that thing live musicians do where they let the crowd sing the chorus

voted with my heart

Funniest example of this will always be the live version of queen’s “somebody to love” with George Michael. I’m pretty sure he was taking the piss

voted with my heart

there are no kids in here, “achieving orgasm” was fine

Is there already a companion thread about uninvited audience singalongs? Some songs seem to invite especially the drunk part of the crowd to belt along to. Like Madness when they play Our House and everyone keeps going "OUR HOOS INDAMIDDA OF DE STREET!" even over the alternate chorus lines ('was our castle and our keep'/'that was where we used to sleep').
I also recall seeing Blur in Finsbury Park and more than one person loudly singing along to -the entire lyrics of- Parklife, so even the verses which are pretty much spoken word. Phil Daniels was on stage as a special guest, his vocals were completely indistinguishable from the crowds'.

Just one person singing along to a song can be terrible too. I had to resist the urge to strangle a guy once from singing along to Echo & the Bunnymen performing Ocean Rain. And hearing someone singing along to Neil Young's Heart of Gold once was terrible too. The guy stopped during the chorus, luckily, but almost too painful to watch, when he realised he was going for a different pitch and tempo than Neil himself and his singing along didn't work at all.

(not Heart of Gold, it was Old Man)

No option for this but the ideal one for me is the artist extending the final chorus - usually without music - for the audience to sing it. Saw Caetano Veloso do it for “Terra” and it sounded so beautiful I almost started crying. Also Radiohead for Karma Police tend to extend it for the audience to repeat the “for a minute there I lost myself” outro.

It sounds really powerful when done in the right moment and it’s not just a lazy trick for artists that can’t hit notes.

Like Madness when they play Our House and everyone keeps going "OUR HOOS INDAMIDDA OF DE STREET!" even over the alternate chorus lines ('was our castle and our keep'/'that was where we used to sleep').

Never heard any live versions of this but I imagine the key changes must throw a lot of people too

Nice post, Moka

xps Songs where it's fun to say HOOS in place of the actual lyrics

what about when the band asks the audience to clap along and then everybody gives up about 3 bars in except for one person who does it for the entire rest of the song

this dork apparently brings his harmonica to shows and *plays along in the crowd.*

I would sooner accept a cellphone in my face with the flashlight turned on rather than this.

lol Josh i was looking for your post about that from a few years ago and couldn't find it, so thanks for sharing that again here. wild how little impulse control some people have.

"anybody ever go to an Eric Clapton concert with their own fucking guitar?"

I brought my own cello to a Yo-Yo Ma show one time

I brought my own human beatbox to a Doug E. Fresh show once.

I brought my own poop to a GG Allin show once

I went to an Ozzy Osbourne show and for some reason everyone there had their own live bat

Haha at a Pretenders show in Detroit in '87, they were performing "Brass In Pocket", and we in the crowd had no clue that Chrissy Hynde was gonna sing the final "Gonna use my..my..my..." and then drop out and expect us to finish up with "...imagination!" ourselves. Not too many did; it was a bit awkward.

Best quote from this tour from Geddy Lee "I didn't know YYZ had a vocal part"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eSlvoO3Vw8

Like Madness when they play Our House and everyone keeps going "OUR HOOS INDAMIDDA OF DE STREET!" even over the alternate chorus lines ('was our castle and our keep'/'that was where we used to sleep').

Never heard any live versions of this but I imagine the key changes must throw a lot of people too

The drunk part of the crowd (which is a VERY substantial part) just keeps doing the same thing, despite the key changes. I don't think it throws them. They're probably completely oblivious to any different lyrics or key changes.

Anyway, back to the main question. While I'm mostly leaning to something between options 1 and 2, I just remembered how Bowie invited the audience to sing along to All The Young Dudes and that was classic.

The worst ones are when the vocalist preps the crowd to get ready, even running through the chorus perhaps before they begin the song, like some high school choir stage rehearsal.

Jeff Tweedy once did this, setting us up for the Ooooo's and Aaaaahh's during the "Heavy Metal Drummer" chorus. I stood there thinking, "Farrar would've never put up with this business."

Yeah that's lame... I think it's cool if it's done as a low-key thing in maybe one song.

option 2.

i saw 5 mins of Primal Scream at a festival one time and Boaby held the mic out for the crowd to sing along to that song about getting your rocks off only to be greeted by total silence in response.

i saw Arab Strap one time and the audience started singing along. Aiden Moffat stopped the song and told the audience to go fuck themselves.

There is a clip of Justin Bieber teaching a European audience how to clap on 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 3.

Like he literally stopped the song and told them they were clapping wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1q4_GkgrE0

Regardless of how you view Mr. Biebs this is actually a worthwhile lesson and maybe more people should learn it

Aiden Moffat stopped the song and told the audience to go fuck themselves.

