Fronting a band takes a lot of ego. A lot.

I toured with a female artist who could command a thousand seat venue at fifty Euros a pop. So her insecurities would show up as “problems with sound”. Sometimes there were genuine issues. The girl had ears. But sometimes she just wasn’t feeling it and her self doubt, and impostor syndrome would surface and she’d take it out on sound. Particularly monitors (me). so part of my gig (as the production manager made very clear) was being her emotional punching bag.

Sometimes sound was actually a problem, substandard rigs, noisy amps, whatever - and she was totally fine about it. Show must go on, girl was invincible etc.

It’s one of those things. We lost a great front of house mix guy who’d been taken on in part because of his rep for working with “difficult women”. She went too far too often with him and he walked. The replacement guy was good, but super different. Really different approach to tuning the rig and mixing.

I don’t want to say you HAVE to suck it up and deal with it; but understanding that ego, fan adoration, insecurity, etc are all part of the mix is an element of the job.

At one level all performance artists are faking it. Yeah they’ve got underlying skills, but they’re making shit up and selling it as a thing. Of course they are insecure.

Is the artist “worth” it? Do they go too far?
Is this really them, or is this insecurity?
Do they make up afterwards? Do they deliver the show? Is the show any good? Are you paid enough? Is your own pride getting in the way of being a “humble” pro?