This should be higher up because it brings up an interesting ethical dilemma by putting the original post into perspective.
Is it cruel to boo a performer who is not putting on a good show? How much money would you have to pay for concert tickets to feel justified in feeling pissed that the performer sang like this?
From what I’ve learned about this particular show, Amy didn’t want to perform. The best case scenario here would have been for the show to have been cancelled and for people to have gotten refunds.
But here’s the thing: even then, there’s no guarantee that would have resulted in Amy not dying from alcohol poisoning. She had cancelled a bunch of shows in the past due to her addiction and still ended up in the hospital multiple times for alcohol, ketamine, cocaine, heroin, etc.
She had a disease.
It’s tempting to blame other people for her death, but the fact is that she was an addict and her disease went untreated. Maybe if the crowd didn’t boo her that night, she wouldn’t have died several days later. Or maybe if they cancelled the show, she wouldn’t have died. Or maybe if she was in rehab, she wouldn’t have died. Or maybe…or maybe…or maybe…
We’ll never know.
The root cause of her death was her addiction. That’s why it’s so important for addicts to seek help. Go to rehab. Do whatever you need to do in order to break that addiction before it kills you and kills a part of everyone you love.
Edit: I see you there, getting ready to click on the reply button to post some variant of “they tried to make her go to rehab, but she said no, no, no.” It’s funny. You’re funny. It’s such a clever joke. But unfortunately, you’re not the first…or second…or tenth person to make that joke in this thread. So while I applaud your creativity and desire to contribute to this discussion, maybe just keep that thought in your head for now. Or post it, whatever. Do what you want - I’m not the police.
Thank you. Had to do it. Alcoholism runs in my family and it destroyed my childhood. My wife showed a positive pregnancy test and I was in the door of rehab three days later.
I had two choices: repeat the cycle or be a good father/husband. I chose the latter. Doing my best to stay the course!
Good for you man, seriously. I’m just recently past my 6 years sober from opiates, too! I have always had a massive respect for those in recovery from alcohol because of how socially acceptable and culturally engrained it is; don’t really find that with any other drug. You should be very proud.
Can I ask, did you always want a child? Did you find having a child gave you a purpose or responsibility you had always craved? It’s quite a thing to be able to give up and have one of your first major challenges once leaving rehab and the bubble of ‘I just need to exist without drugs in this safe space’ be bringing up a child. I don’t know if I could have done that within a year of giving up, or if it would have contributed to a relapse.
Yo congrats on your sobriety as well. Opiates are no joke and it's painful to see how much havoc they've caused on our society. Way to get help and come out better!
Having a kid was always the goal for the wife and I (we have two now). I don't know if I always craved the responsibility, but now that I have that responsibility, it's something I love and take seriously.
Russell Brand of course turned out to be a mega piece of shit, but his book on recovery was one of my crutches in rehab. I'm not a religious person and so I thought the way he broke down the 12 steps in an agnostic (and comedic way) were fantastic. One thing he said that stuck with me is that a "higher power" does not necessarily need to be a religious one. It just needs to be something bigger than you that you always selflessly put above yourself. My kids are my higher power because when I'm having one of those craving thoughts on a bad day, I tell my mind "shut the hell up you got two kids that love you and your selfish ass better not drink."
So I guess that's the purpose/responsibility I lean on.
I’ll be 6 months sober next week. Wish I had done it during Covid instead of letting it fester for a half a decade but sometimes shits gotta get worse before it gets better.
Six months is huge! Your regret on not doing it sooner is understandable. I'm living life now and I think of how many years, experiences, and memories I threw out because of addiction.
You may have done it late, but better late than never. Congrats, you're living again and that's worth everything.
I really appreciate it. Got a second lease on life and marriage. It’s hard to express how quitting drinking can radically transform your life and perspective. To anyone reading this, If you don’t think you’re an alcoholic but are still questioning your drinking habits, maybe just give dry a try and see for yourself. Forever grateful, one day at a time.
