THREAD: This is the story of THE WORST GIG I've EVER done.

NYE 2018. I posted on Facebook about what a fab year I’d had, donned my best lashes and set off for my last gig of the year: singing pop to 80 people at a pub in Essex. Easy, easiest of gigs and paying sweeeet dollar.

I arrived in good time, hair and makeup done, best lashes donned, just needed to set up my PA system and put on my heels. As I brought the PA system in to the pub I noticed odd decour…from the outside this place was a pub. But inside it was like a weird WMC.

There were framed pictures of people called the Grand Master or something, one of the Duke of Kent...it became clear to me that this was not a pub. It was a masonic lodge. This was a gig for freemasons. My heart sank.

I’ve gigged a couple of times for the masons before. You’re made to stand outside the room with your PA system and then come in and set it up when invited in then you sing a 20 minute set while a room full of (always 100% white) men stare. One then sees you out. Such weird gigs.

Whoever sees you out of the meeting always needs to kiss you on both cheeks and put hands on your shoulders and stuff. I dunno, maybe masons just love touching everybody but I didn't see the men touching each other while I was singing, weird innit.

This gig was different to previous masons bookings though, it was the NYE do! Wives were invited! Children too! They weren’t there yet and I set up the PA trying to be optimistic and thinking of that sweeeet dollar.

The couple who'd booked me and were running the night said “they’re arriving at 7 and then there’s dinner at 8” so I said “would you like me to be singing as they arrive?” and the couple just didn’t know and I said “I don’t have to...” and they reluctantly said “…yes, do that”.

The couple were VERY worried about what I’d be singing. I again said I wouldn’t sing if they’d rather I didn’t and they said “no, do, do”. I said “I’ll just do some light jazz” and they panicked and said “oo they won’t like that!”.

It was weird, it was like they didn't want any singing at all. But...they'd booked me. To sing. They were acting like I'd shown up and they wanted to be nice and let me do a little turn. I would have been very happy to sing absolutely nothing except Auld Lang Syne.

Deeeeep sigh. I put together a playlist of 45 minutes of VERY inoffensive background light pop. THE CROWD ARRIVED! A sea of noisy noisy older men and silent wives and some kids aged 10-13 who immediately started running around and skidding across the dancefloor on their knees.

Everybody glanced at me on their way in like I was an alien or an improv comic or something. I was literally just singing Marvin Gaye, Adele and Simon & Garfunkel. People seemed horrified and gathered far from the dancefloor (apart from the oblivious children).

Now, none of this is an issue, I didn’t need their adoration but I cannot stress enough how EASY this sort of gig ALWAYS is. Normally the audience can’t believe songs they DEFINITELY know are being performed live and it’s always great. This horrified reaction was NEW.

I made it to 8pm. Dinner was to be served. I really wanted to just go up to the office (my green room) and sit with my phone for an hour and a half but the couple who booked me insisted on me sitting on a table with masons n wives for dinner.

I'd had a month of heavy duty gigging and a good 2 weeks of insane amounts of food so I really wasn't up for another 3 course meal and I certainly didn't have the energy to sit with strangers but FIIIIIIIINE.

They all just talked about Brexit. The men that is, their wives sat silently. But the men droned about brilliant Brexit and about how well travelled they all are. I wasn’t asked one question. Eventually one yelled “WEYYYY HERE’S CHINESE BARRY!”.

Chinese Barry was definitely not Chinese. He sat down. “Tell Suzy [it’s Sooz but they'd made their choice] why you’re called Chinese Barry!” one ordered. I thought "no please don't" and braced myself.

I needn’t have worried, what followed was an interminably long story about an extremely long phone number that I couldn’t make head or tail of. “And that’s why they called me Chinese Barry” Barry punchlined. I’m none the wiser.

The first course was butternut squash soup. The table all found this EXTREMELY funny and stupid like they’d been served Ribena in a bowl. It was just...butternut squash soup. I don’t know why it was funny to them. I felt so alone.

The mason I was next to was a real masons geek. Like me being in to movies and videogames but his thing was freemasonry. He was full of mason facts. The best bit was when he told me “us masons were actually as persecuted as the Jews in World War II but we don’t go on about it”.

