DISRESPECT: When you're only a hired keyboard player for the gig, I don't care how late the featured entertainment is -- it's not your place to show up the artist by posting an I WAS ON TIME sign in front of the audience to show up the woman who's signing your checks. Even if it's the perpetually punctually-challenged Ms. Lauryn Hill, whose tangles with tardiness are even more amusing in light of the fact that I just attended a Prince show which started on-time and ended at 11pm. (True, he then played an afterparty concert which started at 3:30am.)
But what the keyboardist did to Ms. Hill, she in turn did to her fans. When you're starting to be called the Axl Rose of the hip-hop world, it's a problem. If you just have a problem showing up before midnight for your concerts, don't promote them as starting at 8:00 pm. And then folks can decide if that's an evening they'd like to have. This isn't hard.
I nearly posted about this article because of the oddity of the reference to her, consistently, throughout the review, as Ms. Lauryn Hill. Admittedly, Times style apparently requires performers to be referred to as Mr./Ms. if they are not performing under performer names (Taylor Swift is Ms. Swift, though Jay-Z is simply Jay-Z, but never "Jigga"), but even in the listing, we have "Ms. Lauryn Hill will play on.."
ReplyDeleteApparently, that's what she's billing herself as these days.
ReplyDelete"When Ms. Hill finally took the stage a little after midnight — a few minutes after arriving at the club and getting carried over piles of snow on the street, one witness reported — she was primed for a fight."
ReplyDeleteHow amazing is the image of someone carrying Lauryn Hill over a pile of snow?
Years ago, in the early 90s some hip hop group was really really late for a show at the local arena. There were refund demands, and some arrests because people were drunk and bored while waiting and got rowdy. A few weeks later, when the ad for Eric Clapton's show appeared in the paper, it had a banner on it: "Mr. Clapton will appear promptly at 8:00" I still find that funny.
ReplyDeleteAs amazing as anyone not demanding a refund as soon as 1 hour of waiting rolled around.
ReplyDeleteI say "Hurrah!" for the keyboard player. Maybe it's a career-limiting move, but it's correct. One person was being a professional here, and it wasn't Ms. Hill.
ReplyDeleteIt kind of makes me think of Kevin Costner carrying Whitney Houston, actually.
ReplyDeleteWas the keyboardist Mr. Pink?
ReplyDeleteAll respect due, Adam, I know whose house I'm in, but I have to take issue here. "Only?" Working musicians are never "only" anything. That guy, when he's not backing up Ms. Hill, is probably doing the heavy lifting for any number of acts. It's even possible (although not likely) that he had other gigs that night that he had to sub out -- I know many musicians that are prone to doing four different sets with four different bands in four different clubs, all in the same evening. These musicians see a lot of artists come and go under their watch, and they are called on to do so with respect, but that respect goes two ways, no matter how relevant the artist is.
ReplyDeleteLeft to his own devices to interact with the audience, he did what he could to assuage them -- I think of that as less of a dis on Lauryn (given that the sign was up long before she got there) and more of a message to those audience members that were getting rowdy: It is useless to scold the people who are punctual about those who have poor attendance.
Also, though, I LOVE Prince for that reason. That dude will play for days on end if left to his own devices. Fantastic. I still haven't seen him live, and it makes me itch.
"Only" may have been the wrong word to use here -- clearly. But this isn't a situation of equals, either. Given Hill's reputation I don't think there was a person in attendance who didn't know whose fault it was. It's the facility's responsibility to manage crowd expectations, not the other members of the band (isn't it?) -- which, in turn, requires the artist to let them know what's up.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with you there, but the facility probably thought it had done its part in putting the musicians up ahead of the artist, in the interest of keeping the crowd there. Artist agreements for these kinds of things can get hairy and weirdly specific -- it's possible that she had a clause that said management couldn't say anything to the crowd that would make her seem to be at fault if something like that happened, which would stop management from saying anything at all for fear of tripping on a clause. Ludicrous, but feasible.
ReplyDeleteYou're right -- she's the boss -- but she wasn't there. The sign should've disappeared when she hit the stage.
I agree. "Hey, I tried. Sorry, you guys, it's not me."
ReplyDelete