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No lies were spoken.
Lately, live music has been under heavy scrutiny for a plethora of different reasons. Obviously, the biggest and most predatory threat to the industry is none other than Live Nation and Ticketmaster, who all but have a monopoly on ticket sales. Of course, that’s not even mentioning the fact that bots and scalpers have made it even harder for real fans to actually purchase tickets.
Unfortunately, fans deserve some scrutiny as well. Over the past few years, especially in a post-COVID world, it seems as if fan behavior has hit an all-time low. From the ridiculous beer-throwing at Treaty Oak Revival concerts that left frontman Sam Canty with a gash under his eye and Riley Green needing stitches after a phone was hurled at him in Australia to Megan Moroney having a hat chucked at her and Morgan Wallen getting grabbed by a fan last year, some of the biggest stars in the genre have had to deal with their fair share of chaos recently.
Hell, even artists aren’t exempt from criticism. Lately, it seems as if it’s been a growing trend to cancel shows at the very last minute, sometimes just minutes before the show. This was highlighted most predominantly over the past month when Morgan Wallen caught a ton of criticism for cancelling his Pittsburgh show due to the incoming weather. Though you can argue that he made the right call, thanks to tornadoes touching down in the greater Pennsylvania area, and he made the call early to give people even more notice, it still didn’t stop some controversy from brewing after Pittsburgh’s mayor claimed that Wallen and Co. did not consult him and the stadium before cancelling.
An even more egregious example of this came to light earlier in the week when rising star Bailey Zimmerman actually cancelled his May 27th show in New Mexico after being too drunk to perform and subsequently causing over $16,000 worth of damage to his hotel room. Though he was charged with a felony on Monday afternoon, the charges were dropped last night. At the time, Zimmerman lied and said that he wasn’t feeling well and canceled the show.
All of this is to say that it’s been a growing trend in the industry, especially in country music, for artists to cancel shows at the last minute, and Country Music Hall of Famer Kenny Chesney is having none of it.
In a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, the “American Kids” singer expressed frustration with fellow artists who cancel shows for menial reasons other than health.
“I know people that cancelled shows before they went on. People were already there, and they just said, ‘I’m not going on.’ And now the thing is, they’re not mentally fit. There’s a certain thing. I think, in the way I came up in all the clubs and casinos and whatever it is I played getting to the next level, there’s a certain gratitude. I think it’s the way I was brought up, also, but you just didn’t cancel. It’s show business.”
After Maher went on a brief tangent about not voluntarily cancelling a show in his 40 years in the business, Chesney would wrap up by noting that the entire industry and process have simply changed. Though he’d clear the air by explaining that he’s not saying today’s generation of artists is lazy, he’d imply that they may be hesitant to some of the day-to-day grind that he experienced in the early days of his career. The other obvious implication that I think Kenny is hinting at is that TikTok has allowed artists to blow up overnight. That means they don’t have to cut their teeth in dumpy bars for years to get on a bigger stage, and therefore, don’t have the opportunity to develop the kind of gratitude that older artists have earned over the years. It easy to take a big crowd for granted when you haven’t put in a ton of time to get it:
“It is interesting to see… The work was a part of the process. It is a little different today. I’m not saying that people don’t work hard, because they do.”
Ultimately, Chesney hits the nail on the head here. While common sense should tell you that there are some circumstances that rightfully lead to show cancellation — whether it’s family emergencies, serious sickness or vocal issues — it’s wholly irresponsible and disrespectful to your audience to either 1) cancel a show because something didn’t go your way or 2) cancel a show last-minute with no notice because you’re too drunk to perform.
As he said, there’s a certain level of gratitude and understanding of how much of a privilege it is to be able to perform for a living that some artists these days need to have and sometimes fail at doing so.
Watch the full podcast here:
