(A freewrite from London a few months back, backstage somewhere)

The band with the manager waited. Bands With Managers is like watching TV; it’s not inherently bad. Plenty of great bands have managers, and mangers too. And some TV is good. But either can get ugly real fast if there’s a deficit of identity. So the band with the manager waited, and wondered what to play, and whether to be nice or not. Because the manager had taught them about being mysterious, and they weren’t sure what that meant.
Some of them had the thousand-yard stare down naturally. They were meant for a certain type of success. The small-talk, ’it’s all good, brah’ banter. The positivity. The willingness to let a jerk represent them while they played Nice Guy, and their friends got the opening slot right after doors opened, and played in front of the drums, to no one, for nothing. And the band with the manager didn’t say a thing. Because they were keeping their eye on the ball.
The band with the manager played and it was professional.