What a dick.

xp I saw some clip of Harry Connick Jr. on some TV show where the crowd was clapping on the 1/3 instead of 2/4, and he subtly adjusted the tempo of the song to align. No lecturing involved, though I guess spare the rod, spoil the audience.

That clip is great. The audience doesn't even know what happened...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UinRq_29jPk

(the best part is Connick's drummer throwing his fists up in the air after the successful 5/4 bar)

this dork apparently brings his harmonica to shows and *plays along in the crowd.*

STILL lol about this, especially after your responses.

DYLAN: Hey, Mr. Sound Man. Can ya turn down the harmonica in my monitor?
MSM: Actually, Mr. Dylan, I think you're going to want me to turn it UP.

Needs to be a 'jam section' in the venue where all the dorks can play along safely away from the rest of the audience. Harp, didg, flute, maracas, you name it.

Go to the ballet, start pirouetting in the aisles.

I was in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar and these people in the audience had the audacity to make themselves part of the play. they decided to portray witnesses at the crucifixion and began vomiting on the floor

Are there bands that attract Rocky Horror-esque crowds to their shows? Shouting out stuff on cue, blowing confetti on a certain note, etc.?

Don't Phish fans do stuff like that for some songs?

in my imagination this is basically what a flaming lips show is

Are there bands that attract Rocky Horror-esque crowds to their shows? Shouting out stuff on cue, blowing confetti on a certain note, etc.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4vFjS67sm8

Maybe more pop acts do this? Rock bands less so I guess. ICP, probably.

I remember Travis from Dismemberment Plan was initially cool with audience participation but then had to clamp down.

We were at the 9:30 one time and he said like, "Hey look, guys, I know we used to let you do stupid shit during 'Ice of Boston' but it has gotten out of hand so now I am asking you NOT to do stupid shit during 'Ice of Boston.'"

I don't even remember what Saud shit was, but I remember that moment vividly.

Another time, Barenaked Ladies had to ask people not to throw macaroni at them ("If I Had a Million Dollars") because they were unsurprisingly tired of getting hit in the face with macaroni.

That said, it's possible that Barenaked Ladies did, in fact, richly deserve to be regularly hit in the face with enriched pasta. I will leave that up to the reader to determine.

Amon Amarth do that thing where they ask their audience to start 'rowing' like on a viking ship

Pretty sure Gwar and Ululating Mummies had various audience-participation stuff back in the day.

Like, there was a Mummies show where we were all asked to bring a kazoo

Amon Amarth do that thing where they ask their audience to start 'rowing' like on a viking ship

TBF, this was a thing that drunk Europeans started doing at Wacken and other big festivals and the band thought it was hilarious (which it kinda was, the first time the footage popped up on YouTube) and have subsequently encouraged it, which was the wrong move IMO. In fact, I think there's actually a song about rowing on one of their more recent albums, which is officially a sign that things have Gone Too Far.

I liked it when I saw Half Man Half Biscuit live and the crowd did the 'fucking hell, it's Fred Titmuss' bit from Fucking Hell It's Fred Titmus, but that's more shouted than sang anyway

Where is the “the band should just let me sing, I’m in good voice today” option

S/D songs about rowing

sometimes if the singer is a little flat i bring my casio to the show to play the note and go "ahhhhh, right here, match my note"

on an unrelated note, casios do not fit very snugly in one's ass

I'm with James Taylor on this subject: "If you feel like singing along...don't".

thanks to the ILM end of year poll i went from never having (knowingly) heard Paramaore to falling in love with them and going to see them live within a matter of weeks.

i do love their bring the fans on stage to sing the song thang that they do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdKqLt_7kTU

I didn't realize until reading about it a little while ago that "audience members yelling inspiring lyrics at the performer or at each other" was a thing. I can't think of a situation where I would consider it appropriate for me to do that at a show.

watching the krakow videos of peter gabriel the other night and he's doing a fair amount of this which makes me annoyed in advance of seeing him in october.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The only time this kind of behavior is even remotely acceptable is when it’s done by screaming teenage girls, like on “Sunny Afternoon” on The Kinks Live at Kelvin Hall.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Nice post from Regina Spektor of an audience singing "Fidelity" at a concert this weekend.

(the music on that ^^ plays on my phone but not on my browser, for some copyright-y reason)

Posted from a friend about the Tinariwen show:

There were goofy hippy dancers, dressed-up Tuareg dancers who hollered at the top of their lungs, and there was a solid line of people making videos with their shiny-screened I-phones right in front of me throughout the show. One of them also had a whistle, having apparently confused the concert with a soccer game. So there was ample opportunity to be distracted by the hell of other people, but I did my best to practice tolerance... except for when I told the guy with the whistle, "you know, that's really loud."

fwiw, I didn't notice or hear the whistle, but still.

On the live version of James' Sit Down from the early 90s, there was someone incessantly blowing a whistle while the crowd sang the chorus ad infinitum. Also a guy with an airhorn. Or maybe it was the same guy with both noisemakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv2yYKiB8lQ