Watching a gig through a screen is one thing - constant chat is quite another
Disclaimer: This was written back in 2014 after witnessing
the (now sadly defunct) band Messenger. While my levels of discontentment have
- happily - never reached the same heights as that night, I did consider
‘retiring’ from gig going for a while afterwards. I still attend many gigs, but
it does appear this issue hasn’t really gone away. Read on.
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Recently I went to The Borderline, a rather famous music
venue in the heart of London’s West End. The reason for my going was to see an
up and coming band called Messenger whose album ‘Illusory Blues’ is a favourite
of mine from earlier this year. Having seen the band capably support Devin
Townsend’s Casualties of Cool back in early September, I was looking forward to
seeing how the band would fare with their own headlining gig.
For those that
are not familiar with The Borderline’s layout, it is a small venue with a bar
to the left as you look towards the stage and it is renowned for attracting
some well known faces from the music (and other) industries who sometimes drift
down to the venue from The Crobar and other watering holes close by.
Consequently,
the noise levels can be quite high as people congregate at the bar to socialise
and hang out at a ‘trendy’ venue with absolutely no intention of listening to
the music. For that reason, it isn’t one of my favourite venues to watch music,
but the prospect of seeing Messenger again far outweighed any concerns I had
about the noise.
Messenger topped a three band bill and the first two bands
came and went with the usual chatter plaguing their performances. I naturally
(and perhaps naively) thought that the babble of conversation would dissipate
once the headlining band took to the stage.
After all, the vast majority of the
audience would be there to see and enjoy the band, wouldn’t they? It turned out
that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Messenger’s music is varied and at times
extremely powerful but there are just as many wistful and quiet interludes that
make their album such a good listening experience.
Sadly, those quiet moments
were completely drowned out by the relentless prattle, not only from the bar
area where it could at least be expected and ignored, but also, and perhaps
more worryingly, from the ‘floor’ just a few feet from where the band were
performing. The band couldn’t have failed to hear the noise but to their
credit, they ploughed on to produce a very good performance.
As good as the
band were, it still left me with a feeling of real disillusionment; this time
the degree of noise had reached a new level of annoyance and there was no
challenging the talkers as they were so numerous. I’ve long been resigned to
hearing people having isolated conversations at gigs but this was on a
completely different plateau with people clearly not there for the music but
for the ‘event.’ Had I not been reviewing the gig for an online rock magazine,
I would have departed as there was no point in staying just to grow more
frustrated as the evening progressed.
By the way, this isn’t a case of an old fart about to launch
an attack on ‘the youth of today’ and its lack of respect; I’m sad to report
there were a number of older ‘fans’ there just as happy to babble on over the
band. Assuming that these people go to gigs regularly, they must remember when this didn’t happen.
Have
they now given up and adopted an “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” mentality? I
must also point out that I’m no pompous, self-righteous ass who demands the
audience are totally quiet when the band are playing; if people want to have a
good time that’s fine, but not at the expense of others watching. I don’t even
get too huffy if people want to watch the show through their phone; as long as
it’s not obscuring my line of sight, please go right ahead! I don’t understand
it, but I’ll get on and watch the band thank you.
Up until the Messenger gig, the most extreme act of talking
during a show I’d witnessed was still only an isolated incident. In 2013, I
went to see Rush at the O2 Arena in London, only to be assailed about an hour
into the show by two guys who finally made it to their seats –beers in hand-
then proceeded to talk to each other for the rest of the first half of the
show.
They chatted so much that they were actually standing sideways on to face each other in an
effort to seemingly improve their chatting experience. At the interval, they
disappeared, presumably for more beer, but failed to return at the resumption.
As happy as that made me, it left me figuratively scratching my head as to the
point of them being there.
At £70+ per ticket, plus all the beers they’d thrown
down their necks and the probable cost of travel, it wouldn’t have been a cheap
night, so why spend the little time they were actually in the Arena shouting at
each other?
Although the Messenger gig was the first time I’d experienced
such a startling level of chatting, this phenomenon is sadly nothing new. There
is some YouTube footage that dates back several years of Jeff Tweedy from the
band Wilco, pleading with the audience to stop talking and pay attention to the
music.
What’s interesting is that although the audience at the time cheered and
applauded Tweedy’s outburst, the comments on the YouTube page aren’t quite as
supportive; indeed some of them are quite belligerent in their defence of those
making the noise. Is that just one or two trolls with nothing better to do, or
is it actually becoming acceptable to criticise in this manner and tell the
artists performing to just shut up and play.
Before her 2014 run of London dates, Kate Bush famously put
out a statement on her website to ask the audience not to film or take
photographs the show. Reports from the shows indicated that the vast majority
of people respected her wishes and significantly, this appeared to extend to
chatting as well. On the night I was there you could have heard a pin drop when
Bush performed ‘Among Angels’ - a song which featured her alone onstage simply
playing a piano and singing. So it can be done!
Maybe there’s a link to the
respect the audience has for the artist, or perhaps more artists should
challenge the talkers. Of course it could simply be a case of I’m just getting
old, but I sadly suspect not. In the end, if it gets to a point where the
experience I had at The Borderline becomes more frequent and the enjoyment of
seeing a band live is diminished by the noise levels then it may just be that
after the best part of 40 years, my gig going days are coming to an end. I have
a few gigs lined up right through to next summer so who knows, maybe things
will be different by then. Maybe…
David Lack
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