Banned Rockers Patch Things Up With Club

Gherkin Raucous, a local, satiric rock band, has extricated itself from the pickle it got itself into with management of the Coach House. The county’s leading concert club, the Coach House, had banned the popular rockers from further performances because of the obscene and critical comments that the band had made about the club on stage during a Nov. 25 show.

Darren McNamee, Gherkin Raucous’s singer, met recently with Coach House manager Tom Meldrum to smooth out ruffled feelings between the band and the club’s staff.

“It was something that kind of slipped out that shouldn’t have been said,” McNamee said this week of the statements that had turned the Gherkins into rockers non grata . “It was unprofessional of me,” McNamee said. “I don’t use my position to turn people against anybody. That’s not the way I am. It wasn’t maliciously planned out. It came out and kind of surprised me after I said it.”

McNamee said Gherkin Raucous had been peeved at not being given the club’s main dressing room for the concert, its first appearance as Coach House headliners.

Although the lifting of the ban means that Gherkin could have played Sunday in the Music for the Needy benefit, as originally scheduled (see accompanying story), the band decided to let some more time pass before appearing at the Coach House again, in hopes that all the ruckus over the incident will die down.

“I’m going to the show anyway,” said McNamee, who works as a chemist when he isn’t singing with Gherkin Raucous. “I really believe in that cause.”