show etiquette

someone took a video of me playing a show a while ago & watching it was v instructive actually, made me realize what a dork i look like when i play shows

I don't really care about ppl who film things or take pictures, I'm tall and will help you take a pic if you're short, I don't really have a uniform viewpoint on show etiquette really, but I try to act less like the dick I know I've been when I was younger

(and for that matter over the tall, oblivious people who stand in front of you just as you thought you;d found a nice sightline)

we're often not being oblivious so much as cruel

oh god people who blow fag smoke in your face >>>>:(

wat

Two whammies. The first was at a rare US show by the Bats. I was so excited to see them. So was the dude behind me, who decided to do one of those crazy loud finger whistles about a foot from my ear. Without even thinking, I whipped around and angrily yelled at him to shut the fuck up. He was just a little dude (like me) who clearly didn't consider that someone might like the sound of the band more than his loud whistle. He meekly apologized and didn't do it again.

The other one was better, one of my all-time favorite anecdotes. I went to see Kathleen Edwards at a smallish club. I was standing in the back. This dude and his friends were talking near me.

Girl: So, did you bring your harmonica?
Dude: Nah, not tonight.
Other dude: What harmonica?
Girl: Oh, you don't know? Dude's jammed with Dylan, Dave Matthews, Blues Traveler...

I started eyeing this alleged all-star harmonica jammer when it the gist of their conversation suddenly struck me: this asshat brings his harmonica to shows and plays along in the crowd! I can't imagine anything more hellish, and that includes seeing Blues Traveler and DMB.

idk im making an effort to not be annoyed by everyone and everything i guess

anybody who holds a $500 device in front of me at a show is already making pretty bad life decisions imo

There are $500 harmonicas?

u need to spend the big bucks to jam with the big stars

actually there are $500 harmonicas! but that wasnt my intended ref

it is interesting how people feel like they have an inalienable right to document shows, no matter how intrusive they are or whether the performer(s) express the desire for them not to ... or not to do so in certain ways.

i like to believe i have a live-and-let-live attitude about these sort of things but if that harmonica guy eventually got stomped i would not http://struckbyenlightning.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/crying-indian1.jpg because that is all-time douchebaggery

on the other hand the kind of shows you'd go to in order to play harmonica in the crowd probably wouldn't involve audiences quick to anger

i mean that harmonica guy is probably unbearable but its kindof easier to laugh at him than to get cross with him.

<3 u plax but some of us are rageballs by nature

plz note: i have documented the fate of a harmonica play along guy on a different ilx thread and it doesnt end well

how could you not laugh at the harmonica guy? i mean, really

anyone who BRINGS AN INSTRUMENT to a show when they're not in the band is in the "first against the wall" category imo

They would probably bring their own rifle along to that tbh

i remember the most frustrating experience was seeing live music in spain where everybody claps (?) along all the time. its like all you hear is clapping. its p confusing at first and then you start thinking about how much the ticket cost.

i used to enjoy going to shows and then i started getting paid to do it four or five nights a week for three or four years and now i am happy to have my rocking chair and a cup of tea and a nice blanket

i think after nine or ten years of going to shows four or five night a week you develop a zen-like attitude -- at least that was my experience

thats probably hearing loss

Think how good you would be on harmonica by now if you had taken it along to each of those gigs.

possibly - people are often less annoying when what they're saying is less intelligible

Some dude put two beers on the floor next to where I was sitting and then proceeded to jump into the mosh pit. People proceed to walk through the area where dude placed his beer.
He came back fifteen minutes later and only found one of his beers then looked at me and asked "where's the other one?"
You're on your own, fuckface.

I don't get the people who spend the entire show making trip after trip after trip back to the bar, spending more time carefully shoving through the crowd with two beers in each hand than they do actually watching the show. Do it properly folks, load up on your beer at a cheap bar down the street, then go to the show. Less annoying and much cheaper.

one time i brought a six pack to some loft show, was standing nowhere near the stage, put it on the floor next to me for a second, and this american apparel clad doofus goes running for the stage when a band came on, sending himself and my beers sprawling. i was torn between rage over the beer and delight over his pratfall.

presumably you could still hear the music while making the frequent bar visits ... like, i don't really get why one needs to be able to see the musicians playing in order to have a full concert experience.