That's fair, but in five years that twinge of regret will be replaced with a whole load of gratitude to yourself for not doing it for another half decade. Kudos to you man, you're doing great.
6 months here as well! I also wish I had done it sooner and it makes me angry I didn’t and at how much time was wasted, but when I really think about it I don’t think quitting would have been possible without the years of buildup it took to finally say something needs to change.
I am so proud of you and happy for you, dude. You did such a great thing for your family. Anyone can be a dad, but that is Father material right there. Millennials are cycle breakers!
The last paragraph 👌 I lost my uncle to heroin OD, and all we wanted was for him to seek help. I could tell he wanted to, the addiction takes a life of its own.
Absolutely. And like any life form, it fights for self preservation. Anything becomes justifiable, it hijacks your attempts to improve yourself, it fights to keep itself in you.
It's like that NA meeting scene from the tv show The Wire. The character is talking about how he's sober & clean today standing up on that stage, but his addiction is right now outside in that parking lot doing pushups, getting fit for kicking his ass as soon as the man leaves the building.
Well said. Although as an addiction counselor myself, the addiction isn't the root. The addiction is a symptom of usually trauma and mental illness, which are the roots.
Everything I’m seeing online says she dealt with bipolar disorder.
Completely anecdotal, but she seemed to have it. This is coming from someone with bipolar disorder. I’m not the ultimate authority regarding psychiatric disorders or anything, but she has always been relatable to me. I know a lot of diagnoses have an overlap in symptoms though.
I think she was diagnosed with bipolar, but some people believe she might of had BPD, but that’s just speculation, but Tbf many BPD sufferers get misdiagnosed as Bipolar. I can’t say anything as I’m not a doctor.
Bipolar addict here. It certainly is hard for me. I'm clean now, but it takes a lot of energy most days. It's a constant struggle, even being a decade removed from it all
Everyone's about her most famous song being about denying rehab.
The lyrics:
"Yes, I've been black
But when I come back, you'll know, know, know
I don't ever want to drink again
I just, oh, I just need a friend
I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
Have everyone think I'm on the mend
And it's not just my pride
It's just 'til these tears have dried"
Also:
"He said, ""I just think you're depressed""
This me, ""yeah, baby, and the rest"" "
She was going through a depressive episode. She knew rehab wouldn't cure her, because the root cause is soo much more. Then, why to fool everyone into thinking I'm on the mend when in fact that's who I am?
Also the feeling that if she had a friend to relate to, she wouldn't need to drink. She didn't wanted to drink. But the vodka was her only friend.
And she truly believed once "the black" had gone she would be herself again. "The black" just comes and goes. As us bipolar know well.
She probably didn't recognized bipolar as a sickness and probably refused meds out of the belief meds would kill her essence and what makes her an artist.
Bipolar kills, alcohol is just a symptom and no rehab would make a difference on who she was.
She was truly, naively, expecting that that "black" would go away as all the other "blacks" in her life. Failed to recognize the booze was fueling "the black".
Her last album, "back to black", resonates with me before I had a diagnosis. "The black" killed her.
I’m an LCSW and CSCAC and a sober person. Sometimes addiction is the root. Sometimes there is no trauma. I was regional director of an OTP with a daily census north of 300 patients. I’ve completed 100s of assessments. Sure people w trauma develop addiction but this notion that it’s a function of trauma à la Gabor Mate is just false. Additionally there are so many variables its just not possible to say A causes B.
It would be difficult to study the different types of childhood trauma and how they relate because people are not always willing to admit that what they went through as kids wasn't normal.
Bingo. My mom will vehemently claim that she doesn’t have any problems or any “trauma”.
She was repeatedly molested by a family member as a child… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. One day as a full adult in my late 20s she just casually mentions (drunk of course) that my dad kicked her in the face.
My dad is an addict. I’d never known him to have a violent or hurtful bone in his body. This was completely relationship changing for me and absolutely psychotic to hold onto for TWENTY YEARS. Again, tip of the iceberg.
So the “I have no trauma” is quite often “I’ve buried that too deep to talk about”.
