It’ s an ungrateful world is a translation of a Swedish proverb. And that is what you feel so many times. I had a band a couple of years ago that really wanted to play on one of the biggest festivals in Sweden. The problem was that they were not really that big and was not close to being picked by the festival. Still, they nagged about it for two years that they wanted to play on this festival.

One day I had meeting with a friend and out of the blue, he gave me an opportunity to pick a band for his stage that he had on the festival. It was not really free, I had to do some favors in other stuff for him. Still here was the opportunity to get the band into the festival.

Even though it was a friend I also knew that it was not totally controversial that he picked one of my bands for his stage. I knew he would get some shit talk from other people at the festival, still, he did do it and booked my band.

I went back to the band with the good news that, yes they were at the festival this year. Of course, the band was thrilled. I had to stop them from posting it on their webpage. Of course, the festival was not announcing them in their first round so we had to wait.

Then the ungrateful began. The band was complaining that they were not announced fast enough. Since they were very small we knew they would come late, and we told them that. Still, they thought we should press on the festival to get it out faster. Not a good idea so we just let that idea pass.

Then two months before the festival they announced it. Actually in pretty good time. Then we got the stage and the time. Of course, since we were not a priority band we got a slot four in the afternoon. Actually, we should just be glad to even get a spot at all. The band complained that it was an early time and on a small stage. Couldn’t we talk to the festival to get a later time and a better spot?

My friend put his ass on the line to just get them in there, of course, I can’t ask for more. In the end, the band played at the spot they got, but was really rude about it and didn’t promote the gig since they didn’t like the spot. The gig didn’t go that well. It could have if they weren’t acting like a spoiled child.

If someone does you a favor don’t try to push it. And I never did that band a favor again.