I go to a lot of shows these days that are small-time bands playing concerts in bars ... the line is tough. People talk in the back over drinks, and if the music isn't loud enough or the dancing crowd is small, it really sucks. And is I bet embarrassing for the performer. But at the same time the building is clearly set up for both at once.
I once played at a sports bar in Michigan during the Stanley Cup finals while the Red Wings were playing. That was hell. People were literally yelling at the stage for us to "shut the fuck up." We ended up turning up our amps as loud as we could just to piss them off more.
Hell yeah. I read about how at one Yo LA Tengo show the club owners and staff in some bar in Texas wanted them to stop playing, but the crowd wanted an encore. So they turned up their amps and went into a 20 minute noise jam and kept playing after they turned on the house lights and cut the power.
In high school my band played a pep assembly and we covered smells like teen Spirit. My friend Scotty ran across the gym and dove into the bleachers, he crowd surfed for a bit. People cleared the bleachers and started moshing in front of us and one of the teachers ran over and tried to grab the guitar out of our hands. Two of the members of our band were already graduated from high school and told the teacher to "fuck off." Then the principal unplug our amps and we had to stop. Later, when we were packing up we noticed there was blood on the gym floor in front of us. People were moshing so hard that there were injuries. It was a pretty cool moment for young TNG. That friend Scotty that started the whole thing ended up founding Tank Crimes