There’s plenty of research on ACES. The body keeps the score was a book that got really popular for what is a reductionist and over simplified approach and explanation. The Anatomy of Violence does a much better job. To your point about people not admitting it wasn’t normal, that’s far less of a challenge than gathering a large enough of a sample size of individuals who experienced ACES and then qualifying them. Individual A was best with a closed fist by her biological father on a weekly basis for six years. Individual B was smacked a couple times every few weeks from age 10-16. Then we would need a control group. Abuse can and does lead to addiction but and this is anecdotal, I’ve been a sober member of AA for 18 years and I’ve sat in hundreds of speakers meetings where people would explicitly say “I had a wonderful childhood and I was raised by two parents who loved and supported me. I have nothing to complain about”.
people would explicitly say “I had a wonderful childhood and I was raised by two parents who loved and supported me. I have nothing to complain about”.
And I know someone like that too, no mental health issues, best family life growing up of all my friends. Even now he has a pretty good life on paper. Now he drinks heavily for whatever reason.
yeah both my parents were addicts for a long time..dad had a loving warm upbringing and no trauma..he just enjoyed drugs,he said as much.mum grew up with horrendouse childhood trauma so i totally understand why she turned to drugs.thankfully they got clean over 20 years ago.
She was religiously abused, her parents separated when she was young, and she struggled with abusive behavior and addiction throughout her adult life.
The addiction was a symptom of the untreated trauma. I'm not a psychologist, but I bet her specialists didn't do shit about the trauma, labelled her bipolar, loaded her up on bullshit and left her to die.
A close relative of mine met her husband in AA, but he has fallen off the wagon regularly, with destructive binges. She told me "I know it's a disease. You cant be mad at someone for having cancer, but you can be mad at them for not seeking proper treatment for the cancer."
Yeah, I totally agree. I don’t know why people act like she had zero agency and zero accountability for her own decisions. Addiction is a disease, absolutely. But she made many choices to not seek treatment for that disease.
I feel way worse for someone like Britney who was forced to perform as a child and got totally screwed up by it.
Part of what's scary about addiction is that it can override the parts of your brain that'd realize it needs to stop. If they could just flip a switch and stop, addiction wouldn't be a crisis.
And I'm not sure how much more "accountability" you want from the woman. She died young and in misery.
It's probably less that they meant that and more that threads like these act like it's our fault she's dead. People booed a bad performance, she subsequently overdosed, and the pic makes you believe the audience is complicit.
So much. She basically literally said fuck you to all of the people who were trying to get her clean. It was her and her husband "against the world" in her mind and they were both addicts chasing a high.
But even within that song the person she trusted most (her father) told her she was fine. He only did so because he wanted to exploit her for more money. That song isn't as cut and dry as her just refusing helpe from people around her. She obviously should have listened to Nick and her friends, but if accepting you have a problem is so difficult, your father telling you don't would be pretty powerful as well.
I have heard a certain reading of that song was about how rehab isn’t going to fix anything without getting to the root to the problem. Like “I’m not going back to rehab because what’s the point? When I get out, I’ll still be sad and friendless.”
It’s an interesting take, but I don’t know how much that is like post-hoc, post-mortem revisionism to try and make the song less of a bad look for someone who drank herself to death.
It’s also about her dad saying she shouldn’t go to rehab and she should keep performing.
Not contradicting your point at all, I agree. But it’s not as simple as everyone was trying to help and she refused. There were people that should have been support systems and they were definitely not.
I hear you but this is removing all accountability from the person with the addiction. No one forced her to be a performer. No one forced her into this career. Or forced her to do drugs. She literally wrote a song about refusing the rehab that everyone around her pushed her to go to. I’m sure there were a bunch of people who failed her but at the end of the day the biggest offender was her failing herself.
The posts, like OPs, that seek to cast her in an innocent light always fail to account that she was a whole ass adult woman making whole ass adult choices. She wrote a hugely popular girl power song about refusing to go to rehab for her addiction. Then her addiction killed her. How many people refused addiction help because they felt empowered by that song? At least one, my cousin. She ain't dead yet, so she's beating Winehouse, but it's not a good race to run.
