Mobile Phones At Gigs: A Proper Pop Star Strop
I've just got back from seeing Goldfrapp at Liverpool University. It was - eventually - fantastic. However...
During the first track of the night Alison G spend most of the time looking away from the crowd, either down at the floor or towards the back of the stage, or shielding her eyes. She was clearly unhappy about something. At the end of the number she said, very politely and calmly, words to the effect of "I really don't mind you taking photographs, but please don't use flash as it's very disconcerting for me." The second track started, Alison sang a verse and a half and then walked off stage, obviously upset with the handful of idiots who ignored her request and carried on taking flash photos. The band carried on for 20 seconds or so and then stopped and went off too, with the guitarist making gestures to the effect of "Just give us a moment." A minute or so later we were asked, again very politely, not to use flash photography and shortly after that Goldfrapp came back on stage. One or two knuckleheads chose to boo her, but she got on with the gig and was pretty quickly back into her stride and was quite superb for the rest of the evening.
Anyway, how much longer are we going to have to put up with idiots at gigs who treat them like their own personal events: talking throughout; marching in and out for beers; taking photos / videos at the expense of everyone else's enjoyment? I know that some of you will say that they've paid their money and should be able to do whatever they want that's legal while they're there, but I've paid my money too and I want to enjoy the gig without their ruining it. Is it really too much to ask that people should just listen to & watch an artist when at a live venue?
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I have given up going to gigs
because of the kind of morons you describe, David. I have posted elsewhere on this site that I believe these idiots now outnumber the quiet,just there for the music types.
One thing puzzles me. I started going to gigs in about 1983 and in those days, on the back of your tickets, it was stated quite clearly that no photography was allowed. I remember going to shows at the Birmingham Odeon, Oxford Apollo etc. where everyone was frisked on entry and any cameras would be confiscated. Since when did gigs suddenly become an amateur snapper's free for all? Is it simply because cameras are now so small and concealed in phones that the venue security know that they cannot stop people getting them into the show, so they don't bother stopping them anymore? I remember quite clearly at a Cure show at the NEC in the early 90's when a chap standing next to me was snapping away. Two security guards grabbed him roughly and bundled him out of the venue. I never saw him again.
So what has changed? is it just the technology, or our relationship with the performer?
It's part of a general trend
where having been there - and having the documentary evidence to prove it - has become more important than just being there. If you go to a concert and don't put up the snaps on your Facebook page by 10 o'clock the next morning, you get a flood of puzzled e-mails asking whether the gig was cancelled.
With very few exceptions (the improbable meeting between White Lionel and his black counterpart, for example), we should just take people at their word - or perhaps demand to see the ticket stub, if they're notoriously untrustworthy.
Life is now lived via screens. I know I'm in a minority here, but the idea of going to watch Leonard Cohen on a video wall at the 02 is so bizarre to me that I'm starting to feel like one of those lords we've been quoting from Hansard - the world is leaving me behind, but I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.
I think the trend you describe
boils down to the rise in selfishness that has happened over the last several decades. Hopefully, people will eventually wake up to the fact that the 'me' they are glorifying has no meaningful validity outside of a social milieu. The process is usually called 'growing up'.
The screen thing is a technological trend that started a long time ago, and I'm uncomfortable with it's ubiquity too. The medium is the massage; in this case, for the ego. "Look, I'm actually watching this for real, and I didn't have to make the effort to get down the front either. Clever me."
(tamps pipe, sucks down a blast of 'Old Sociologist' and adopts sage-like pose, nodding to self)
I saw Tamps Pipe
at the Stoneground in Manchester in 1974 (shortly before that unfortunate incident with the kayak, which was soon followed by the inevitable label change and instant obscurity).
Wanna see the pics?
For many years now...
...Robert Fripp has announced that he won't tolerate flash photography and, at the sign of the first flash, he reserves the right to cancel the gig.
The zero-tolerance approach means that the audience often adopt a sort of self policing, vigilante policy against potential flash-users. Woe betide anyone who so much as gets out a proper camera. Of course, given Fripp's audience in the UK, the vigilantes tend to be quiet and polite rather then snatching offending equipment and crushing it 'neath their feet :-)
It's become such a feature of his live shows that there re RF/KC t-shirts with a Ghostbusters-style 'No Flash Photography' logo
the really strange thing
is video.
I love the Blue Nile and they hardly ever play live so you'd think I'd want to see live footage of them. Here's a typical youtube mobile phone film, marvel at th smooth zoom copied from spielberg and the 5.1 sound, it's available in HD so you can see the beads of sweat on Paul Buchanan face....
if...
you are serious about taking an photo at a gig, flash is the last thing required, see:
I used to do it just for myself, a computer in every home was unthinkable then.
Canon A1 with a 3.5/135mm lens, Kodak Ektachrome 160 pushed to 400 - for the trainspotters amongst us. I'm sure I'm not alone...
Agree
Have taken a few snaps a few years back. Flash photography is the last thing I'd do, not only because it makes for a bad photo most of the time, but because it's rude and offputting for the 'turn'.
Now whoa there, my high horse. Dis-mount!
Its not the flashes that bother me...
...but once you've postioned yourself in a nice spot with a decent view then the band comes on and all the mobiles get raised in the air so they can all record the same thing!!!
What's wrong with getting beers?!
I like an ale at a gig
I think it refers to the people who are right down the front
and then decided to go to the bar barging their way through the crowd followed 10 minutyes later by them trying to regain their postion whilst slopping beer and alcopops over the rest of the crowd, all this is followed by a loud chat and then they get their phones out....
Bingo!
You must have been stood next to me Chris!