Breaking Up is Hard To Do!

Is that how (see previous post),  a r&r band breaks up? I'm not saying this particular r&r band will break up, but a bad show, a "debacle-type" show is the kind of thing that can kill a band. 

I read about r&r bands all the time. It's one of my obsessions: music, bands, collaborations. It's always fascinating to see how a small group of musicians get together and try to create something. 

How do collaborations work? How do people get in a room and work together for a bigger thing? When it is creative and successful, how does that work? Why does it sometimes fall apart?

Even the big, creatively successful, and monetarily successful bands, who seemingly have it all, can crash. Think: The Beatles, The Eagles, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, The Stones (they crashed and re-booted a few times), The Smiths, CSN&Y, Simon & Garfunkel. These acts not only "broke up," in many cases, after the crash, there were long-running feuds and hatreds that never subsided.

You have to believe in what you are doing. You have to have the creative fire. You have to be willing to work together. You have to pull in your ego a bit, you have to include other folks in your vision. Those other folks all have to believe too.

The upside: you get to create music and play it. Maybe you make some $. Maybe you just have a sense of accomplishment. Maybe you create a sense of community. Maybe you just have some serious, cool, fun.

A bad show is like a curse. It can erase all that upside. Do you write it off? Chalk it up? Or blow the whole thing to smithereens? Who knows? Who decides? It's sort of a Bad Fog of Loneliness hanging over you... do you retrench, reboot, retreat?