Last week, Jeff Tweedy punched one of his fans in the face.
The eager concertgoer had made his way onto the stage and was
about to give the Wilco front man a kiss on the cheek when Tweedy
freaked out, grabbing the fan by the throat and laying him
flat.
Blame, in this case, is difficult to place. The fan simply
wanted to express his love for one of music’s most talented
artists, and Tweedy claims he didn’t see the young man
onstage until he felt a pair of hands grabbing his face, to which
self-defense seems a reasonable, if not slightly excessive,
reaction.
Anyone even vaguely familiar with Tweedy’s history knows
of his high-strung personality, his stints in rehab and his general
unpredictability. It seems that if the unfortunate fan loved Tweedy
enough to want to climb onstage and kiss him, he should have been
aware of the singer’s unusual character traits and would have
known better than to make such a move.
Perhaps the problem here lies with our conception of artists in
general. The relationship many of us have with our favorite artists
and musicians would often have us believe that they are almost gods
among men ““ that they are rare geniuses who deserve our
unadulterated worship. It would have us believe that running
onstage and kissing them is the only way to adequately express our
love for them.
But, no matter how gifted an artist may be, that person is still
human. Only a few days before Tweedy decked his rabid fan, a member
of The Juan MacLean beat a man down for fooling with his gear
during a DJ set. Last Thursday, Broken Social Scene leader Kevin
Drew grew frustrated when his backup vocalist missed his cue. Drew
stopped the band mid-song and berated him in front of the
audience.
Earlier this summer, I watched as Matthew Friedberger of The
Fiery Furnaces got upset at the poor quality of their sound mix and
dragged the whole performance down. Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio
even faked a thick German accent to avoid having to talk to me when
I asked for his autograph several weeks ago.
These things happen. While some musicians are comfortable in the
spotlight, the fact is that many of them are just your average,
everyday kind of guys struggling to come to terms with whatever
degree of celebrity they may have. And, like every other person,
they have their pet peeves, they get uncomfortable in certain
situations, and they make mistakes.
And while this seems like an intrinsically negative thing, I
couldn’t be more grateful. We need reminders that behind the
music and behind the fancy stage setup there are people just like
us. Because of that, we can connect and relate to them on a very
basic level that makes the whole experience much more like an
active, working relationship rather than a crowd of subjects at the
foot of a mountain, offering sacrifices to our chosen deity.
This connection has also resulted in some of my most memorable
live experiences. The tangible chemistry between Jesse “The
Devil” Hughes and the audience at an Eagles of Death Metal
concert I attended, for instance, was much more affecting than any
performance with pre-planned stage banter and rehearsed stage
antics.
Our perception of musicians as more than human makes victims of
both artists and fans alike: The artists suffer under the pressure
of constantly being in the spotlight, and the fans fail to make
that gut-level connection.
It’s time we started treating musicians like the normal
people they are. I’m just hoping most fans won’t
require Jeff Tweedy’s oncoming fist to figure that out.
Duhamel thinks Tweedy really just wanted a hug. E-mail him
at dduhamel@media.ucla.edu.