[imagesource:libelmusic]

After nearly two decades of the music industry pulling the wool over our eyes with below-average bands that are promoted as the ‘next big thing’, have fans finally grown tired of stardom-entitled musicians?

There is no shortage of new bands bursting onto the scene, or old bands being wheelchaired onto the stage for nostalgia cash grabs, but two recent incidents seem to point to fans finally catching up to the hype-lie that has seen bands like Die Antwoord get rich off their kak music.

During a recent Radio 1 Big Weekend in Dundee, Royal Blood’s frontman Mike Kerr swore at the crowd and appeared to storm off stage after receiving a less-than-enthusiastic response from the audience. Calling out the crowd for being pathetic, Kerr lamented how the crowd wasn’t ‘into it’ before walking off stage with his pretty wayfarers.

People seemed to ignore the impressive gong the drummer had behind his kit. They should have hit that baby sooner, it’s always a crowd-pleaser.

 

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Full disclosure, I am not familiar with Royal Blood and don’t know whether they got a record deal after a homemade video of the entire band playing a song on one banjo went viral. Perhaps they did things the hard way and actually wrote the music before building up a following by relentlessly gigging in small clubs until EMI came knocking. Whatever.

My beef with Kerr’s behaviour is the sense of entitlement bands get when they ascend a stage. Audiences are expected to ooh and aah regardless of whether they are any good. Maybe it’s not the audience that’s pathetic. Royal Blood is not Queen after all.

Maybe I am wrong, but if an audience isn’t ‘into it’, the problem lies with the band. Just ask Lil’ Wayne who threw a lil’ tantrum when his performance wasn’t met with a bra-throwing storm.

Royal Blood might be new to the music scene and look a bit Millenial-ish, so we can probably excuse the entitlement.

But they aren’t the only ones who had fans scratching their heads in disappointment recently. The battle-axe country-pop queen herself, Shania Twain, recently felt the sting of rejection when her fans started pouring out of the venue after only a few songs into her much-vaunted return to the mic.

One video called the show a “trainwreck” as people flooded out of the concert in the middle of the show.

@tiannatoks Someone check on Shania Twain #shaniatwain #concerts #swiftietiktok #badconcert #thatdontimpressmemuch ♬ original sound – bbygirl_musicthrowbacks

@briannef86 #Shania#queenofmetour2023 #shaniatwain #horrible #queenofcountrymusic#dissapointed #spokanearena ♬ original sound – Brianne

Guess she didn’t impress them much, but at least she still feels like a woman. I may be nitpicking here, but if you ride the nostalgia wave you better bring it. Even Mick Jagger doesn’t have moves like Jagger anymore.

The next band to blame an audience for their poor performance or quality of music should rather do what most bands do: Blame the drummer. If that doesn’t work, stop believing Simon Cowell and his puffy-faced opinions and write better songs.

Except for Rick Astley. That guy can still Rickroll like he rolled back in the day.

[source:whiskeyriff&instagram/bbc]