You're only as good as your worst Musician

I try hard not to stereotype people based on their looks, and given my past, I think I do a fairly good job of it.

So tonight, when a large African-American male stepped onto the stage in dreadlocks holding an electric violin, I honestly was very intrigued and ready to listen to what I thought might be an interesting performance.

All the previous performers had been fairly ok, so I thought this might be good. He began by playing a few notes for the backup band (drums, sax, 2 guitars, harmonica), to get them to understand his song well enough to jam to it.

Initially when he started playing, I thought that maybe he just needed to warm up and that the song and playing would get better.

Unfortunately, I was very very wrong.

The more he played, the worse it got. At first, it was merely out of tune. Then it progressed into everyone being out of tune (I mean this is a GOOD back up band, so when they were all out of tune it was rather scary). Then things got worse. The guy kept playing, and so the band kept plugging along trying to follow him. As the song progressed, not only was the audience wondering WTF, but you could tell the band was thinking that as well (as they struggled to find the melody with which to harmonize). The guy just kept going as if completely tone deaf (he didn't look drunk or drugged, in case you were wondering), and developed an appalling lack of rhythm, which did not help things with the band at all.

The song went on for over 5 minutes which felt like 5 hours of listing to cats screaming with nails on the chalkboard as backup music. The guy unfortunately had two songs, and this was only the first one.

I've never felt sorrier for a backup band in my life, and I will surely have a deep seated fear of black men with dreadlocks playing violin.