'If he farted they'd clap.'

March 26th – There was a method in the late 18^th/19^th Century that opera singers used in order to bolster failing careers or to intimidate up-an-coming youngsters who were proving to be a threat to the ‘established star’; they were called 'claques'.

The dictionary description of claques is:

‘A group of people hired to applaud (or heckle) a performer or public speaker – a group of sycophantic followers’

This came from the practice of paying members of an audience for their support at the Paris opera. But then, that’s opera for you; peopled by vocalists who believe they are of a higher value than anyone else and surrounded by other people who tell them they are. One would have thought this rough and ready ego-stroke had become outdated; not a bit of it. There have been several instances in the very recent past of claques attending La Scala in Milan and disturbing a performance with their shouts of encouragement or abuse for various performers to such an extent that fighting often broke out. Maria Callas suffered badly with their comments and booing, with police being called in to help restore order, and missiles being thrown at her during a performance of ‘Anna Bolena’. Even now, the modern tenors, Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti, they all have or had their devotees, fans who thought they could do no wrong, followed them everywhere and staunchly defended their territory of particular arias:

“Well, yes, Peter, but that’s opera and we all know what a bunch of twinkle-twerps they can be because you've already said so. Never happens in the rock world.”

Well, yes to the first…and no to the second…

There are all sorts of tricks that happen in the rock music world, particularly when you’re touring in a showcase of two or three bands, one of which is, inevitably, ‘the headline act’. Alteration of the sound mixing desk settings carefully arrived at in the sound check just before one band or the other goes on; fewer speakers or less stage room being available to the support acts; only basic lighting allowed for the support acts; re-orientation of critical bits of supposedly shared kit…a ruse often perpetrated on the drummer in the band was to find, with all of twenty seconds to go to the start of his band's set, that the kik drum rim is now loose... All of these things are calque-ing by another name. Modern support bands do it today in a round-about way by selling tickets to their friends in the hope that the venue is packed for them then empties when their set is over, therefore embarrassing the headline act. Trouble is ALL the bands on the bill do this so the main winner is the venue owner in the form of bar takings.

On this day in 1966, a band called ‘The Strangeurs’ whose front man was Steve Tyler (later of ‘Aerosmith’) opened for the ‘Byrds’ and they arranged for a gaggle of girls to sit in the front row and scream for them. It was all unnecessary as the crowd went nuts for them (because girls do that sort of thing) and ‘The Strangeurs’ outstayed their welcome by four songs (bet the ‘Byrds’ were thrilled at this). But it just goes to show, in almost any branch of the entertainment industry, when egos and competition come in the front door fair-play and honest integrity goes out the window…