show etiquette

I mean, I honestly don't know from a bar owner's perspective. Never owned a bar. But I would think that the only time they'd want staff to tell somebody not to do something would be if they were doing something that makes the bar owner liable.

I once saw Lisa Germano opening for eels to a very talkative crowd. During a delicate intro on guitar she deliberately hit a wrong chord and apologized saying "Woops, sorry, couldn't hear myself" and then continued with the song. People laughed, went quiet but were buzzing again within two songs.
That's the most realistic way to deal with it imo, try to make the people notice you, either by making a joke/funny comment or "cranking it" a bit more at times.

p sure you guys would be doing the same if it was some oasis tribute act performing, y'know

like if it's a bar, people will talk, it's a bar, they probably don't care about the music

if it's a gig, people will talk, they might just be there to hang out, check out bands they haven't heard before

i mean if it's that bad, and everyone is talking while you're playing, you're probably not that good, or you're playing the wrong show...

If it was an Oasis tribute act, this would be irrelevant because they wouldn't be performing quietly.

It helps if the support has been well matched to the headliner. I saw Rachel Sermanni - a solo acoustic performer - supporting Ron Sexsmith last week, in a standing venue, and there was no chat whatsoever, even though barely anyone in attendance would have heard of her before. Or perhaps that just reflects well on Ron Sexsmith's audience.

I mean there are any number of reasons why a person might talk during a show and on some nights you might not get those people with those reasons but some nights, you will.

loved it when robyn hitchcock turned up at a bar a couple of months ago for a surprise show and stunned everyone to near silence (this bar never shuts up when ppl are playing)

If the act isn't any good, they probably deserve what's coming to them. That's a bit over the top... what I mean is that a band has to take some share of the responsibility if the audience isn't responding to them. On the other side of that coin, you have a situation like the one Crackle Box describes above.

On a different (but not unrelated) note, a friend of mine yelled at the end of a Yacht gig recently, when the band were taking their final applause, "YOU WERE REALLY NOT THAT BAD!"

I mean there are any number of reasons why a person might talk during a show

the main one being that they are rude ignoramuses

Yes, absolutely, but I was responding to mike t-diva's idea that "perhaps that just reflects well on Ron Sexsmith's audience" that there was no chat during the quiet opening act. I doubt that it reflects any individual artists' audience composition. Rather I think it's probably just a matter of luck that Kaleigh didn't bring her bitchy roommate who needed to blow off steam and have a few drinks after getting in a fight with her boyfriend to the Ron Sexsmith show tonight.

if it's a gig, people will talk, they might just be there to hang out

hang out somewhere fucking else if you want to talk. there are plenty of places to go if you want to do that!

the oasis tribute act point is moot because i obviously wouldn't acquire a ticket to that gig.

can we go back up to the harmonica story for a second, because that is unbelievable

also I tend to harmonize during shows, sorry everyone around me

(esp. shows where the band's singer overdubbed the harmonies on record so they never get performed live)

There's really no excuse. If it's a gig with a cover/ticket price I don't know why you would pay for the privilege of ruining someone else's night. Bars/clubs that have live music generally have more expensive, worse drinks and less attentive bartenders. If you just wanna drink and chat, you know, there are a lot of places for that. I just don't think people should see a gig as, primarily, a social experience. Of course you're gonna see your show buddies and shoot the shit, etc., but the reason to pay money to see music is to see music and not be annoyed by the people around you. The absolute worst, to my mind, is not people who talk throughout the entire gig (such a common and reprehensible type they are beneath comment) but people who talk loudly through songs they don't know/like/get and then become super enthusiastic when the performer plays a recognizable tune. One of the reasons I've turned more and more away from "song-based" sets over the years.

I saw Pete Townshend solo in 1997 at a smallish venue (Chicago House of Blues), and there was constant chatter from most of the audience for most of the show. I was down front, and people were carrying on loud conversations about shit like what they did that day at work. The tickets were pricey for the time ($95), and all I could think was, "You paid $95 to talk about how Julie from accounting didn't get her reports in yesterday?" At one point, Pete was saying to his soundman that he couldn't hear his in-ear monitors, and added, "Of course, it's probably because of this fucking audience."

The odd thing was, people quieted down for probably the least-well-known tune of the night (a cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers' "Christine's Tune").

There's a special place in hell reserved for earlier-billed acts who then talk all the way through the sets of later-billed acts. I witnessed this a few times over, at a recent open mike show. Admittedly, the acts were almost all crap, but the principle still stands!

haha, i don't think i go to those kind of shows where this would ever be an actual problem tbg

i think that "everyone should be getting this on the same level as me" thing is kinda hilarious tho

so what if a group of ppl want to go hear their favourite song and have a laugh while they're doing it

mfb otm

so what if a group of ppl want to go hear their favourite song and have a laugh while they're doing it

BECAUSE IT'S RUDE AND MAKES THOSE PEOPLE LOOK LIKE THEY WERE RAISED IN A BARN

i love that john cage quotation in one of his satie essays "there'll probably be some music, but we'll find a quiet place to talk"

i think we've all experienced the annoying chattering ppl at gigs/cinema/theatre/the bus/at work/in the street/next door/IN LIFE lex, and yes it can be annoying

the opposite of this annoys me more, tbh, when you're at really vibing gig and there's a serious group of ppl near you that aren't vibing at all. at prince/hop farm earlier this year we were surrounded by people like you lot who are there FOR THE MUSIC and not to have FUN totally ruined it for me and i don't think prince was best pleased

can we go back up to the harmonica story for a second, because that is unbelievable

also I tend to harmonize during shows, sorry everyone around me

― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 14:55 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

Guilty of this too. And I'm not a particularly great singer, so I'm especially sorry.

people like you lot who are there FOR THE MUSIC and not to have FUN

Not as bad as the people who won't shut up, but still annoying.

the music IS the fun

though if you mean the people who stand stock still for a performer you're obviously meant to dance to, then i agree

I have to admit, my g/f (bless her) is one of these "talkie" people and she's been shushed a few times (I try to refrain from doing it myself, but y'know, there's a limit). She's not as big a music fan as me, so I think she genuinely doesn't realise she's disrupting things - one or two glasses of wine and she's a uninhibitedly babbling away.

tsk

There's a special place in hell reserved for earlier-billed acts who then talk all the way through the sets of later-billed acts.

