Portnoy Gets a Wee Bit Upset

I'm not defending him but...Sounds to me he was sorry for his actions ...he did apologized to the audience which is a lot more than most would do.

Also his frustration seemed to stem from not giving the audience what they came for as apposed to not getting what he wanted.

And really, that wasn't exactly the worst thing we've seen on stage... it was kind of tame if you ask me, not right, but still tame.
 
He's a spoiled baby plain and simple. I saw him at a clinic one time years ago after the awake album. He spent the first 15 minutes crying about how Tama didn't send this, they didn't send that, the kits not right. Shut up and play, a good drummer can make do with the $10,000 worth of drums they had there for him. Then he went on a 15 minute tirade half way through bashing Lars and Neil Peart. At that point I was done, didn't hang around for the autograph/photo op. Any respect I had for that Primadona went out the window that day.

What he did was disrespectful to his band mates, the crew, the crowd who paid good money to see him. If that loaner kit belonged to me and he was using it and did that, he'd have one serious #$% whipping headed his way!
 
Wow.. He could have stopped.. Asked for the mic to be set up again, instead of trashing his kit...
It seems as though A7 and Dream Theatre are better off. That band should be hailed as the next big shredder band with that lineup..All people will be talking about is his immature reaction to an everyday ocurance playing live.
 
IMO he's lucky to be playing with those guys and should know his place. The rap was slightly amusing but you should never throw things, doesn't matter how much they're worth to you.
 
Big Foot said:
I'm not defending him but...Sounds to me he was sorry for his actions ...he did apologized to the audience which is a lot more than most would do.

Also his frustration seemed to stem from not giving the audience what they came for as apposed to not getting what he wanted.

And really, that wasn't exactly the worst thing we've seen on stage... it was kind of tame if you ask me, not right, but still tame.
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I agree he was sorry, he obviously knows he should've kept his cool. But, he didn't. Whether it was a small or large hissy fit, he threw it, and shouldn't have.

Those who regret not delivering a good performance do so afterward, not during a show. He had NO excuse for stopping mid-song. He wasn't concerned about whether the audience got a good show, he was only concerned about how he looked and sounded.

Bermuda
 
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opentune said:
I heard the Atari's are looking for a drummer. Does Mike know?
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Check your mailbox, sir. You may have already won a nice, shiny new internetz.
 
I just think it did not look professional at all. It is not good for his professional profile when he does things like that.
There have been many discussions on this forum about what it takes to be a pro drummer, and being a nice guy and not cracking the shits comes up a fair bit, so I will just say that mike lost it a bit.
 
gaz farrimond said:
If you're doing a tour on the cheap and using loan equipment and local labour there are always going to be problems. Instead of playing the song out the best way he could, then rectifying the situation, he launches into a tirade at people who probably have little grasp of English in the first place.
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Agreed.

I've been following Portnoy' career pretty closely since 1992, seen him a million times, and there is ZERO excuse for that.


bermuda said:
He wasn't concerned about whether the audience got a good show, he was only concerned about how he looked and sounded.
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This. Quite an insult to the great Billy Sheehan and Tony MacAlpine (not mention Derek) to stop their show too over his hissy fit.


opentune said:
I heard the Atari's are looking for a drummer. Does Mike know?
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Boom!!
 
bermuda said:
I agree he was sorry, he obviously knows he should've kept his cool. But, he didn't. Whether it was a small or large hissy fit, he threw it, and shouldn't have.

Those who regret not delivering a good performance do so afterward, not during a show. He had NO excuse for stopping mid-song. He wasn't concerned about whether the audience got a good show, he was only concerned about how he looked and sounded.

Bermuda
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Jon, Nail, Head, Hit.

There are more people who come come up to say " Great show" rather than "You/Band f*cked that up" because we didn't stop. Just keep on driving and people will think it's part of the act.

But, if anyone is disappointed, I do endeavour to ask why; be it via face to face or virtual media.
 
OrangeAgent27 said:
I'm not one for nasty language, but I'm sorry, he was being a real cotton headed ninny muggins.
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That is one of the funniest things I've read in ages, a real 'beer on keyboard' moment. Reminds me of the sort of comments my grandmother made when she was angry.
 
