Entertainment For Lively Minds
People Who Go Mental At Gigs
It's entirely possible that I simply don't understand because I am selfconsciousness personified, but what is it with people who go absolutely mental at gigs? I don't mean, they get quite lively at the end, I mean they are unilaterally leaping about and shouting, one or two songs into it, and never stop.
Do the same people do it at every gig they go to?
Or is there, for everyone, a gig which would bring out this kind of behaviour?
And do they think nobody notices?
Or maybe they do it because people will notice?
Is their spirit moved irresistibly by the experience or are they just good old-fashioned show-offs?
And when they're old, are they the people at your children's school concerts who start clapping along at the first hint of a steady rhythm?
Have YOU ever been that person?
Me, I've just been to one of the best gigs I've ever seen, and all I did was sing along quietly from time to time, tap my foot and smile.
Am I alone in finding it, well, a bit irritating?
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try going to a
Neffilim gig, you'll be completely outnumbered
I'm with you
Many years ago, in 1983 in fact, I was enticed to a Marillion gig at the Mayfair in Newcastle.
Not really my scene but I was there nonetheless. My most vivid memory is of the great blundering, red-faced, straw-haired galumphing brick sh*thouse of a man in front of me who decided to head bang for the entire show.
Bear in mind that The 'Rillion don't rock out all the time and there were a number of quiet tinkly bits. This did not stop the colossal numpty blocking my view. Oh no. They had long hair and guitars and that could mean only one thing. Pointless flailing.
In the dark I was sure he was going to lean back and reverse-nut me - which put a damper on things. Since then, and probably unfairly, I've never liked Marillion or Prog very much
"galumphing brick sh*thouse of a man in front of me"
"galumphing brick sh*thouse of a man in front of me". That would have been Fish I'd have thought.
Droll
Would that it were.
I did meet him before the show, at the bar. Qu'elle surprise. I wasn't fussed but the students I was with were in weirdy beardy raptures. He signed their album sleeves with a little drawing of a fish. He was very nice.
This git
at Simon & Garfunkel in Hyde Park a few years ago got up and started clapping and dancing and gestured to the crowd to do the same.
Thankfully, everyone was of the same opinion that all they wanted to do was to just enjoy the songs on this once-in-a-lifetime evening and not jump about like Andy Bell on Razzamatazz, and told him en masse to sit down and shut the fuck up.
I hate people like that. It's all I can do to tap my foot. Like you, Lucky Tiler, I'm self-consciousness personified.
I actually thought I was missing out
For longer than I care to admit, I used to think these people were somehow getting more out of gigs than I was. I longed for the gig when I would become similarly possessed.
It took a few crushed feet and a total eejit playing a mouth organ (ffs!) in my ear at a Toots & The Maytals gig for me to realise that I was enjoying gigs at least as much, just not ramming my enjoyment down people's throats.
Why not widen to include unacceptable behaviour at gigs?
Talking during films seems to have spread to talking during gigs. It doesn't matter if it is a loud concert but I've had several "seated" gigs ruined (most noticeably Eddie Reader and Glenn Tilbrook) where people have carried on conversations for most of the show. I can't believe somebody would pay for a ticket to then ignore the artist aside from the sheer rudeness to other concert goers. Rant over.
We've done this before
Other people. Talking. Phones. Video cameras. Phones with cameras. Phones with video cameras. Blackberries. Reading blackberries. Texting.
I don't know why they go. Bastards the lot of them.
Julian & Sandy two rows behind me & the girlfriend...
... kept making 'humerous' comments and started with a few 'whoops' to try and inject some fun into a Anthony & The Jonsons gig a few weeks ago.
As Mr Heggarty rightly said "I think you've come to the wrong place"...
Ewwwww
Get her!
I expected him to be a grumpy sod...
... but he was rather self-deprocating & funny (though his 10 minute ramble about Jesus being reborn as a girl in Afghanistan left some in the audience rather baffled).
The opening 15 minutes of interpretative dance was rather unsual, but an enjoyable start to the show...
I once complained
about the besandaled man in the row behind me who kept tapping his foot loudly at a Kate Rusby gig at De Montford Hall. OK in the faster numbers, but not during 'The Unquiet Grave'!
"sing along quietly from time to time, tap my foot and smile"
You'd get thrown out of The Luminaire for that.
It's the drucks...
...innit...?
I like to maintain a stoic expression and rarely move, though this is because I am rhythmically-challenged and may hurt someone. My wife likes to frug and sing along, though not in an irritating way.
The most "Rock and Roll" I've been was when I stood to show appreciation at a Page and Plant concert to get a better view. I was almost immediately requested and required to sit down again by the aged ones behind me.
It's the Colonials.....
Americans can't help yelping at concerts, marring many a live LP with manic ululation. This in turn bemuses any artist from over the pond, unfamiliar with our reserve, thinking that we are unappreciative of the music being listened to. That's listened to, you see. So they make comment about the quietness and lack of dancing and bloody lighters, embarrassing the wayward into uncomfortable gestures and gasps of imagined glee, or imaginations and presumed approximations of how glee might sound, were we comfortable therewith. Suddenly that's the norm.......
Woooooooohoooooooooooooo, yay, rawkanroll.