2, 7 & 10 especially for me.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... s-20130114


The 10 Most Annoying Concert Behaviors
Put your smartphone away, stop shouting 'Freebird!' and start enjoying the show already
By Andy Greene
January 14, 2013

Going to rock concerts has always meant dealing with a bunch of unruly people, many of them very drunk – but it seems like lately things have been worse than ever. Attention spans are at an all-time low, and the ubiquity of smartphones has resulted in a huge percentage of the audience at any given show barely paying attention to the action onstage. Here are the 10 most annoying behaviors at rock concerts:

1. Taking pictures the entire freaking show.

I get it. You want to show all your friends on Facebook and Twitter that you saw a cool concert. Fine. Take a photo. Take five if you want! But please, don't take 77. You always manage to hold your camera right in my line of sight. You don't even look like you're enjoying the show while you're doing this. All your attention is on the photos. And you know what? Those photos are all going to look like shit. Every single one of them. You're too far away. You'll probably never even look at them. Also, you see those guys right in front of the stage with the giant cameras? They're taking great professional pictures. There's really no need for yours.

2. Checking e-mail, Facebook and Twitter every couple of minutes.

Unless you're a surgeon or a firefighter, everything can wait. Live in the moment. Enjoy the show. You paid good money to be here. You can e-mail your friends when you get home. Also, that cellphone emits a very harsh and distracting glow. For the love of God, just turn it off.

3. Incessantly talking to your friends.

You might not like whatever song is playing. You may be bored with the show in general. You may have been dragged here against your will. But you've been chattering the entire show, and I can hear every word. It's driving me crazy. Please shut up. Please. I can't tell you how many shows I attend where the two people in front of me are yelling in each others' ears the entire night. Not only is my sightline blocked when their heads come together, but I can hear them. Maybe go to a coffee shop when the show is done. Lie under an oak tree and talk until the sun comes up. I don't care. Just quiet down so I can enjoy the show.

4. Yelling out requests.

Look, I hope Morrissey plays "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" also. That would be cool – but stop screaming for it. Most of the time the set list is pre-determined, and you're screaming in my ear. They're going to play what they're going to play. Go along for the ride. And to the guy screaming for a super obscure B-side from 15 years ago? Nobody thinks you're cool.

5. Yelling out "Freebird!"

This request deserves its own subcategory of irritation. This joke has never been funny. Not once. Just stop. It was lame in 1981. Now it's just infuriating.

6. Pushing your way to the front.

If a concert is general admission, the people in front earned their spots. They got there early and laid claim to their space. The people all the way in front might have even spent all day camped out by the doors, so when the lights go off and you shove your way to the front, you're being a huge asshole. Don't do that. If you show up late and there's only room in the back, you've just gotta deal with it.

7. Getting so drunk you puke.

At pretty much any big concert, you'll see a janitor emerge after a couple of songs with a big broom and a bucket of sawdust. It means somebody puked. It's a bummer for the puker, but the people all around have to deal with the aftermath. Don't be the vomit guy. There's no worse kind of person to be at the concert.

8. Loudly complaining after the show because the band didn't play your favorite song.

Not all artists take the Rod Stewart/Billy Joel/Tom Petty approach of "nothing but the hits." Performers like Neil Young or Van Morrison are unpredictable. This is actually a good thing. Try to enjoy the show you're getting as opposed the one you wish you were seeing. Besides, haven't you heard "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Southern Man" enough?

9. Filming the entire show on your iPhone.

This distracts people even worse than taking pictures, and usually results in an equally horrid product. The sad irony is that people tend to film their favorite songs, but the smiles on their faces are gone when all their concentration goes into capturing these moments on film. Tomorrow morning, YouTube will be cluttered with crappy cellphone videos of every song from whatever show you're seeing. There's no need to add to that. You paid good money to see a show, and you're joylessly watching it through a tiny screen on your iPhone. It just doesn't make any sense.

10. Yelling "Sit down!" at people who are standing up.

This is a real problem at theater and arena shows that attract fans over the age of, say, 40. Nobody can quite agree when to stand or when to sit down. Inevitably, there are some people standing right in front of people that wish to remain seated. Between songs, someone will scream "Sit down!" The stander either obliges, or yells back something like "Go fuck yourself." The person in the seat just seethes with rage, and the tension seeps through the whole section. Often the person is standing only because someone in front of them is standing. It leads to chaos, and grumpy old people spending the entire show miserable. This has to stop. Here's a simple rule of thumb: If you can't see, stand up. It's very easy. Inversely, if everyone in front of you is seated, sit down. Go with the flow and just relax. We're all in this concert together.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... s-20130114
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I've been guilty of 1 and 9 (minus the word entire)


People have also yelled at me being distracting for writing out the setlist as the show is going on.....(which sometimes means using the cellphone for light)......but I like remembering what I saw.

I usually like to take a pic early in the show but agree that people that spend the entire show filming it on a small device is a bit crazy.
Steven Wilson just said on his Facebook account that he wishes people would refrain from constant picture taking and videotaping while he performs. Not that he is against it but it does interfere with fans trying to enjoy the show.

But I fear the genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back in. Remember when cameras were banned?

A big reason why I haven't been to an arena concert in about twenty years is Number 10, although that might have been an issue unique to the Orlando O-rena (or whatever the hell it's now called) where anybody not seated on the floor was required to remain seated for the entire show, and anybody dancing in an aisle was immediately confronted by an angry usher with a flashlight.