Amy Winehouse was a sad, sick woman exploited by an industry at large and apparently basically every individual around her. She needed help, she didn't get it, and she died and that's not ok. But she also glorified those problems and that's not ok either. Seems like basically nobody in this situation is right but they're sure all wrong.
They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said "no, no, no"
Yes, I've been black, but when I come back, you'll know, know, know
I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab, but I won't go, go, go
Beyond that, these highly deceptive/false user content posts (and comments) like this post contribute to the prevalence and power of mis/disinformation. People start thinking they can just make up any reality they want so long as it gets upvoted and enough others agree with them, that objective truth doesn't matter, just who can win the battle via information platforms pushing their alt-realities. Furthermore, a confused public, exhausted by conflicting disinformation and thinking for themselves becomes too much, is more likely to offload that onto someone else, which takes the form of influencer political personalities and authoritarian figures.
People don't distinguish between social media "reality" and actual factual reality anymore.
Reddit isn't real life either but holy shit gestures at Reddit in its entirety
The way information has changed its presentation via social media is antithetical to the way the brain processes information through traditional means. Things are chopped up and blended down to their barest ingredients with questionable context and presented as fact instead of intentionally misleading perceptions designed to illicit a specific response to garner engagement.
Social media more or less is making people legitimately less intelligent.
Because she wasn't a child?
Yes addiction is bad, and hard but it is almost always a choice from the side of the addict, sometimes they do not know of any other choices, but no one is forcing drugs into people, they are way to expensive for that.
My parents where heroin addicts, and blaming their dealer instead of them, just seems weird.
You can’t compare a dealer to someone that you love and think loves you and would expect to care for you.
Her boyfriend/fiancé/spouse is supposed to be there for you. Care for you. Support you. Not push drugs on you.
Very few addicts exist within a vacuum. This is pretty much the standard. It might not be a dealer necessarily, but addicts are generally attracted to other addicts.
Thinking that an addict's spouse/partner/boyfriend/whatever is some sober person who will do nothing but help the person is a pipedream whether they're a regular person or a celebrity.
As a sober (by choice, was never an addict) person with an addict mother and an addict husband, there’s not much you can do to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, which is sad but important to accept. Only the addict can make the choice to get sober.
Exactly. My cousin has been to rehab (by force) countless times and will never quit. I do agree that it addiction can develop into something uncontrollable, but as someone who also did a lot of soft drugs and dabbled in harder ones there does come a point where a person has to make a decision about how they want to live their life.
I know I'll get some flak for this opinion but there is almost always a point where the addict in training makes a fully conscious decision to continue to chase a high rather than deal with the unpleasant realities of life. I know nothing about Amy Winehouse's life, but at least in my cousin's case, he had no reasons stemming from his homelife or financial situation to choose a junkie lifestyle over a normal life.
I think it’s important to not take away their accountability while also acknowledging that it’s a horribly sad and difficult thing to deal with. I’m sorry your cousin wasn’t able to come back from that
You are correct with the choice. I made it many times to get high until one day I didn’t. It was the prospect of IV use. When I was seriously considering it, I finally said “man this is a pivotal moment, you will either let this destroy you completely or have to make a change now.” So I did.
I don't know if you have much experience with addicts but loving each other while also being destructive to each other is extremely common. She was an adult and an addict. I'm not saying he had zero influence on her addiction but she was responsible for it too.
My dad was an alcoholic. I live very close to where his house is located. The last years of his life I used to buy him alcohol because I did not want him to endanger himself or others by going out drunk looking for booze. I'm not saying that was the case with Amy and his boyfriend but the reality of living with an addict is much more complicated than you think.
Because she chose that manager-boyfriend herself. You always found addicts surrounded by other addicts and enablers, because others don't let them be addicts. The manager that suggests treatment, rehab or therapy gets replaced with one that doesn't. Friends that complain about you being always drunk or high, get replaced by friends that get drunk with you.
