I realized lately that Eileen is a diva, and that it's not so bad that she's leaving. She's not at all a bad person and has usually been friendly, but in the context of TFA, she took on the air of a diva. I'll give you reasons to my conclusion:
She showed no interest in learning an instrument, other than shaking a tambourine. She did it at strange times and did not seem receptive to learning when and how to do it better.
She didn't push for anyone else to sing certain songs. She once complained that she was only involved in half of the songs. The combined lead vocals from the other four members, all of whom had a lot more experience in the band, barely equaled her total, yet she had a "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" issue with it. Were we supposed to stop playing an hour earlier because she hadn't learned enough songs with us yet?
When Gumby would come on-stage to play drums for "Rockin' in the Free World" or "Still The Night," there was no concern. But when I brought him on to play on one of her songs, it angered her to the point of cursing me out on stage. Her biggest beef? It was too fast. (First off, it wasn't that much faster - in fact, it was more danceable at Gumby's tempo - and secondly, every other band member adjusted to it right away, but she had an issue with it.)
She could always make gigs where she could be seen by her friends. But for other gigs, her availability was not as good. (Not a ton of evidence to back this one up, but I took this impression away from the whole thing.)
When we were going to try out Jamie, the girl that could sing and play keys, she did not want her to sing lead on any songs at all. Not a handful, not a few, not one. None. Her reasoning? "Because I don't do anything but sing in this band," or something to that effect. Even if she lost none of her leads and might end up singing even more than before, she wouldn't budge. Because she's one-dimensional, we were expected to cater to that. She had to be the only girl singer. She could not be expected to let some other girl sing lead, I guess.
She would occasionally change everyone else's set list when it came to her songs. She would do it days in advance, or sometimes right before the concert. Yet, during a recent gig, when I told the band to scrap a song that I was going to sing, she frowned upon it.
Her complaint about my Facebook posting was over-reaching. I complained about the Beacon Tap and our continued problems at playing outside there on my own Facebook page, not TFA's, yet she had the gall to tell me to take down what I wrote. Other band members said that they wouldn't have been happy if I had posted it on the TFA site, but were accepting of it on my own. Eileen could not accept.
She would leave the stage whenever she wasn't involved in a song. It looked quite unprofessional, but she preferred to leaving the stage and talk to her friends, ignoring the band when not singing.
Again, Eileen's not a terrible person. She was genuinely grateful when we took her on, and she was a very strong singer, lack of stage presence notwithstanding. but maybe the band's better off. For my standpoint, any move was a good move, but this move a bit of a shock to me when it happened. Now, it's not so bad.
After her announcement and my request that she reconsider, Eileen wrote me back and said that the two of us "are on totally different pages on what we are looking to get out of this whole experience." And she's right. The way I see it, Eileen's goal was to get the continued adoration of her friends by singing songs in her wheelhouse, while my goals were more long-term, demanding and democratic.
I'll admit, I wanted an equal share of the spotlight, as did everyone else. But she wanted as much of it as her talents could handle. Diva-esque, wouldn't you say?
Margie reminded me that Eileen considers herself to be very non-confrontational. She could work at straightening all of this out, but she'd rather quit instead. Her e-mail asked that I accept it and leave it at that. I will accept it, but not because a confrontation might fail at resolving the issues at hand. I'll accept it because I'd rather not have a diva in the band.
No comments:
Post a Comment