Also later-billed acts who talk all over earlier-billed acts.

Don't mind people chatting if they're right at the back, but don't stand in the middle of the crowd blabbing. I mean, most of my social circle is made up of people who I met at gigs, but I have conversations with them before the bands, during changeover, and after, NOT while the music is playing.

i just start chanting loudly SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP not at them specifically but at an angle to the air. they either get it or get wigged out by crazy guy and move.

lol felt like an ass for bringing my roommates to a pinback show way back, i was up front and could hear them in back.

roommates otm

I feel like there is a fertile period during and just after college where you're enthusiastically inviting friends/roommates/gfs out to shows and then you realize it's not worth the trouble.

i've found myself a small group of friends who enjoy shows as much/in the same modes as i do, it's kinda great.

a new entry into BAD SHOW ETIQUETTE @ d'angelo last night

every so often this group of cunts in front of me would, like, light up a surreptitious fag and pass it round between them? crouching down to hide it? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU CAN'T YOU GO TWO GODDAMN HOURS WITHOUT NICOTINE YOU DISGUSTING ADDICTS.

in line with my new ZERO TOLERANCE attitude to bullshit of all stripes i asked them to put it out the second time, and was backed up by the tiny fierce woman next to me AND the woman next to her. they tried to ignore us but one of the women said she WOULD get security if they didn't stub it out.

later on one of the boys got another fag out - with lightning speed my neighbour jabbed him in the ribs and said menacingly "i hope you're not thinking of lighting that"

i hope that at some point in their lives they get cigarettes stubbed out on their eyeballs

i had a similar experience at hawkwind before xmas, tho it was a 'special' cigarette, and tbh it probably would have been a better show if we were all high

haw, i was saying to my friends on the way out that if it had been a spliff i'd have been way more sympathetic and wouldn't have said a thing - i found the fact that it was just a normal roll-up way more offensive

i know, why risk it if its just for a ciggie??

I think that's obvious - because cigarettes are now viewed as way more antisocial and therefore have more rebellious cache than spliffs.

Last show I went to someone came up to me to berate me for reading a book whilst the support band were playing. Maybe they were friends of the band or something. I just told them I could still hear the band, unfortunately.

I'm really hoping you mean that you told dude that it was unfortunate that you could still hear the band.

Yeah, I did :)

sweet :)

nothing was worse than listening to this kid ramble on prior to the Jay-Z/Kanye show on my b'day. I guess taht's the bummer with stadium shows, is having to listen to individual convos. But he wouldn't shut up. He loudly criticized a kid for wearing a Wiz Khalifa shirt to the show ("oh man, wear it to a Mac Miller show, not a JAY-Z show"), and then for about twenty minutes, started going on and on about how he hoped Jay-Z performed "99 Problems" because it was clearly the greatest Jay-Z song of all time (footnote: RONG).

Then he starts playing music on his cell phone (I was like whatev, show hasn't started yet), listening to stuff from Watch the Throne...and then goes "Man, hold on, I got some really old school Jay-Z here. don't think most fans remember this one, maybe some"...so I'm thinking dude is about to queue up his guest spot on "Hawaiian Sophie" or "In My Lifetime", and dude starts playing...."Encore". SPECIFICALLY the Linkin Park-Jay-Z mashup version. Dude was acting O.G. smug about having this song on his iPOD?

Then...he started rapping the opening to "99 Problems"...over...and over...and over behind me. Just the chorus. It was like Chinese water torture after a while because he'd stop for 5 minutes or so, then do it again.

About the time I was getting ready to turn around and throttle the kid, some dudes came up and said he and his friend were in their seats. He tried to argue that no, it was THEY that were in the wrong section, and that this was section 406 (it was 405), so all of us (including me) turned around and said NO IT ISN'T. and he whines loudly that the usher "put us over here", blaming her that he apparently couldn't see the giant "405" that was like 500 feet from his head).

I was so happy when he moved. but I also felt bad for who had to sit in front of him. I hope that when Jay actually did perform "99 Problems" that he had an inner ear problem for just the duration of the song.

*50 feet

looooooooooool

hmmm lex there were some dudes sharing a spliff up the back but they were stood out of the way and no-one, including staff seemingly said anything or had a problem. (they were kinda in the dark though, so maybe they didnt see them.) they werent acting like dicks about it though, which i think is more the issue.

show etiquette stickler for me: you at a packed show, dont dance like you are fucking flashdance. everyone should have a bit of room but dont start waving your arms and shit about like the room is empty. [was abt 15 yards away so it wasnt in my face but it was pissing off the lot next to me.]

old school Jay Z, encore, LOL

I mean to be fair kid had to be like 16 but I mean this is the age of the internet, you should know how ignorant that sounds when you say that out loud!

I keep imagining that when "Hard Knock Life" came on he was thinking to himself "hmm this must be a b-side or something!"

omg people smoking cigarettes, stay the fuck home

not the people smoking

you