I felt embarrassed for him. What made it even more uncomfortable is Tony McAlpine and the rest of the band maintaining professionalism in the face of his tantrum.

But this is who Portnoy is. He's always getting into something. It seems a month doesn't go by without some controversy in his life. He's a fixture in the music trade sites. There's been the back-and-forth with his former mates in Dream Theater, the thing with Neil Peart over the Rush tribute he did, pissing off Matt Sorum by making comments on Twitter about the fills he played on that GNR album and on and on. He's a drama queen. And he's better at dishing it out than taking it.
 
This thread should have been called Portnoy's Complaint!

Seems he's a showoff and a prima donna. Oh well. Many people in the upper echelons of their field have inflated egos - be they in the arts, business, science, medicine, sport, religion, politics - it happens pretty well everywhere.

I imagine you'd need to be pretty grounded not to be at least a little egomaniacal when you're always being courted by sycophants. I suspect I'd have become an insufferable PITA if I'd found stardom early in life so I won't judge ;-)
 
bermuda said:
I agree he was sorry, he obviously knows he should've kept his cool. But, he didn't. Whether it was a small or large hissy fit, he threw it, and shouldn't have.

Those who regret not delivering a good performance do so afterward, not during a show. He had NO excuse for stopping mid-song. He wasn't concerned about whether the audience got a good show, he was only concerned about how he looked and sounded.

Bermuda
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Okay,
I didn't want to bring this up but what about your boss Al? Last time he was in town here in Montreal. He's doing a short TV interview and from the start he's coming off like he would rather be somewhere else. (what was that about being a professional) The poor girl doing the interview was even looking uncomfortable.
But then she dropped the bomb and really blew it w/him! She asked when he stopped wearing glasses! The look on Al's face was probably just as bad as Portney's whole tantrum! So he says "like 10 years ago" kinda dead pan and sulks (even more) for the rest of the interview. Right there even my teen-aged son said Weird Al was kind of a "baby". (again, what was that about being a professional blah,blah,blah)

But as you say, "The difference is, people in the spotlight - celebrities, politicians, even some musicians - are held to a higher standard." You mean like musicians on TV?

Sorry I don't travel the world w/all the cool people and I guess maybe I don't really understand human nature very well Bermuda.
 
Loads of Rock & Rollers have had hissy fits on stage over the years. It's almost part-and-parcel of being a rock star. They live in a world where their egos get overinflated and lose track of what 'normal' behavior' is. Things like quitting the band by throwing an amp out of the club's 1st floor window, or nearly killing the lead guitarist by braining him with a cymbal (come on, the older ones among you know who I'm talking about), have passed into legend. It seems we've become less tolerant of such antics. Perhaps rightly so.

I watched the vid. I'm so stuck up my own a*se in terms of living in a time-warp that I have no Idea who Portnoy is. A bit immature, but I've seen worse. Bad hair day?
 
...

Like Andy said, nothing really excuses unwarranted disrespect for another person, and in this case specially those poor techs, who were scrambling to put back everything Mr. Hissy Fit was tossing around.
Usually the eff ups are due to - gear not working- wrong gear- unforseen delays at venue, or just sheer bad planning and not something the techs did or didnt do.

The flip side of it is that a lot of bands have very hard tours and unless your'e the Rolling Stones, its a battle to get up and do it in a new city everyday against no sleep, bad food, crazy travel etc etc. Sometimes people just blow up- they're human even if they are pros.

The man apologised. Stuff happens. Does this make him an @hole? No. Maybe he is one anyway, and that I wouldnt know.

...
 
I agree that he is wrong. Period. However, we all have this little part of our brains called the limbic system. It is our primitive brain. Fight or flight from our past hunter gathering brains. Our prefrontal cortex is our higher brain which normally overrides the limbic system keeping us diplomatic and it's what makes us human. We all, at one time or another have given in to irrationality. We cannot escape it. His actions were wrong but he is human and will err at times. Though he was wrong, unprofessional, non politic, nor diplomatic, he is human and imperfect. If anybody here thinks they will always do the right thing at the right times then you are simply wrong. You have and will screw up. Saying otherwise means admitting you are some alien or an unknown advanced humanoid that science needs to study further for the sake of evolutionary prowess.
 
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