I been wondering this for awhile because sometimes I feel they are but other times I think is just me imagining things. Sometimes I notice the artists being sad while performing, I have notice this on some Kpop idols and even notice a few times in XZ and WY. Could you notice or it’s just me imagining things that aren’t there? How do people working with them deal with this?
Artists are human beings. Like anyone else, they experience the range of human emotions anyone else experiences - happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, boredom, etc.
Most artists are professional and don’t take out their emotions on staff when they are not feeling great or are having a bad day. Many of them also turn off however terribly they’re feeling the moment they step on stage.
I have seen artists go from incredibly upset prior to a show to beaming from ear to ear on stage within the same hour. I have also seen artists who were so sick that we had to rush them to get an IV line put in go out on stage and act like they were the picture of health on the same exact day. The vast majority of them are incredibly professional and polite to staff and also actually treat staff well.
So if they’re not feeling great, they usually keep it to themselves and also don’t want their illness or how they are feeling to impact the staff/production negatively.
One major artist was really sick at the start of a tour and I remember asking if there was anything he needed - and he insisted he didn’t want us to go out of our way for him and that it would be okay, that he would be fine. (He was most definitely not fine.) I directed my assistants at the time to go on a store run for him for medication and soup, and when we delivered it, he was not only surprised, but also very grateful. He was really professional and courteous. When the other members of the group started to all get sick one by one as the tour progressed, they all were equally as polite and grateful.
That being said, while the majority of artists are very professional and keep how badly they are feeling to themselves, every once in a while, you end up with a very shitty diva. I am lucky I only ever had to deal with one shitty diva in my life. Largely, you still have to just bend over backwards to cater to artists even if they are being shitty to you - but the whole industry finds out just how shitty they are after. Their reputation behind the scenes tanks and people might not agree to work on future tours or projects with that person, unless there really aren’t better options. (Personally, you couldn’t pay me enough money to work with that particular diva again. She literally put our team through so much shit that some of my assistants completely left the music industry after their terrible experience.)
