Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_jovi
But people aren't just taking how it is on the surface for this. They're taking it from multiple surfaces to form their opinion on what happened. It would be reckless to take Richie leaving the tour at face value and saying Richie is clearly at fault, it's what went down on his own tour and what's gone down in his personal life post tour that are painting a broader picture. Had he left the tour and seemed clear, level headed, projects being released and on tour then absolutely people would have thought something was amiss and maybe he's not to blame.
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You and I are clearly at opposite ends of the spectrum as far as his tour dates being cancelled because I believe that he did have laryngitis and was told to rest his voice, and you think it was an excuse. You think it was low ticket sales and I think that was just coincidental. So let's put that aside for the moment.
Other than the cancelled shows, help me understand how his behavior at the end of 2012, during the promotion of WAN, and his performance during the 1st leg of the BWC tour fits with your bird's eye view. According to all accounts, he's the one who was on fire during that first leg. IIRC, it wasn't until after it became clear that he wasn't returning to the band that his behavior changed, maybe even after he hooked up with Ori. He caught a lot of flack for the Borg/Lund interference, but that was on them, imo, especially in light of their later legal issues. I seem to recall a drunk-sounding tweet; but other than that he did seem to be on task, 'clear and level-headed' through all of 2013. All the stuff you're referring to happened well after he was out. So how does that paint a different picture for you about why he left the way he did?
At any rate, I still think it's working at a surface level, or judging from the way things appear to be, when we don't know that any of that contributed to why he left. Have you stopped to consider that the erratic performances and the things you see as "off" in his general behavior might just as likely be a
result of him being out of the band rather than a cause of it? Whether he brought it all on himself or not, that doesn't alter the fact that his life got turned kaddy-wampus. I would imagine that would tend to throw anybody back on old coping mechanisms.
I don't know, Matt. I don't know any more than anybody else, and I don't pretend to. I'll theorize with the best of them, but I try not to make judgments based on those theories, when I know that's all they are. (Jon's speech at Calgary, notwithstanding. That one I'll cop to. But even that didn't completely change my opinion of him. It pissed me off, no doubt; but it didn't cause me to think he's an ass, in general. Just that once.)
