How I was responsible for a San Francisco club shutting down for good.This was around 1994 and we went to see the band Jaw Breaker in the Mission district. We had seen them many times before and were friends of friends of the band. There was a weird vibe about the night from the get-go. Jaw Breaker was a bay area punk band that was gaining popularity, which is actually a bad thing in the punk world. Frat boys had begun to attend their shows as a way to work out some testosterone filled aggression or something.
The club was like a scene out of The Outsiders, except instead of the Greasers and the Socs, it was the Punks and the Frats. This made for a static atmosphere. To make matters worse, the bass player�s girlfriend had just broken up with him and she was at the show by the front of the stage crying and singing the words to all their songs. He was visibly upset and kept yelling at her from the stage to please leave, but she just kept crying and dancing.
My enjoyment of the show was tainted by this asshole jock that was being disruptive and shitty to everyone around him. After a few songs, my annoyance was turning into pissed-off fury. For some reason I got it into my head that I would enact revenge on this fuck head; my master plan was to take the sweatshirt he had tied around his waist. I figured I could somehow pull it off without him noticing, since he must have been drunk or seriously stupid to be acting that way. I grabbed hold of his sweatshirt and gave a tug, but nothing happened. It did not occur to me that it was double knotted, so I gave another tug, this time a lot more forceful. The guy felt the violent yank on his sweatshirt and immediately turned to accost someone else entirely. He thought it was the guy next to me, who was actually a peace-nik bike messenger. He started yelling at this innocent person who began yelling back. The frat fuck shoved the other guy and the next thing I knew a fight was breaking out. It spread like wild fire and people just started punching each other all around the club. The band started yelling and then immediately jumped in to the crowd and started throwing their own punches. It was total mayhem.
I stood there, frozen with panic wondering what the hell I should do. All of a sudden one man took a beer bottle and smashed it over the head of another man. He fell to the floor in a pool of blood and everyone just stopped in a freeze frame. The fight was over, the show was over and the club shut down, never to open again. Another club opened in its wake a half a year later. I believe it is called Club Kilowatt.