Annoying Rock Star Behavior

You may not be a big rock star (yet!), but … someday.  It could happen.

Now is the time to either learn how to treat your fans the way they should be treated, or start practicing how to be annoying as only a star can be.

Here from Rolling Stone are a few things you could start working on now.

1. Show up ridiculously late
Rock stars aren’t accountants, and nobody expects them to take the stage at the precise moment listed on the ticket. We get that. A little late is good, even. It gives everyone time to park, deal with will call, wait in the bathroom line and get a beer. But some artists routinely take the stage two, three or even four hours late; Lauryn Hill, we’re looking squarely at you here.

2. Exclude key band members
Some bands have members who just don’t feel like being rock stars anymore. We understand that. When Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones decided to scale back their lives and get off the road, we would have all preferred to see them with their bands still. The shows suffered from their absence, but people have a right to quit. A band isn’t the mafia.

3. Play too much from the new album
We have no issue with bands playing a ton of their new material. It does, however, get annoying when you pay to see an artist and the vast majority of the show is new stuff, especially when that material is a pale imitation of the old stuff. There’s a certain expectation when you buy a concert ticket (especially to an arena show) that you’re going to hear songs from throughout an act’s career. It’s just hard for people to fully appreciate music they don’t know very well.

4. Only perform the hits
The flip side of Number Three. Some artists have long catalogs of great songs, but their concerts tend to fall back on the same 15 songs they’ve been dragging out for decades. It’s like eating 10 chocolate bars for dinner; it’s not satisfying. You need to balance it out. Sure, the crowd loves to hear hits and you want to do anything you can to hold their attention, but you also need to challenge them a bit.