a good many patrons filing out with us as well.
Of all the shows I have seen, this was by far the most disappointing, and easily the worst performance I have ever seen. I had figured it was a risk paying anything to see this performer at this point in time, and my first indication was to leave as we were stuck outside way past 11 p.m. before we even got into the place. Like a fool, I waited around, and ended up further disappointed.
I did not place all the blame on Thunders though. I faulted the Circle "A" Ranch as well, and when Sonic Youth was playing there shortly after the Thunders show I decided there was no-way I would tackle that frustration again, standing outside Deep Ellum all night-long before entering toilet of a club.
