Sunday Edition: Tonight We're Going To Give It 35%
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Here's your question and answer of the week from the Punknews Formspring:
Q: What is the most diva-ish thing you've ever seen from an artist first hand?
A: One time I was interviewing a band. They were the opener and the club had one, fairly small, "backstage" room. Typically bands share this space. There is a bathroom and a fridge and the club isn't generally large enough to attract "headliners" who have big time demands or mind sharing space.
Anyhow, I'm interviewing the opening band in this room and we're about 15 minutes into the interview and a member of the "headlining" band comes in to the room with some friends (not in either band). We pause for a second and say, "Oh we'll, be wrapped up and out in a few minutes." When I start recording again one of the guy in the headlining band starts with, "You guys better hurry up. You need to respect the headliners." We all thought he was joking, so we chuckled and continued on, trying to be quick and wrap it up.
The guy's friend then comes in with, "Seriously though, you need to get out now." There was no tone. No joke. Just very matter of fact sort of, "This is our space and you need to get out now." The band I was interviewing looked beyond embarrassed. We all just sort of mumbled, "Okay." and collected our shit and got out and wrapped up what we could outside. The band I was interviewing was incredibly apologetic and seemed so embarrassed.
It isn't that kicking the opener out of the "backstage" room was that awful, but both bands were relatively close in size. This wasn't Aerosmith with your uncle Dale's cover band opening. It wasn't like one band was doing the other a favor by tossing them the opening slot in their world arena tour. This was two bands who were both similar in popularity and output touring together, one just happened to be older and douchier than the other. To see that kind of power trip, from a supposed adult first hand was an incredibly souring experience.
-Rich
P.S. Just so no one asks it was between Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. Totally a sad time in my life.
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