I bristled and decided against causing a scene/telling him my heritage and just said “right, so are you from a long line of masons?”. No. He’d become a mason in 1996 coz his neighbour let him or something. But he was still persecuted in World War II or something. Absolute wanker

I seethed on this for the remainder of the meal and imagined covering his stupid masons tie in butternut squash soup to keep myself chill. He started telling me all about his "rear extension" (lololol) which frankly came as something of a relief.

At the end of the meal there were only 2 and a half hours til midnight and the evening was flying by...! I asked the couple running things “what would you like me to do til midnight?” and they didn’t know, just kept looking at each other. This was really beginning to wind me up.

I said “look, I'm booked to sing, I really don’t mind singing or not singing but what do you think for the rest of the night?”. They decided I SHOULD sing but “after the raffle”. This was like getting blood from a stone. Trying to get a good EU deal would be simpler. #satire

The raffle was bizarre…the prizes were all very expensive bottles of booze, flying lessons, spa weekends. Where was all this chuffing money coming from!? Every prize was collected by one of the exuberant children which was weird, kids running about with bottles of Sipsmith.

The raffle was hosted by John, the biggest loudest reddest man there. He was very drunk and didn’t ask to use my microphone, just picked it straight up in his massive hands.

He shouted A LOT even though the microphone was definitely working. It turned out he was the “chair” of this masonic branch. Masonic Nerd I'd sat with at dinner liked John VERY much, "a lot of respect for him" he kept saying. Never found out why. John features heavily from here.

After the raffle it was dancefloor filler time. I tried everything….Motown, disco, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s...NOBODY would get on that dancefloor. The children were by now all just tearing about in the carpark and sticking their faces to the windows outside.

As I sang people were turning their backs to me and sneaking glances, pained. I was DEFINITELY singing in tune and I had set the volume at a perfectly reasonable level. Again, this is the kind of gig I have been successfully doing for MORE THAN 10 YEARS.

A NYE singing gig is a piece of piss, everyone's drunk and out with friends, there's no pressure. It's not even like it's a wedding where there's some gravitas to the event, it was just a NYE party! It should not have been this hard.

I continued to sing to nobody. Gammony John sent over his little scrawny henchman. I saw him do it. Henchman started yelling at me mid-Simply the Best. I couldn’t hear him but I could FEEL him spitting all over me. Monsoon season had arrived in Essex.

Eventually Henchman made a vague amount of sense: “get John up!” he spat. “What?” I replied. “Get John up, get John up!”. He pointed at John, the big loud red gammon. John clicked his fingers at me.......I thought of the sweeeet dollar, swallowed my rage and went to him.

John was incapable of talking to me without gripping my whole arm in those giant purple hands. He pulled me towards him and slurred “we’re hating this, it’s not working, we’re hating it”.

I said “what WOULD you like then?” (sweeeet dollar, stay calm Sooz) and he said “something we know, not this old shit!”. I’d just sung Build Me Up Buttercup, Dancing Queen and Simply the Best. I checked the playlist later, those were what I just did. They didn't know those songs?

I said “name the songs you’d like” and John cried “just stuff we knowwww!” and I replied “well I’m not psychic John!” and he continued to tell me it wasn’t working and that they were all hating it. I offered to stop and he said “nah, just do stuff we know”. Reader, I married him.

Just over an hour to go. I could do it, I could sing bog standard hits with the cold dead eyes of a shark. A younger woman, probably my age with a cat’s arse mouth of disapproval marched over to me. “Put this on” she passed me her phone “my kids want to do a dance”.

Thinking of the sweeeet dollar for the 3463574634th time that evening I announced that some children were gonna dance for us. Nobody cared. The mum said to the 3 kids “do it properly though yeah, full out, full out, yeah?”. I pressed play on Little Mix from the mum’s phone.

What followed was 3 children doing…a sexy dance. The mum, unsmiling, did the moves in front of them for them to follow. it made Little Miss Sunshine’s denouement look chaste and appropriate.

It received minor applause.

I went back to my soulless singing. Henchman returned. Through his saliva it appeared John wanted to speak to me again. Into the mic I said “I’m aware you’re hating what I’m doing, SIR” and he dragged me by the forearm to talk to John.

