Big announcements, especially the unexpected ones, have a habit of shaking a lot of things out.

I've made no secret of my fondness for Joey Clement. I thought he vastly improved the bass over most of the album tracks, particularly CBTM. I also thought he brought balance to the stage and gave Cook more room for the goofiness. So I'm sad to see him go.

But I'm also sad that what could have been a reasonable consensus position, namely: "If this wasn't perfectly anticipated, then there needs to be time to craft an announcement, so let's wait for that" got buried under a whole lot of blame assignment (when we really can't know what happened or when the decision was made) and other, only tangentially related issues.

So, let's take them one at a time.

Is it unreasonable to expect an announcement for band lineup changes? I would argue no, and particularly not in this case. When you have a band member who has been part of the group for nearly ten months, who was formally introduced in interviews (the AI site promo piece Cook did after the album release), and who was listed on his Myspace as a band member, then it's fair to say that this is an unusual event that merited some mention.

However, "announcement soon" and "announcement NOW" are still not the same thing. Sure, I could envision a scenario in which Cook had introduced the other band members and said something like "and Monty Anderson, who is stepping up for us" as a quiet tip of the hat to the initiated. It's certainly possible that a DE show had some attendees from earlier shows in VA, PA, or NY/NJ and they would have noted the change. But I'm going to assume that the priority was getting through the show without throwing off the rest of the fair audience, which apparently is what happened. I also think it's entirely possible that there was a post ready this weekend that didn't get cleared before the show on Monday. So I think there is decidedly room for understanding why that did not occur, if not a default assumption that it would not.

And as to the side-along issues:

What are the motivations behind suggestions and speculation? And the point here is that there may be more than one. I've disagreed with some of the choices Cook and the band have made in performance. I've agreed with others. I've interpreted statements made by Cook and the band members and forecasted from them; in a broad sense, those are skills I use in my actual job. When I do those things, it is because I am trying to temper my own expectations about Cook and co. and their place in the musical and commercial landscape.

When I happen to support the choice to have remakes in the set list, it's because I see other acts doing that on a regular basis and because Cook has explained very clearly that it is intended to draw in less familiar audiences. When I happen to support the choice to chew gum, it's because I've seen Dave Grohl do the same to protect his throat.

When I happen to disagree with the choice to have shorter setlists, it's because I think that is unusual for headlining shows at the price points for this leg of the tour. It is not because I don't understand that they made the choice to do more shows, vastly more, on this tour than almost any other touring act that comes to mind, and presumably dialed back the set lengths in response. I just disagree with the weighting that led to that decision, because it has led to remarks in several reviews, generally from reviewers who don't think about the 4-5 other shows going on that week.

When I've examined the statements from Cook about his band, it seems to me that he has been remarkably consistent about wanting to be seen as a musician with partners whom he values. Clearly, in this instance, changes were made. That does not mean I draw the conclusion that nothing he says about the band and its future has any merit. If people talked about the band getting a name, it's because he said it would happen this summer. Again, circumstances can always change, but waiting for formal press releases before expecting anything is a bridge too far, in my view. And of course, even those formal press releases can have errors, as we saw with the beginning of the tour.

It's worth having a conversation about how circumstances might lead Cook and the band to make different decisions than fans might personally prefer or be led to expect, but suggesting that any view with which one disagrees comes from a sense of entitlement that can only be appeased by playing "The Sims: Rock Star Edition" with people's lives, or from the desire by the other party to invent things from whole cloth, shuts down any reasonable avenue for debate and discussion.

When does one move on from requests? When it seems like changes will not be forthcoming. I've left the setlist issue alone, because it's a done deal. I assume the songs on the tour are in rotation because they work, so I'm not concerned about getting new ones, especially now. And any additional explanation that is going to come from this particular situation is now entirely on Clement's shoulders. Cook did what one could expect. I'll hope for the best for him and the band.

What is a community for, anyway? It seems to me that two general strains go into organizing communities of any stripe: They are more for social support, or more of a marketplace of ideas. If one wants a comfortable place for support, then the primary goal is to maintain positive or neutral tones toward each other and the object of interest most of the time. If one wants a markeplace of ideas, then there is room for criticism and debate. I happen to vastly prefer the latter, but I understand the appeal of the former. The problem is that any given community will have members who have each of those preferences and want everyone else to share them. It doesn't happen. Acknowledging that the other desire is present, on both sides, helps a lot in allowing discussions to flourish.