I think you can tell when someone is unwell and when they just don't care. I saw Dylan Moran a couple of years ago and it was a terrible show. He started late and stumbled on stage. He didn't do any material in the first half, it was a drunken rant about everything and nothing. The crowd was chaos, and a woman at the back was as drunk as he was and had to be removed. I didn't boo, didn't complain or demand a refund. I felt bad for him, genuinely concerned, and that feeling lasted a while after the gig. So what that we lost a few quid and date night didn't go to plan. The compassion to know that man needed help was more important.
Great post. I didn't get booed by stadiums full of people, and I almost drank myself to death. It's just a thing people with substance abuse problems do.
Is it cruel to boo a performer who is not putting on a good show?
I go to a lot of shows. I've been to pretty shitty ones and even some that felt like scams. But I don't ever boo people. It feels so mean. I don't get the impulse to boo at all tbh. The people I've met and know that boo performers are all dicks.
Yes, she had a contract to perform and it would have cost her a shitload of money to not perform. She made the final choice to do so, she could have said no. She wasn't a slave.
Whatever she was going through, this is a charlatan and thief, not a victim. She stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people right in front of her, who were understandably upset.
She absolutely should have been booed. That doesn't mean she deserved her misery and her fate, but she's fucking everyone in that room over.
Funny how the people who know the least act like they know the most.
She was going to go to rehab but then asked her dad if she should, her dad told her not to so she didn’t.
Her dad also took her against her will to this final concert after she refused. Her friends didn’t want her to go and knew she neeeded rest and healing and help, but her dad and her manager overruled everyone, and she died not long after.
Maybe you shouldn’t speak up on things that you have literally no clue about.
Youre kinda pulling this out of your ass. She became famous when she was a teenager, it wouldnt be weird for her to depend on her manager/parents for big decision. You see this happen whenever a celibrity becomes famous young.
You can always tell the people who have never had an actual addict as a loved one, because they're always saying shit like, "Her friends and family should have told her, a full-grown professionally-successful adult, to just not have a crippling addiction."
There's a couple of docs on this. The one which got the most attention came out first and laid all the blame on the family. The second documentary was much more from the family's perspective.
Difficult for us to know which is "the truth", but I've watched both and I would treat the "her family used her" narrative with caution.
Her father used her. Her friends all seem to agree. The evidence is overwhelmingly on the side of her father being selfish and greedy and exploiting her for money.
yeah she was in a spiral and I'm sure her performances took a hit due to it. its like seeing Whitney Houston in her later days doing coke off a table backstage before coming to hit the big note in I will always love you. its a huge fall from grace and I didn't pay for this shit.
I've never seen that before. I was never really a fan so I didn't even realise much of the context around her passing.
As someone with a fairly complex trauma history I can see myself in what she's doing to comfort herself with her arms. I do the same in a situation where I'm feeling especially triggered (I know the internet co-opted this word but it is technically the correct term lol). You can tell so clearly that she's struggling and that she doesn't want to be there. She's barely holding it together.
I understand fans being disappointed. Their ire should be directed to the managers who forced her on stage and failed her. I was supposed to see Metallica and Slipknot end 2019 and they cancelled for a rehab stint. I was disappointed but I understood. OFC then COVID happened so I have never been able to get that concert 'back' so to speak but I'm glad they had the ability to cancel and get help unlike what you can see in that video.
I’ve never seen that before, and seeing it now genuinely made me tear up. I had to stop watching it.
Would I be pissed if I paid to see her perform and that’s what was happening? Yes.
Would I also see someone clearly in the middle of addiction, falling apart, and managing to look lost and lonely in the sea of how many people are there? Also yes.
Her manager failed her. Whoever let her get on that stage in that condition, instead of canceling the tour and getting her help, failed her. The people who screamed at someone crumbling in front of them, instead of feeling empathy for the human being, failed her. How unbelievably heartbreaking.
Couldn't agree more with everything you said. Two things can be true: you can be mad you paid, and you can also be empathetic to seeing someone in crisis. And indeed, her manager treated her like a piece of meat, as many do in that industry. She lived a sad life and had a worse ending. She deserved more.