ah what the hell, copying this from the hidden thread because it isnt like this dude can use google or anything

So this morning this regular customer who is sort of an inveterate drunk and a complete ass comes in and is all slurry mouthed (presumably from lingering booze) and asks for a harmonica in the key of G. I tell him we don't have one and he starts asking if I know how to clean harmonicas, and while im telling him to soak it in water and hope for the best etc, he produces a blood soaked rag wrapped around a blood encrusted harmonica and sets it on the counter (aaagghj). He explains that last night he was at the bar and decided to play harmonica along with the band (not on stage, but just loudly over at the bar), at which point the guy next to him punched him in the harmonica, and by proxy the mouth, which now is a small cemetery of partial tooth stubs. Which explains the speech pattern i suppose.

added bonus: thanks to his sleeveless shirt i now know that his arms are covered with about 15 jailhouse swastikas, a crudely done eagle with a syringe in its mouth, a wolf engaged in mortal combat with (i think) a diseased raccoon, and "I LIKE TO FUCK" in big block lettering.

― CUSE EX MACHINA (jjjusten), Saturday, May 29, 2010 4:31 PM (1 year ago)

sarahel if you want to know what someone looks like cumming you have to watch them play guitar

added bonus: thanks to his sleeveless shirt i now know that his arms are covered with about 15 jailhouse swastikas, a crudely done eagle with a syringe in its mouth, a wolf engaged in mortal combat with (i think) a diseased raccoon, and "I LIKE TO FUCK" in big block lettering.

...daddy?

punched him in the harmonica is all time writing

presumably you could still hear the music while making the frequent bar visits ... like, i don't really get why one needs to be able to see the musicians playing in order to have a full concert experience.

I get this, but its annoying to have to constantly move out of the way for these people making all the trips back and forth. I was recently at a show at the Chicago Theatre, which has fixed seating and even when standing there isn't enough room for people to get by down the aisles, and of course the pair sitting in the middle of our row made about 12 trips to the bar.

I remember some girl pushing up to the front of the stage, pointing at Paul Westerberg who was six inches away and asking me "So who's that?"

― http://tinyurl.com/whitepony (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, October 20, 2010 11:06 AM Bookmark

the inability to drink comfortably and free of stress while watching a show are down to structural inadequacies rather than individual failings

I think that's a fair assessment.

Jesus Christ will y'all stop fuckin goin to shows so the rest of us can have good drunken fun. Stay at at home w/yr Lawrence Welk

gladly!

lawrence welk is entertaining as hell btw.

a couple of weeks ago i went to a club w/ a motown covers band cuz its fun to dance to 60s music and the dancefloor was crammed full of ppl standing still, recording & taking pictures of the band on their phones & i was like "..." but also felt sadly close to that whiney post where he wishes some kind of painful cancer on these ppl

that reminds me of a dance party i went to last month, where a half dozen people showed up with hula hoops.

I'll tell you has poor show etiquette: opening bands. It's like, please don't play we don't care about you

This is why I like shows by "heritage" acts; middle-aged folks keep their phones in their pockets.

In re: the people go back and forth to the bar during the show. When I lived in the Netherlands and you would go to decent-sized gigs, they would have dudes with kegs strapped to their backs and long sleeves of plastic cups roaming the crowd. You would just wave them over, pay them, and they would dispense beer to you right then and there. Fucking brilliant, has anyone else ever seen this? It's like the perfect solution IMO.

The same people that get mad at the bar hoppers would get mad at keg dudes moving around their area. It sounds great to me, though

I really wish people wouldn't continue to do the following things at metal shows:

A. Do "hardcore" dances. There's a place for these -- HARDCORE SHOWS. If you're not at one of those, KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF AND MOSH LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. otherwise it just causes people to get unnecessarily hurt

B. drag people (intentionally or semi-intentionally) who have no desire to mosh into the pit

C. get butthurt while they're moshing if they fall over after they're hit by someone by someone who was...merely moshing the same as they were.

No way, I hate the bar hoppers but would totally be down with roaming keg dispensers.

Moshing is tedious when I'm not in the mood and amazing when I am.

I love doing it in venues where it works properly. one of the places I go often is very wide but not very deep, which makes moshing uncomfortable and difficult, but this other place I went has such a deep floor that it's a hell of a lot of fun.