https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxJXtF3FQCM#t

Answer: you can negotiate with a terrorist.

It may surprise many of you, but I fancy myself as somewhat of a musician. I used to play with some people here and there, but my career was relatively short compared to most musicians; I stopped before it was too late. I look back on my sweaty, musical days very fondly. I met a lot of great people, and played at a lot of interesting gigs, but one show stands out in my mind above the rest.

I was playing in a small Jazz quartet — there were only three of us, but we made do. We played almost every night, but that was the only way that we made any money. After a while, we managed to wrangle a booking agent who knew his arse from his elbow, and we started performing at larger venues. At first it seemed a bit daunting, because we’d only ever played at small clubs, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

One night, we were playing at a medium-sized concert hall that was a little ways from where I lived at the time, and we were doing great. The crowd was absolutely awestruck by our playing. We were about two-and-a-half songs into our first set, and it was going great. For the full thirty minutes we’d been playing, nobody made a peep until after the song was over. As soon as we finished, the crowd would explode into cheering, and one woman in the front row kept chanting, “Play it again! Play it again!”

After we finished our third, and final, song we stepped out front to take a bow, and I was blown away by the applause. The yells and cheers were deafening; I could barely make out what my other bandmates were saying. When the applause finally died down, we took a bow and started to walk offstage. As I turned around I heard a familiar voice from the front row yelling, “Play it again! Play it again until you get it right!”

Everybody’s a critic.

(Many thanks to our good friend Charles for sending this video across the entire Intertunnel for our enjoyment)