I've been a relatively regular gig goer since I was about 15 years old. I've seen a range of musical artists over the years ranging from U2 to UK Subs, The Beach Boys to The Bellrays, The Offspring to Springsteen, Jeff Wayne's War of the World's to The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. I've been to some amazing (and not so amazing) venues during that time, from The Royal Albert Hall to The Tunbridge Wells Forum (a converted public toilet). So I've seen a fairly wide range of musical genres and audience types down the years, I've been in the moshpit, up the back in the seats and on three occasions actually found myself on the stage (the least said about those experiences the better).
Music has been the staple of my life and going to live shows has always mean't so much to me, some of the best nights of my life have been spent at gigs. So it is with a sense of great sadness that I find myself almost completely fallen out of love with the experience now. Maybe it's my age, I'm a youngish 52 now, but the last couple of years I've spent an increasing amount of my time at gigs getting the complete arse with the people around me.
I first encountered this phenomenon at the cinema, another activity I always used to love, but something I barely do anymore for reasons I'll outline now. People chatting, people rustling plastic bags of sweets, people chewing like rabid horses on dustbin sized boxes of popcorn, people noisily gurgling through straws from a vat of sugary drink that only serves to make them even more hyperactive so that they can bang their legs that much harder on the back of my seat to the point where I suffer whiplash by the end of the film. Plus, of course, honourable mention must go to the people who can't resist the temptation to get their godforsaken mobile phone out to check whether they've missed something on social media in the 8 minutes since they last checked. I just can't do cinema anymore for these reasons, I'd rather wait for the film to come out on dvd or whatever and watch it at home where I can view it and scratch my arse in peace (or my wife's, if she asks me nicely). I know I'm sounding curmudgeonly here but I'm sure I can't be the only one who suffers this (in fact my 19 year old daughter agreed with me on this the other day which was a source of immense pride to me).
Now of course a cinema and a gig are very different environments. The former should be observed with pretty much silent attention, the latter can be a fairly raucous, noisy, collaborative and physical affair. So you would think the noise made by your fellow gig goers would be less of an issue at a concert venue. You think wrong. Over the last few years, regardless of the band I'm seeing, I've become increasingly frustrated by people who just can't shut the fuck up talking to each other throughout the performance. I'm not talking about people muttering the odd comment to each other between songs or singing enthusiastically, whooping at the singer's pre song ramblings (although that can often get on my tits) or even chatting from time to time with things like "I haven't heard this one in ages" or "is it me or is the sound shit?" or "I'm dying for a piss but I darent go to the bogs cos they're going to play the only song I know of theirs any minute". No, this is people who insist on chatting constantly throughout and so loudly that they're actually raising their voices to the level that they can hear each other over the sound of that irritating bunch of musicians on stage who they've paid money to go and see. Chances are these morons have spent a few hours in the pub beforehand chatting anyway so is it too much to ask to just curtail the mindless chit chat and listen to the band? Not to mention have a little consideration for the people around you whose enjoyment of the performance you are completely ruining.
The problem isn't quite so intolerable when the songs being played are loud and raucous numbers, the volume drowns the chat out to a large degree. Its when the more moody, slower, quieter songs are played, those best listened to with a degree of melancholic reverence, the sound of meaningless drivel being shouted from one mouth into another's earhole two feet away from you is not only completely distracting and rage inducing, but also completely ruins the enjoyment of the song. Why in God's name would you do that?
I wondered for a while if it was just a London thing as most the gigs I go to are in that city. Us southerners are viewed by many in the UK as a fairly unsociable bunch and given my general experiences of people in other parts of the country I'd say that's not far off the mark. But I've had similar issues at gigs elsewhere, Brighton to name but one. So maybe that's a red herring.
Your viewing location at the venue doesn't seem to be a factor in this either. It's happened when I've been down the front, at the back or at the side. So it's clearly a 'human condition' thing. They just can't help themselves.
Now I'm a pretty tolerant chap (certainly more than I was as a youngster) but I have a tolerance threshold for this kind of thing and sadly this threshold has been breached more than I would have liked of late. What's equally annoying is the attitude of these people when you ask them (always politely, at first at least) if they could possibly curtail their chattering and perhaps listen to the band. It's usually an indignant grunt and sometimes it's aggressive confrontation. Hardly ever an apology. I guess if you're ignorant enough to behave this way to start with then you're not going to understand or like it when someone points it out to you. If nothing else, it's disrespectful to the band who are up on stage slogging their nuts out for your entertainment. Of course, I then spend the rest of the gig somewhat on edge just waiting for the twats to have consumed enough additional alcohol to kick off with me. Thus, regardless of whether they shut up or not, the rest of my evening has thereby been ruined somewhat. The joy of the occasion is sapped from my soul and I'm usually left quietly raging inside and ready to smack the first one to utter a word from that point on. Irrational on my part really but that's how it invariably leaves me feeling.
I went to a gig a number of years ago, a solo gig by Justin Sullivan, the lead singer of my favourite band, New Model Army. I can't recall the venue, I think it may have been The Water Rats in London (I could be mistaken). Being a solo gig with a couple of his muckers on other instruments it's a mainly acoustic type set therefore the music is of a more relaxed and quiet nature than the full band performances. Of course, there were some people chatting loudly to each other through some of the songs and it got to the point where Justin simply stopped mid song and asked them whether he should just not bother anymore, or they shut up! Marvellous. They sensibly opted for the latter.
Now I do understand that when you're part of a large crowd of people, human nature dictates there's always going to be people who irritate you. But it seems to have got worse of late and the last two gigs I went to were the last straw for me. The first, at Hammersmith Odeon, where two girls sat in front of us spent the ENTIRE night on their mobile phones posting to Facebook and intermittently holding said phones up in the air to take endless mind numbingly tedious selfies of themselves. In addition a near fight broke out when a gobby female then refused to move from the aisle she was stood dancing in (health and safety guv) and security moved in (politely at first) and the whole thing escalated.
The second gig was this week at the Albert Hall. To my immediate left, two blokes constantly talking loudly throughout the performance, only shutting up when I politely pointed out the band were on stage, the show had begun and I'd quite like to hear that and not their pointless dialogue. The two blokes in front of them then proceeded to do the same and the two in front of us and to the right had a phone in the air, live streaming the entire show to god knows who. The guy in front of me asked them to stop it as it was so distracting but they flat out refused and he spent the rest of the night clearly angry at the situation. So his night was ruined too. It got to the point I just gave up and just concentrated on staying calm.
I'm not laying the blame at the younger generation either, I've had issues with younger people and people around my age too. I just can't put my finger on what's changed over the years, why this seems to be happening increasingly of late. Perhaps people's attitudes to watching live bands has changed as our minds have become so used to being distracted by the instant, throwaway media content that is constantly available to us to digest, our attention spans have diminished, our appreciation of talented performance has been diluted. I dunno. Maybe I'm just a miserable old git.
I have tickets to see my beloved NMA in December, it'll be fitting if that's the last gig I go to. I'm probably being overly dramatic about this but that's how I feel at the moment. I just can't be doing with it anymore. I'd love to know what other people think and whether they've had similar experiences, I can't believe it's just me. So feel free to comment either way, I'm genuinely curious.
