What is it about being famous? Sure you get an amazing job and a fan crowd, but apparently you also have the right to treat people as crap and put yourself on top of a pedestal. This past week there has been a big music festival in the town I live in. There was three headliners - Prince, Kings of Leon and Alabama Shakes. I saw the first two perform, but sadly I did not catch the Alabama Shakes concert.
Anyways, while we are sitting at home or standing in the crowd with nothing but respect for these artist, they are in the back taking advantage of it. Now, when it was announced that Prince would be performing in our little town of 22,000 people, everyone went crazy. The tickets were sold out immediately. Later we were told that Prince himself had actually asked to come and perform here, which only made the town extremely proud.
Prince went on stage at 10.30 pm and there was about 60,000 people in the crowd. I stood there with two of my friends and we were all having a great time. But his concert soon became enough. It was boring and basically nothing but guitars playing. Now I am sad to say that we left after an hour - meaning that we missed Purple Rain and Kiss.
Two nights ago Kings of Leon went on, and it was much more of an experience! I wouldn't say that they were amazing, but they were good. Nor me or my friends knew many of their songs, but we were still partying like crazy to the soundings of it. But even though the music was good, the musicians acted like they were in another place. Like their minds had gone somewhere completely different. At last they finally played Use Somebody and Sex on Fire - both of them were great.
One of my friends had been working as a runner backstage, so she had seen the lists of their demands. Now Prince had made his SmukFest debut by deciding two of the other acts that day. He wanted Vinnie Who to perform, and then he wanted Thomas Helmig to warm up for Prince himself. Now then he said that if Helmig could not manage the crowd and give a great concert, he would not go on. But he did, so it must have meant that he was okay with the earlier performance.
But not only did he demand certain people. He wanted a 3,555 dollar (20.000 Dkk) Cognac and a 1,250 dollar (7000 Dkk) Champagne. For some dumb reason he got both.. And then he did not even touch the cognac. I mean what the hell is wrong now?
Kings of Leon on the other hand demanded to have five golf cars waiting for them backstage. Now that was a possible demand, but it also meant that the festival would only have three left for the employees to use at the 60,000 people festival. Besides that they wanted unlimited alcohol. I would not call this a bad demand, but the thing is that they had been drinking constantly - they even were on stage. Maybe thats why they seemed off.
Last but not least is the Danish singer Anna David. She is only famous in Denmark and not even so much anymore. She came to the festival to perform - one of the songs with the local, but world known choir Skanderborg Ungdomskor. They were supposed to rehearse before the concert, but she just came into the room, looked and expressed some sort of feeling that there were too many people. She then decided to come on stage 15 minutes late, because she was busy flirting with her guitarist in the back. She was dressed as if she was attending a gymnastics performance. She was only wearing a body stocking, high socks and high heels. This would be okay if she was Beyonce.. But she is not! Her dancers were wearing even less clothing, and she sang like she was hurting. One of her songs is about, how she was raped as a 17-year old. Now, looking at her partying like crazy on stage and barely even wearing clothes, I lose all respect for her as an artist.
So really my point is that famous people get too much power, and they start believing that they own the place. But here's the thing, they did not own the festival. Maybe they could have with all their ridiculous payments, but they didn't. When us "normal" people go to work, we can't act like queens or kings, because that would get us fired. For some reason stars believe that they can at their work. Knowing how they behave, I am sure that they would lose many fans - one of them including me.
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