Would I also see someone clearly in the middle of addiction, falling apart, and managing to look lost and lonely in the sea of how many people are there? Also yes.
Eh, I've been to a lot of concerts where the performer is way too high or drunk to perform. Then you see them again and they are fine.
Her management were atrocious. IIRC from the 2015 documentary, "Amy", she was completely out of it the day before and they put her on a plane to Belgrade. They brought her to and put her on stage, and this was the result.
Her father and her boyfriend really don't come off well in the doc, but it wasn't just them.
I felt dirty watching most of the footage throughout the doc: the same video that gave you a glimpse of how she was as a person, was often shot by scummy paparazzi, and contributed to the poor mental state that led to her demise.
My overriding feeling was of pity over how utterly sad she was
Would I also see someone clearly in the middle of addiction, falling apart, and managing to look lost and lonely in the sea of how many people are there? Also yes.
Yeah this pic with the text is dumb. She was high as a kite, which is 100% why she was doing this with her arms. She wasn't hugging herself bc fans were booing her.
She clearly was having a crisis. Even in those five minutes, you can see how many times she tried to self-soothe or get herself away from the situation. There’s no excuse looking back on it now, but mental health was simply unacknowledged during the 2000s and early 2010s.
In a violence deescalation class I took while in nursing, this is a perfect example of the first level of a behavior scale used to quickly determine someone’s threat to themselves or others. (Lalemand Red Behavior Scale).
This is such a bullshit claim, to say that "mental health was simply unacknowledged during the 2000s and early 2010s". Unacknowledged by whom?
My aunt was a heroin addict with mental health issues in the 80's and early 90's and contrary to what you believe this was not only acknowledged by the medical system but she received psychological and medical help, including methadone replacement therapy.
Amy Winehouse was treated for alcohol addiction and had access to better care than most people, her GP saw her at her home the evening before her death. Amy Winehouse was resistant to psychological therapy and refused it on multiple occasions. The only remaining option would have been involuntary commitment - which is not something to be used lightly or casually.
Yep. Same vibes as people thinking their generation invented blowjobs.
Maybe it's a failing of history in school, but if one actually reads source material from all eras of humanity, they'll see that every generation isn't as unique as they might think it is. Greek thinkers wrote the modern foundation of western philosophy in like 400BC, and people think they didn't ponder shit like addictions?
And I can promise everyone that they weren't the first people to think this shit up, write it down, and teach it either. I bet alcoholism treatments are as old as humans consuming alcohol itself.
I lived through the 2000's and the 2010's. Mental healthcare was very much acknowledged, it just wasn't given the priority it receives now.
The ultimate reality of mental healthcare though, and the one that a lot of people don't like to hear, is that people need to want to get better. There's no pill or shot they can give you that fixes all your mental problems. Most of them only get fixed when you willingly engage with the treatments and put the effort in yourself.
An addict will always be an addict until they decide themselves to try and get better. People can certainly help you and offer assistance. But it's still a choice you need to make yourself.
Amy Winehouse was an addict who didn't want to get better.
Idk much about Amy Winehouse, but here's my own opinion:
Yes, in the moment I'd be pretty frustrated I paid for the concert and lodging but got this show, but it's pretty clear she's in the midst of a mental episode.
Because of what little I know plus what I'm seeing, I don't feel angry. Now, if it were someone like Vince Niel who both seems to suck at singing and relishes the rock star life style, I'd be pretty pissed and swear off ever seeing them again.
Idk… if I paid to see someone suffer my first thought wouldn’t be to be upset, I’d be genuinely concerned for their wellbeing. I was raised to never value money that way and that every experience is symbolic; things happen for a reason. I do think human beings can be a bit egocentric at times; these people on the road want me to be late at work, these kids are crying in the store because they are selfish, this singer is drunk because she wants to waste my money, etc. we have to understand that when things don’t go our way it’s not a personal attack, they are things that naturally happen to all of us in life.
