To think concert cancelling has become far too prevalent

[MXVIT]

and I think its a terrible precedent to have been set

I am probably just an unfeeling wench but I think it is dreadful how easy this has become to do, Lewis Capaldi taking three weeks off to be "Lewis from Glasgow" again bascially saying "I know you've forked out on hotels and travel, and thanks, but sorry"

For me it just shows a huge disrespect to fans. When you're a rich and famous star (all from the hard earned money from your fans) and all of the luxury that that life affords - you don't get to turn it on and off, and I'm sorry, but you don't get to put yourself first 100% of the time. Thats the trade off.

I would never buy tickets to concerts again after the spate of this happening. Adele, Sam Smith, Lewis etc.

AIBU ?

I think id have had more sympathy if he’d had to cancel glasto too. But cancelling everything except glasto makes me a bit 😏

People in regular jobs don't get paid if they "don't feel like working that day".

All the greatest musical acts in history have almost certainly had days when they didn't feel like going out there and performing. But they pushed themselves to the limit to do it and not let their paying fans down. I hope Lewis Capaldi loses a lot of his popularity over this.

Yeah and a lot of acts killed themselves because they pushed themselves to the limit. Even then not all of them get sympathy. Just more shit like "hOw CouLD tHEy dO tHaT. SO SelFiSH."

I cannot emphasise enough that if playing hurts, you must stop. I wrote upthread how I injured myself and harmed my professional day job career and amateur musician career by pushing through the pain to honour gig commitments.

People aren't allowed to be pushed like that in "regular" jobs

😂😂😂 You don't work in nursing, medicine, computer games development, early career academia, or for my current employer or last employer.

When my grandfather died, I had a Christmas time afternoon gig booked for the following day. I turned up at the venue and burst into tears because I just could not plaster on the smile and play the jolly xmas music that day. Band leader told me to go home and they'd work around me not being there.

I thought I could cope, right up until I got to the gig and couldn't.

Um, I get paid if I'm off sick? What kind of job do you have? Get you one with sick pay lol, it's a thing

@Florenz oh nvm you weren't talking about sick pay 😂

But I guess if you didn't feel like working you could...call in sick? 😁

I agree. I wondered why he didn't cancel Glasto.

I think it's more his managing agent. Lewis would probably agree when he's on a high feeling great and they kept adding more and more dates.

But God forbid you criticise his decisions 🙄

You don't get paid sick pay if you say you just don't fancy working for a few weeks and would rather stay at home and be "normal". In most jobs that would get you the sack. Especially if you're in such a key role that no-one else can work if you don't come in.

I know you weren't talking to me but I really hate when people assume everyone gets sick pay. The majority of dentists and other dental professionals like hygienists are self employed and do not get sick pay. If all those people decided to "go and get another job" the dental industry would be even more screwed than it already is. So yeah if I "don't feel like working" one day whether I call in sick or give any other excuse it still means I will not get paid.

Christ. I’m going to quote a reply to my own post now in the hope that people have more compassion and understanding of the industry. It is so different to every other profession (except maybe acting). I work in investment banking where the struggle, ‘high’, and pressure is real but we also have paid sick leave and employee assistance and paid holiday.

Something has to change in the music industry but unfortunately it doesn’t feel likely for some time.

as for people referencing Dave Grohl. They have a number of crew on payroll which is unusual unless you’re a massive band so that’s some motivation to keep going. Arguably you could also say he has a pathological need to keep touring which isn’t always the healthiest for crew and relationships (and I absolutely adore him!)

YANBU

Some of these artists behave appallingly and it’s all very well getting a refund at some point on your ticket but the hotels, travel, childcare etc is not reimbursed and they don’t give a shit.

I don’t bother with concerts these days, especially newer artists. From what I’ve seen online it looks like a very self centred affair. As for Lewis Capaldi - he has cracking ditties but I can’t believe that people pay a fortune to go and see an unhygienic looking sweaty man who doesn’t brush his hair sing in a grey tracksuit. No effort at all.

It feels like the days of amazing concerts with artists who know how to work their audience and power through whatever happens are long gone.

It really does! With the exception of Taylor Swift who seems to work like a donkey (and apparently is great in concert).

Tbh my main issue wasn't the cancellation in and of itself but the way it was handled/announced, there are so many better ways it could have been worded.

If you need to take a break for whatever reason, whether it's mental health or medical, then take that break but you have to acknowledge that some people are going to be left out of pocket due to things totally out of their control when things get cancelled and they're more likely to be supportive if they feel that the artist is only doing so because they have to, not just that they didn't consider the pressures of touring/performing before embarking on a solo tour and taking their money. Even if the cancellation due to needing to "just be Lewis from Glasgow" is a smokescreen for something more serious, it is undermined by the fact the cancellation announcement is all about needing a break in order to be well in time for Glastonbury, as opposed to him wanting to take a break and then when he is ready to return deciding when he's going to do that first performance.

The cancellation essentially comes across as "I'm rescheduling everything because I'm burnt out and want to focus on being able to perform at Glastonbury. I know some of you will be left out of pocket but my need to be ready to perform at Glastonbury is my priority" Which he is perfectly entitled to do, but when you're cancelling weeks of shows where hundreds of thousands of your fans are coming to explicitly support you because they love you and your work so that you can prioritize a festival where you aren't even headlining and at least half the festival goers will be elsewhere during your set it feels very dismissive of those fans.