John AGAIN grabbed my whole arm. “COULD EVERYBODY STOP TOUCHING ME!” I snapped and it didn’t change John’s demeanour but he did let me have my arm back. “Right, it’s just not working, everyone’s saying it”. Reader, John announced: “we’re gonna do karaoke, get the karaoke up”.

John wanted me to run karaoke. 2 weeks previously I’d been on stage at the London Coliseum.

I don’t run karaoke, it’s not in my job description. But I had masonic wifi and I wanted that sweeeet dollar without a fight. “John, what do you want to sing?”. He said “Chas n Dave, Ain’t No Pleasing You”. “Ooo that’s apt!” I said. “Eh?” John replied.

WOAH TOUGH CROWD etc.

I got the karaoke vid up on Youtube, announced John was gonna sing and sat behind my laptop to press play. He began singing.

Guys, would you believe it, John was fucking shit. But don’t take my word for it, I covertly recorded a sample for you. Would have been too obvious to point my phone at him but here is me, live, believing I'm hiding my true feelings.

Note the absolute hatred in my eyes. I was attempting to look serene, I swear, I was in full view of all the masons and thought I was nailing looking completely happy.

PLOT TWIST: the crowd were barely more enthused by John’s singing than mine.

“Not as easy as it looks is it John!” I said in to the mic to zero reaction. The karaoke didn’t continue.

I’m not a big one for extreme rage, it takes a lot for me to REALLY lose my shit. I continued my set physically shaking with anger. The only other time I can think of where I shook with rage while performing was working for Simon Gross (that’s another thread waiting to happen).

(Google Simon Gross if you don't know who I'm talking about. You're welcome. And I'm sorry)

A meek masonic wife came over and requested This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. I was DELIGHTED to finally give them what they wanted and sang the living shit out of it. She stood with her friends chatting through it and none of them acknowledged me when I finished the song.

I limped through the rest of the evening. I’d been told that at midnight I was to do the countdown, do Auld Lang Syne, do one more song and then shut everything off. I sang Auld Lang Syne, alone, and then announced it was time for the final song of the night.

"Well, happy new year, it's time for my final song" I said through gritted teeth. “Silent night please” gammoned a gammon. Everyone LOST THEIR SHIT laughing at this.

I felt my Royal Academy of Music postgrad certificate spontaneously combust and closed the night singing the angriest rendition of Queen’s We Are The Champions ever performed. At the end I went “FUCK BREXIT”, did a mic drop and stormed off the stage to stunned silence.

This sounds amazing doesn't it, like a movie finale....until you realise that I’d dropped MY OWN MIC and 5 minutes later had to go and pick it up and pack it away as they were all leaving.

It’s a Shure SM58 though so no harm done.

The couple running the night forlornly handed me an envelope of cash which YOU'D BETTER BELIEVE I counted, in front of them and with a right face on me. It was a relief, I had envisioned a fight on my hands for my fee.

“I’ve been doing this job for over a decade and that is by far the worst I have ever been treated by an audience at a gig” I told them. They told me that every time they book a singer this happens. MAYBE STOP BOOKING SINGERS THEN, GENIUS.

The next day I went to County Mall in Crawley and spent some of my substantial wage on stuff John would hate: posh makeup and vegan food. Yeah, showed him! Not even vegan, take that you bunch of masonic jerks.

It was the worst New Years Eve I’ve ever had. And on New Years Eve 2010 I had a chest infection and sat with my crying mother all evening coz the next day she was leaving my dad. THIS WAS WORSE THAN THAT!

Follow @annakempner.

And that’s the story of how I welcomed in 2019 with the freemasons just after I’d posted on Facebook about what a great year I’d had.

NOT that I need to justify myself but I can actually sing. Even better than John. https://soundcloud.com/suzanna-kempner/this-womans-work-kate-bush

Update: NYE 2019's gig is sorted. Can confirm that it is not for the masons.

Tonight I am singing at The Shard with fabulous drag queens and for a mere 3 hours, not almost 6. So there is literally no way this gig can't be a whole lot better than #masongate.

Am deleting old photos and videos from my computer to make a bit of space and found this unseen footage of me secretly watching freemason John sing another song. See entire thread above for context.