Friday night’s show turned out to be… well, not quite what I expected.

Jesse Harris, best known as the dude that won a Grammy for writing the song that made Norah Jones famous, opened the set with simple, catchy folk songs on banjo. I felt bad because the crowd was a lot chattier than usual. Common for openers, but sad regardless.

Next up was Meiko, arguably one of the cutest folk artists I’ve had the chance to see live. But even she was not getting good reception from the back 25% of the crowd, who were now talking very loudly at the bar.

Never before have I seen such a rude audience at Downtown Brew. But what could be done? Even the shushes and “SHUT UP”s from those of us that cared were doing no good.

And then came Joshua Radin. I always suspected he might be a bit of a prima donna, and he lived up to that. After a song or two, he was clearly getting upset with the now uncontrollably loud douchenozzles getting drunk in the back. So he decided to stop playing and wait. Ultimately he played one more song before unplugging completely and playing with no amplification for those up front that could hear him. (Check some video I captured after the cut for a clip of the good times.)

People started getting upset and leaving. Some dude yelled “YOU’RE LOSING A LOT OF FANS RIGHT NOW” and Radin — showing a clear lack of understanding that his fans provide him the funds to pay for those trendy gray vests — responded with a hearty “Good! Fuck off!” Awesome.

Eventually his plan sort of worked when most of the talkers either shut up or left. But by then he only had fifteen minutes left to play, with which he gave a sampling of songs to show what we’d missed thanks to the drunk frat turds who had allowed us only two-thirds of a show. He and his band, which included opener Jesse Harris, finished well (albeit with no encore), but it seemed more of a tease than a noteworthy show.

Now, the question is: Did Ragin’ Radin make the right decision? I’m not sure. What I do know is that I probably won’t see him again if these all-too-common disruptions degrade the quality of his performance to such a degree. He’s lucky his audience has lasted this long.

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