I put the Macc Lads on at the Glasgow Barrowland in 1990. I didn't know anything about them at the time - the agency were offering them at a reasonable rate and it seemed likely the gig would run at a profit.
The crowd that turned up was almost 100% blokes, with quite a few would-be little hardmen among them. The lead singer started the ball rolling with the following 'joke':
"What do you call a nigger with no bones? A wetsuit."
This was met with cheers. From then on the gig atmosphere was tense and hostile. It felt that quite a few of the audience had come looking for an opportunity to fight and the Macc Lads were happy to play to this. The female bar staff became nervous and two asked to come off the bar and work in the beer cellar instead. They weren't happy with some of the songs and the singer's remarks, stuff about women being slags, 'we want some crack' and so on, nor with the unpleasant attitudes of some of the punters when ordering drinks.
Eventually the inevitable happened and the first fight kicked off but was quickly broken up. Then a second fight, in which someone had most of his ear bitten off. I had the good fortune of finding the missing part of the lobe on the floor and put it in an icebucket, thinking maybe the hospital could sew it back on. 'That's you just bought a new pair of spectacles too!' one of the bouncers thoughtfully told the unlucky victim, as he sat with a towel pressed against his head.
All told, the Macc Lads were shit and it was a shit night.