One item that I would want to add, based on the most recent show I attended would address those individuals not seated on the aisle who make multiple beer/bathroom runs. If you are having trouble holding your urine, for the love of christ, don't provide your bladder with an additional twenty ounces of fluid to process, especially if everybody else in the row has to stand up and let you by both on your way out and again on your way back in.

Cameras that would take pictures you actually want to see are still banned from most big gigs. I'm glad I was able to take my Nikon to a BOC show. Just wish I could do that with more!

I will take pics at a show on my iPhone - usually 8 or 9 times, bursts of 5-6 pics. If something cool is going on after the first few. But like Ted said, they're nothing I'm overly proud of - back when I could take a good camera on occasion, I got some good pictures. Like...



But that's not what this is about. It kills me to watch the people that spend almost no time watching the show, just taking pictures and video.

#3 drives me nuts - it just happened at Vintage Trouble Friday night. I had a group of younger people behind me who talked loudly, especially during the slow songs. One guy went on and on during "Gracefully" about what a great song it was and how much he loved it - so shut up and listen to it! I don't think he heard a note of it at all. And they did #6 as well - one girl who was with them pushed to the front - then turned around and waved to her friends all night. Five frigging feet from the band and was more concerned with making sure her friends saw her. She later got offended when she told me to watch her friend because he was really funny and I just ignored her. I was too busy with, you know, watching the band.

Another annoyance is people who think being in the front row means anywhere in the front row. I had a woman at a Nugent show get bitchy with me - she kept pushing against me and I wouldn't move, and she finally said, "Excuse me, you're in my space." I turned and pointed at my seat - which I was only half in front of because she had moved in front of the other half, and said, "No - you're in MY space." This was after I had to rescue my chair when Ted came on because the people in the second row decided the appearance of the headliner meant reserved seating was now canceled and it was time to put the chairs away. No wonder my wife doesn't like to go to concerts any more.

The idiots aren't confined to concerts, BTW - watch a hockey game on TV and count how many morons in the expensive seats at the glass stand up and turn AWAY FROM THE ICE when the action comes so they can wave to the camera while they're talking on their cell. Them and the idiots that pound on the glass any time the play comes along the boards. Because these guys who've dedicated their lives to training for this are going to be distracted by some drunk. I would support throwing those jerks out immediately.

I hate concerts where people are seated. Stand the hell up!

Some of us don't want (or need) to be standing up for two or three hours straight. There's a time to stand up and a time to kick back.

Sure, during the intermissions

any yelling - hey there are tapers out there...

Jesus this thread makes me feel old already.

I actually remember a time when people were quite during concerts and only got louder when it seemed appropriate.
Maybe it was the pot - if so then maybe things will get better in Oregon and Colorado!

And I'm guilty of complaining about issues 1 - 10.

People just seem to have a lack of awareness and/or respect for anybody but themselves anymore.
And this doesn't go for just concerts either and also explains why I never go to malls if i can help it.

Concert audiences these days are way to easy on the artists - they go nuts for crap and generally can't
tell a good performance form a bad one. They expect encores when none are deserved.

An encore should be the fans response to an exceptional show, not just a way to make sure you got your moneys' worth.

All right - climbing down from the soapbox - time for a nap...

I'm stunned--people at Ted Nugent concerts behaving in an overaggressive, obnoxious and otherwise "non-mellow" manner?

Neil starting around the 4:30 mark........

#10 does drive me nuts if its the type of show where standing really isn't needed....like a Roger Waters/ Pink Floyd show. Most of his music is mellow yet I attended one show where a chick decided to stand through the show and she was the only one in the section (but it blocked my view). Come on!

To me, in the upper regions, there is no real point in standing unless its a song that makes you want to get up and groove (usually the encores).
Its also not very comfortable standing in the narrow aisles of say a MSG or Barclays.

This. The band know what they're going to play. Unless they ask for requests, shush.

I read at a recent Who show, some idiot in the front row who was at the concert with his young daughter yelled out at Pete to smash his guitar, Pete basically said F off! And this idiot complained on some web site how rude his hero was to him and his precious daughter. Jeesh.

That set off such a furore that Townshend actually ended up apologising:

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/st ... 10937.html

Its not a Who show unless Pete says F off to someone.

Years ago, we were at an Elton John concert in an indoors civic center, and the trio of out-of-control drunk girls seated in front of us completely ruined the show for us.

One of the morons continually shrieked "PLAY ROCKET MAN !!!" at the top of her lungs. She continued doing so, even after the song was played in the middle of the set!

They also disrupted everybody seated in the section, by getting up every fifteen minutes for trips to either the bathroom or the beer-stand (of course, they were located in the dead middle of the row, not on the aisle seats).

Finally, one of them got violently sick, and sprayed puke everywhere, managing to ruin my wife's new expensive coat. No apology, either

Yikes!

I was at an outdoor Dave Matthews concert at NY's Citifield and a group of young ins were getting pretty plastered annoying everyone in the box (even smoking pot right below the section where the rich people sit). Finally one of them threw up and that was that, they were ejected.

Turns me off on ever seeing another Dave Matthews concert.

Back in the day when I went to big hall shows & stood up near the front I would rank #1 idiots pushing & bumping.

Got to say the crowds that attend a Steven Wilson show behave very well. Never had a problem at the front of the stage despite standing.