I would have thought it better to have made an announcement saying he was cancelling the rest of his tour dates as he was suffering with his MH and he needed a break and would decide on any other commitments eg festivals etc at a later date but would keep people updated as much as possible. Then at a later date (even if it was just after the weekend) he could have put out a separate announcement saying "thank you for all the love and support I've received since the announcement and for the understanding of my cancelled shows. It wasn't done lightly and I appreciate the support. The break from performing has been good for me and I'm already feeling better so my aim is now to be ready to return to perform at Glastonbury in a few weeks"

I am not a Capaldi fan, but one of my friends is and we had tickets to one of the now cancelled shows ... She has been looking forward to the show for months, we are both in low paid jobs (she works in hospitality and I work in retail) so the cost of tickets plus travel to the city and accommodation was a not insignificant sum to us, about £350 each, and that's before I include meals/drinks etc.

We were both happy to pay that much money to treat ourselves as a one off birthday weekend luxury - a child free adult weekend where we could get the train, check into a nice hotel (again since it was our birthday treat we went for a nicer hotel than just a budget Travelodge), go for dinner, see the show, stay over and have a day to go shopping/sit and have coffee and gossip etc before getting the train home to the regular 9-5 daily grind.

Now we are left with either losing money on the trains/hotel or going to a city neither of us are particularly bothered about visiting (it's one of the nearest big cities to us but is about 2hrs away so whilst we don't pop in every weekend, we visit regularly enough that it isn't a "destination" to visit in the same way a city further away might be) and either trying to book something else while we are there (costing more money that hasn't been budgeted for at short notice) or just spend the weekend in the hotel so we can feel like we've at least not wasted the money ... Then if the dates get rescheduled then we have to decide whether we want to spend more money that we don't have to attend that gig and risk it happening again.

My friend has already messaged me to ask if she should just refund the tickets because the announcement left a sour taste in her mouth and she doesn't want to see his gig any more - she understood and totally sympathised with him needing a break but the fact he thought fans would be cool with him prioritising a festival over his solo shows just meant she felt like he was treating them as second class and she doesn't want to spend money seeing that artist any more, she'd rather spend it elsewhere.

Yea the announcement was very badly judged.

I suppose it beats the legendary video of Adele just bellowing “My show ain’t readaaaay” into the camera. Then telling everyone the staging isn’t ready. I’ve seen Adele’s Vegas show footage. It’s her on a stage singing. Just do that FFS, it’s not Cirque Du Soliel, you aren’t waiting on a trapeze delivery.

I do think some of them just CBA and they’re entitled and over privileged so don’t think of their fans. A vague ‘mental health issues’ is basically another way of saying ‘you can’t challenge me’ but TBH I’m not sure I’m buying it. These people are clever, ruthless stars at the top of their game - im not sure why everyone is infantilising Lewis ‘from Glasgow’ but it’s just all very convenient I feel.

I can understand the frustration of booking hotels etc for the gig to be cancelled but I think the Lewis Capaldi example is unfair.

The poor lad is clearly suffering with his illnesses. Watching him perform lately has been horrible to see so why you would want to watch someone twitch, cough and lose their voice for 2 hours is beyond me. He needs this time off

Question. Would you rather see a concert where it was clear the artist was in pain/struggling/losing their voice etc or see a concert where the artist was in good form and put on a good show?

jepp - all you naysayers can blether on as much as you like. If Capaldi isn't up to the job (and i sincerely hope he carries on singing but knocks touring on the head, i do like his music) then he needs a strategy.

I am aware of the working conditions of many industries - well, UK, you should have signed up to the working time directive, or join unions or whatever. Where i work our bosses will talk to you if you work too many long days in a month. The NHS needs to sort itself out. etc etc

I don't want to see a half arsed performance either. There is a reason bands like Metallica, Coldplay and artists like Springsteen and Madonna are still around. They play to their strengths. They are all good live, and are all committed to giving their best performances. Since they started. But they all had to hustle as young performers. They built up a career and a reputation. I wonder if the ones who haven't "paid their dues" find it harder to commit? or find it harder to cope because really, bottom line, it's not their strength.

The only reason I am alive now is that, when my mental health collapsed with what I now know to be a stonker of a case of autistic burnout (diagnosed before anyone starts) to the point I was considering driving somewhere and ending it all on the way home from work each day - is that my then-boss found me in tears at my desk, kicked my arse and threatened to kill me herself if she found me back at work before I was fully well to function.

I'm firmly convinced that a few more days of trying to push mentally through that wall would have been the end of me and that she saved my life - not by cute fluffy "time to talk" meme shit, but by blocking me that I was being ridiculous and I needed to NOT BE AT FUCKING WORK. I needed that arse kicking approach to process what I needed to process.

I've since career changed and I'm in a role where I have much more control over my own diary so I can manage my mental wellbeing levels in terms of balancing client-contact with admin days and that has me in a better shape than I have ever been before then. Cost me £55k of student debt to pull off the career change though which not everyone can do.

I'll also add that my current boss (while lovely) is a workaholic and we do give her good-natured shit about it. However she's quite open that she does some ridiculous hours because she CAN and because she WANTS to and that in no way she expects us to do the same. Another manager is quite nocturnal and often sends emails late at night - but she'll tell you off if you reply then and tell you to get your arse off your work laptop and go find something else to do - she's just mailing then because it works with her schedule to do that.

Don't be stupid.

Exactly this!

I would much rather see an artist perform at their best, not just pushing through illness/pain etc.

I saw the Backstreet Boys in London the day after Nick Carter’s brother died. He cried through the first half of the concert. It was sad and weird tbh.

Yes, same!

I’ve seen some clips of his recent concerts on TikTok and he really seems to be struggling with nasty tic attacks at the moment.

It’s Tourette’s awareness month at the moment, if anyone wants to learn a bit more about how and why Lewis maybe struggling - there’s loads of information here - https://www.tourettes-action.org.uk and loads more on their Facebook page