Thursday, August 5, 2010

Amazing Rudeness

The Pickin' Chicks played today at the Swanwick Picnic in Swanwick, IL.  They were hired to play for one hour between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.  About half-way through their set, the guy that was hired to play after The Pickin' Chicks started setting up his equipment during their performance.  He walked in front of them several times, moved one of the girls out of his way to put up one of his monitors, and then proceeded to stand on stage with them for the last 15 minutes of their performance while he messed around with his microphones, stands and other equipment. 

When asked by two different people to stop, he gave the scathing reply that he was being payed to play and the girls were not.  Then he proceeded to brag about how he had been hired for this gig for the past 21 years.  After that, he totally cut down the very people that had hired him by saying they were weird and that they would be angry if he didn't start playing at 5:30 p.m. on the nose.  (Which didn't happen, by the way.)   Since we were both hired by the same person, of course that person would understand there would be a short time where the PAs would be setup and dismantled.

When the lady in charge heard about this, she apologized for him to the girls.  She said she thought he would have been more professional and that she would have put a stop to it if she had been there.  I hope that other musicians and bands can remember to treat each other nicely.  After all, we're all in this together!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Same exact thing happened to Beaucoup Creek last year when they played. I think that person is disrespectful. Maybe that's the last year for him.

B said...

Wow. Just wow. We've experienced rudeness when performing out, but not to that extent. What a great experience for the girls to see how a professional would NOT act!

Mary Hebert said...

One part of me wants to say bring your husband and three other big guys with cowboy hats with big instruments! (kidding of course). On the serious side, I'm sad to see that there is a person out there still acting like a child. In this case, the children were professional. Yay,Dixie Chicks! They now have great wisdom about these things. You are a great teacher. Remember that! Love and grace...Mary