Imagine being in a rock band. If you made a new friend who said he wanted to sing with you on stage, would you make it happen, or would you turn him down?

In this story, one woman is in this exact situation, and she was willing to go out of her way to let her new friend perform with her. All she asked was that they rehearse first.

That’s where it gets complicated.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for not letting my friend perform with me in an important concert I organized?

I, (20F), am the frontwoman of a rock band and recently put together a fundraiser/concert, where there are around 5 bands performing, myself included, and the ticket funds get split between the venue and a local organization I work with that supports women’s health and autonomy in my state.

I have promoted this show like crazy and it’s done well on social media so I suspect there will be a lot of people there, and it’s likely that some of them will be important people because the show is backed by a well known organization.

A new friend made a comment she didn’t take too seriously.

I made a friend (29M) through this organization a few months ago when we both were volunteering at a labor day event.

He mentioned that he’d always wanted to sing backup in a band and would love to sing with me sometime.

I casually said “yeah that would be really cool” and moved on, thinking it was more of a hypothetical than anything, but was open to trying something out sometime.

It wasn’t hypothetical.

He heard about this show when it was in the early stages of planning since he’s a part of the organization, but only asked me about performing in it about 2 weeks before the show.

I told him we could try to put a duet together, and I guess he kind of assumed he’d be singing backup in my band, even though he knows my lead guitarist already does all of my harmonies.

We made a plan to get together and practice, and I was already sticking my neck out a lot for him because A) he has never performed before and I’d have to teach him whatever we end up doing and B) he would need me to pick him up from the train station about 20 minutes from my house, bring him home with me to practice, and then return him to the train station, and this would be directly after my 8 to 5 day job.

But I was willing to do it in the spirit of giving someone an entry into the local music scene.

Change of plans!

The night before we had planned to rehearse, he texted and said that his friend bought him movie tickets so he’d need to reschedule the rehearsal.

I said we could maybe practice the next day (2 days before the show), even though I already had a different rehearsal after work, so we’d be practicing late at night on a work night.

But after looking at my schedule and figuring out everything I need to do to prep for the show, I realized fitting in a rehearsal would not be feasible.

So I texted back and said I was really sorry but I wouldn’t be able to make it happen, then suggested we perform together some other time.

He’s pretty upset.

He initially refused to take no for an answer, listing off numerous times or ways we could practice, and when I said I was simply too busy, he said he could still sing backup on all of my band’s songs, and just “figure it out as he went” without a rehearsal.

I said this was an important event at a reputable venue and I doubt they’d like the organizer of the event to add something in that was never rehearsed.

He is now angry with me and acting like I needlessly took something from him.

I would love to hear your thoughts and if you think there was a better way I could have handled this, just please be respectful to all parties involved.

This dude chose to go to a movie instead of rehearse. If performing is that important to him, he can turn down the movie and let his friend give the ticket to someone else.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It clearly wasn’t THAT important to him.

Here’s a suggestion to never let the guy sing with her.

Another person calls the friend entitled.

Another way to describe the friend is “weird.”

If a movie is more important, that’s on him.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.