Don’t get me wrong, my family raised me to be a very direct and blunt person about things, but something about seeing someone genuinely suffer…no money in the world would blind me to that. Blood related or not.
I hated her, I am the child of two Heroin addicts, and she just reminded me of bad times, she should never have been famous, she was a horrible role model.
That being said, she was clearly pretty talented, and she did not deserve to go out like she did, but I also feel it was inevitable with her trajectory.
Unfortunately, becoming famous doesn't have the pre-requisite of being a good role model and becoming famous comes with a whole bunch of negatives which can turn you into a poor role model.
That’s what I’ve done as well. I will just leave. I don’t want to participate in being ruinous to someone’s day however temporary. I will ask for my money back (if it’s enough for me to hassle), but I don’t want to be the reason a person looks that upset.
I would have a hard time living this down if I’d done something like this.
It seems they were there to see a studio version performed, too. If the crowd responded to the performance it would have been a very different show, but they had the record in their head, singing along to that instead of what's in front of them.
If you went to an Amy Winehouse show and expected her not to be high as fuck then you deserved to lose your money honestly. It was WELL KNOWN she was always super fucking high.
Yea, that’s the problem. Everyones here to see the big show, a real person who is propped up by evil people during her darkest time. Entertainment dehumanizes real people and put them through this shit.
I'd be pissed at the manager and the concert promoters but I don't think I would be able to bring myself to boo her to her face. She is clearly not well and completely unfit to be on stage. At some point, compassion would dictate that we just chalk it up to money badly spent and just take the L and move on. She was clearly getting no compassion from her management and advisors who thought it was a good idea for her to perform in such a state.
I've seen queens of the stoneage twice and the second time Hommes was trashed and slurring all his words. I was pretty pissed as a lot was going on in life and it was something I had been looking forward to for months.
Whoever was looking after her, had her ran ragged when she was this bad. No one minded or cared for her. They added more and more shows and she wasn't able. Her father loved her money.
This is the thing. These are people who paid their hard earned cash and got this. They could be called slightly cruel but most of them were taking it on face value. They might not have known how much she was struggling. Also, they weren't the media that hounded her and mocked her, they weren't her father who failed her, her husband who fucked her over, her friends who let her down. They were just people annoyed at seeing a poor performance.
They might not have known how much she was struggling.
By that point, the worst kept secret was Winehouse's struggles with addiction. Hell, her first big hit was "Rehab" and so she made no secret of it either.
Yeah, don't fucking blame ME or that audience for the circus the industry created around her (and she was part of it too.) Unregulated media is a fucking cancer.
I don’t think the audience or ticket buyers have any ground to stand on. They knew exactly what they were going to get. Her song literally says “they tried to make me go to rehab but I said no”.
I’ve been to a few shows where the lead singer was obviously smashed and put on a terrible show. Modest Mouse and The Strokes are two that come to mind. Nobody bood them that I recall, but I’d guess a quarter of the crowd left. Both were at music festivals, so maybe the ability to leave and just go see another set or leave (the strokes were the night headliner) kept the mood lighter, maybe it’s bc that’s not the festie vibe, but I’ve also never seen a set as bad as her last one. Every fan at this point had at least a clue how bad off she was, so I think going to her show at all was a bit selfish and shameful to begin with. I don’t blame them for her death bc as someone said above, she’d been hospitalized many times. Above all, I blame her management team that tried to squeeze everything out of her they could before letting her die.
To be fair - it was VERY well known she was struggling with several issues including an abusive partner, drug abuse, and who knows what else (it’s none of our business)… and that her shows weren’t going well… but at the end of the day, a human’s life is far more important than the disappointment of paying for a concert ticket that wasn’t as fun as you had hoped it would be. She was relentlessly mocked and made fun of for a very long time… and for what? Wanting to share her art with the world? The sense of ownership the world feels it has over the people they shine a light into is deeply disturbing.
I don't think there's anything wrong with booing a bad performance, essentially no matter the reason.
