Blind Items Revealed #12 - Anniversary Month

November 3, 2016

In contrast to yesterday's good, this bad happened fairly recently. I have probably seen several thousand bands play over the years. Anything ranging from a dive bar to a stadium. One thing a band learns early on is that if you have a popular song, you need to play it in your shows or people won't come to the next show. From a marketing, ticket selling, make fans happy kind of perspective I HATE when bands get all high and mighty about their past hits. They need to realize that even one hit wonders have made an entire career based off that hit. The way they did it though was to sing the hell out of that song at every show and make sure people enjoyed the performance of that song so much, they would willingly wade through an hour of songs they don't know. Why are cover bands so successful? They play songs everyone knows.

Madonna and U2 can get away with not playing every hit song you want them to perform and they hate singing because they have so many hit songs you like hearing and they like performing. It sucks for people who maybe want to hear their earliest stuff, but even Madonna will usually throw you a "Holiday" bone.

Not that long ago I saw that an old friend was playing in a series I enjoy seeing from time to time. It is a bit outside of LA up in wine country. Sideways wine country, not Napa. Got my ticket and e-mailed him to tell him I was coming and would love to catch up. I even offered to write up something if he wanted. This is where I knew something was up. He has always been a bit quirky. He wrote me back and said something about having a new record coming out in the fall and felt that if he talked then he would have nothing left to say in the fall because he had to center himself and place himself in some type of zone for what he felt would be constant demands for his time from journalists about said release. Not happened so far by the way.

The second indication that he had turned into some person he thought he was based on his past rather than his current was something I saw and heard a couple of minutes before he noticed me. He was talking to a guy and a very attractive woman walked up to our singer and they hugged and he said he was glad she could come. He then said to get him a drink. As she walked away the guy complimented the singer and the singer said, "I knew there wouldn't be anyone here worth banging so I invited her." As she came back to the table with drinks, he grabbed her ass. That was about the time I made my way over to the table. For a minute it was like the old days. We were both making a lot of money from each other and had a ton of fun, drunken nights together and he really cared about fans.

Looking back to those times, I guess I could see it coming. The band had big success for a couple of years. Modest success for five or six. He was always trying to use that success to get him solo success. It has never happened. Not even close. He makes his living by living off what he and the band did whether he wants to admit it or not.

Show time. The people there were expecting one thing. What they got was completely another. What started out as excitement became people looking at their watches wondering when this was going to end. One solo song after the next. No one knew one word to any of the songs. There is nothing wrong with his talent or his songwriting. He just is so into himself now that he can't fathom why people don't love his songs. He forces them on the audience. There is this attitude much like The Goopster. If you don't like this, than there is something wrong with you and it is not my fault.

There was actually an intermission and I went up to him and said he should play a few of the band's songs. He had to get the audience on his side. I knew there was no way he would sing their biggest hits. I suggested a couple that fans would love and maybe he would play those. He said he would think about it.

Back to playing and boring the audience. Finally after another 30 minutes of solo ego boosting he asked the audience for a request. They would call out a song name and he would say no. Ten straight times maybe. He finally picked one. It was an obscure song from one of their worst performing records that no one but the most ardent of fans would ever know. He just didn't get it.

His ego won't let him accept the fact that the band's success allowed him to be playing there solo that night. All he had to do was throw in one band song for every four solo songs. That would have made the audience happy and would have kept them involved and more responsive to the solo efforts.

After the show I actually heard him tell the woman he brought how amazing he was that night. Nope. Things are so ego driven with him right now that he won't even mention the band in promos for shows. It is all about him. I didn't look at his tour rider for that night but I bet it was extensive and pretentious. I'm sure most of it was ignored, but he would get great satisfaction just knowing it was written for him.

I don't care of he gets the band back together. He was just an up close and personal reminder that fame can be an ugly thing. You get it in your head that you are bigger than the show or franchise or band. That you are the reason for success and no one else. The lesson that you are not, can be a hard lesson, and in this case, one that may never be learned.

Glen Phillips