WHAT?!?!? Singers have giant ego's????
Yeah, yeah, I know -- old news. It's still amazing to occasionally fall into the wake of one (or many) of these fabulous performers.
It's not like I play in a goddamn 50-piece orchestra, so there really aren't very many names to learn of your fellow stage performers.
And before you cry, "Sour grapes!", please know that I don't want to be "out front" and am perfectly happy standing in the back playing my guitar in the dark. Really. I don't need or want the kind of attention the singers get. Alright, here are a few examples of things that have actually happened to me on the road.
We were playing this one rock tune (with a prominent guitar solo in the middle). Weeks into the tour, the singer wanted to recognize that I came downstage to play it every night, and would say, "[insert name here] on lead guitar!"...Thanks for that. The only problem?
She didn't know my name.
We're standing together in the wings before going out to play this song, and she says to me, "How do you pronounce your last name again?"...Now, let me tell you -- my name couldn't be easier to remember, and there's only one way to pronounce it.
Now, I could have simply answered the question, but this wasn't opening night here, folks -- not even close. I replied, "Really? It's [insert my really easy last name here]". She turns pale and tries to confess that she thought there was an alternate way to pronounce it. "Nice try", I say.
After being on the road with people for reasonable stretches of time, getting your luggage off the carousel at the airport and a singer asking your last name so they can put your number in their phone -- that's happened to me many times.
[sigh] All of this, however, doesn't make me think that they're bad people. They're just so wrapped up in their own shit. Maybe they have to be, I dunno, but I tend to think of it as a team effort.
If you only work with, say, eight to ten people, do you learn their names? Of course you do. It's really not that hard, and it's basic, boilerplate manners. "Hey, [insert name of co-worker here], you dropped your wallet!"....Now what if I'd dropped my wallet a lot? The singers would be unable to help me.
