Music is one of life’s
great passions for many people. It makes the world go round right?
Unimaginable to not have music in our lives. That’s the truth for
many and definitely for me. It’s a channel for realising dreams.
In truth there’s a
darker side and writing this now I feel I’m in a place I simply
have to speak out. I’m going to be blunt here!
Music and alcohol/drug
use historically go hand in hand. Romantic thought is it helps with
creativity and music types are all about creativity, right? Music
wise if a band’s success is built on a high-energy/full-on
performance every time, well the pressure’s on to keep it up yeah?
The fans demand a high-octane experience every single time.
Fast-forward to
watching the lead singer of a band preparing to go on stage. He can
barely function. He’s slurring and rambling. His eyes are either
half-closed or rolling back in his head. The tour manager says this
is normal and he can play like this. He does exactly that with an
almost faultless performance although the between song chat was
limited!! His talent is evident. He can’t move too far from the mic
stand else he loses balance but hey that’s just what he does.
Have we all gone
totally mad? How can anyone watch this and think it’s okay because
he’s a musician?
The music industry
(Labels, Management, PR, Promoters, Venues, Media) are ignoring any
duty of care to any individual maybe because the responsibility isn’t
solely with any one of them. Have we really reached a place when the
person has become a commodity rather than a human being?
The singer I talk about
here is a teenager and I have never wanted to pull a plug on a
performance as much as I wanted to in this case. Not speaking out
makes me complicit in the demise of this kid.
There’s often
nostalgic reference to the 27 Club. 27 was the age that
Cobain/Winehouse/Joplin/Hendrix and others died (not all directly
from drugs/alcohol). In truth it’s a ridiculous and wrong age for
anyone to die. In the case of the singer I saw I want to say to him
don’t for one minute think this will end well. There’s nothing
remotely heroic about being found dead in your own vomit whatever age
you are!
If nothing changes I
predict that the kid at the mic won’t be growing old and that makes
me not only sad but very, very angry.