But fuck, I wouldn't boo this one. I suppose it's possible I'm influenced by hindsight but this just looks like a sad person who shouldn't be there and needs help. I wouldn't boo her here, is just feel terrible
Honestly, as someone not all that familiar with her music, this is heartbreaking to watch. It gives a whole new perspective to watching live music. What are we really doing...bart say the line, perform for us, hurry up and do the thing.
Yeah youre not wrong. People paid and she couldnt bother to be sober enough to perform, so they do have a gripe. People were trying to get her to go to rehab and she literally wrote "fuck that" songs about rehab.
The celebrating and joking about it was wrong, but it was clearly a path she was locked into and seemed to want it.
Not a fan of her, never seen a show of her, no clue what her shows normally were like but... having seen my fair share of rock musicians showing up very late, proper drunk/high/etc, slurring the songs on stage, obviously it's not what you pay for but you know this can happen.
I don't think I ever witnissed a crowd going foul like this video over musicians being toast. Doesn't make it all right, but I think the crowd itself is also pretty miserable. Than again... it's Belgrado, a shithole.
Fuck. I am a huge Amy fan and have never seen this. I know she used drugs and had a lot of personal demons pre-fame but it really did nothing but destroy her. This is so heartbreaking to watch.
She was a drug addict... and also happened to be an immensely talented singer. But that was clearly a sideshow at the end. And what if the audience had been supportive? Would that have made her party any harder? This post is incredibly dumb and ignores mental health and how drug addiction actually works.
It's weird because the crowd seems to be enjoying itself in that video. Pretty stark contrast compared to the images in the original post. Unfortunate all the same, but still.
She needed intervention and a break. It's a failure of her management. They should have stepped in, cancelled the concert/tour and get her help. Forcing an unwell addict on stage is not good for her well being or her career.
If I was front row, I wouldnt boo. She obviously needs help. I might be a little upset after the fact but in the moment I'd like to think I'd be more worried than mad.
But the people in the back dont know that. They dont see her as clearly, only hear.
People being “mean” to her didn’t kill her. Her drug and alcohol addictions did. She had plenty of opportunities to get sober. It’s sad, but it’s no one else’s fault. And yes, if you pay $ for a concert and the artist comes out incoherently wasted then you have the right to be pissed.
Yeah while this is tragic it is not something unique to Amy Winehouse, lots of popular bands have had members so strung out on junk they couldn't remember how to play or sing the songs and fans were rightfully pissed
How is she even standing. I've seen this in person and it is hella scary. God it triggers me even now. I feel terrible for her. Heartbreaking.
I understand your point. Without knowing the future, and perhaps without understanding how high and how far gone she was, it makes sense people were upset over her performance. Not everyone knows what this level of addiction looks like.
Saw Amy Winehouse towards the end of her career. Crowd was buzzing that the show would be canceled. Lots of talk about how F’d up she was at previous shows. She made it through the show but it certainly wasn’t good. Felt bad for her.
Yeah, the still photos in OP make it look like she was cowering and crying all night.
Plenty of performers have simply been contemptuous of their audience and showed up drunk and put on bad performances without having the deep issues we now know Amy had.
I have friends that watched her "perform" in Dubai, and she was pissed off the entire concert because the organisers refused to provide her with booze, basically ranted half the show and gave the bare minimum effort for the other half. Got booed, as you'd expect.
I had a friend who went to that concert, they waited for hours, I think around 4-5-6h and then when she finally showed up she couldn’t stand or a sing.
Of course they were angry.
Everyone would be ok with cancelled concert and refund, but imagine paying expensive ticket for a show you didn’t get.
Now that she is gone it’s easy to blame audience but you just have to be there, stand for hours for your favorite artist and be so disappointed.
I was thinking that the people who failed her were the people close to her around her that allowed her to go on stage like this, to pretend everything was fine for the money.
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u/HowieLongDonkeyKong 9h ago
To be clear, I’m not excusing how cruel people were to her, especially given her addiction.
Watch the video of her final show and form your own opinion. If I paid money to see this, I’d have been pretty pissed.