Seems to me like Linda and her friends have built a community with its own ideas of what constitutes politeness and having a good time. For an outsider to storm in there and insist on their right to perform solo come what may would be just plain boorish.

On the other hand, maybe the club might also decide to book somebody who operated that way simply for a change. So long as everybody knows what to expect there need not be any bad feeling. I can't imagine there'd be a lot of singing along if they booked Adam McNaughtan, for example (though he does have a few chorus songs).

I can see Azizi's point. Growing up in New Zealand I got to see a bit of the Maori/Polynesian way of doing things. It would be just about unimaginable for a Polynesian singer to insist on unaccompanied solo performance, in a Polynesian cultural context.