Eric Church performs during the Country Throwdown Tour at USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah June 12, 2010. Photo credit: Keith Johnson, Deseret News.
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SALT LAKE CITY — You buy tickets to a big concert. At that very moment that you hit “pay” —you already know the concert might not happen.
Because even your favorite artist can get sick.
Barry Manilow canceled a concert at the Maverick Center. While I was stuck in traffic, trying to get to the Maverick Center.
But Barry Manilow is 78 — medical things can happen.
Artists cancel concerts all the time because of “exhaustion,” but I’ve never seen a doctor diagnose a normal person with this mysterious illness called “exhaustion.”
One time I was the emcee who was supposed to introduce a famous country music star.
Put your hands together for… no one. Instead, they told me to go out there in front of 12-thousand people and tell everybody that the unnamed star had laryngitis and his doctors had banned him from singing.
Oh, that audience loved me. Meantime that famous artist was on his bus, drunk as a skunk, unable to stand up or form words.
The art of canceling a concert is a delicate one.
Unless you’re Eric Church.
He’s not the guy from my story. He’s a country star who was supposed to play a show in San Antonio tomorrow night. But it’s canceled and in a brutal bout of honesty, he explained it’s because he wants to watch the Final Four.
Well, how do you dress that up?
In a statement, he said “This is the most selfish thing I’ve ever asked fans to do. Give up your Saturday night plans so I have had this moment with my family and sports community.”
He’s a North Carolina fan. But his fans? Are having none of it.
He’s getting blasted on Twitter. Your job is to play guitar on Saturday night — go to work!
In a sugar-coated world where employees get to sit in beanbag chairs and play foosball on the job, I just want you to know that these days “the show must go on… maybe.”