Jeff Tweedy - People Talking During Concert
I am a Wilco and Jeff Tweedy fan so I am biased but I think that this is great. I am sure others would disagree. There seems to be more and more self centered people. They are too absorbed with self to have any regard for those around them. I am all for rock and roll but seriously if the performer at an acoustic show can hear you on stage talking in the back of the house you are an asshole. It is to bad the communal experience of being a member of a group feeding off of each other emotion has to be explained.
The argument that paying your hard earned money listen to music not a lecture doesn’t fly with me. I did not pay my hard earned money to listen to a few jerk talk over the music. If intervention is needed I am all for it. It is no different than talking during a movie. But I am not stodgy. If it is a horror movie and someone spontaneously yells, “don’t go it there.” Fine. OK. If you talk all the all through the film you are just an ass.
If it is a loud rock n roll show and you are talking who cares no one is going to hear you 3 feet away. The is a different code of conduct but there still is a code of conduct. But still people can ruin it and send out a bad vibe. Being a stick in the mud at a kinetic loud show is as bad. I have seen some get mad at people for standing or dancing. It is as bad as being a loud mouth at a quiet show. I have seen people get mad that people are pogoing or when mosh pit breaks out at a hardcore show. You have to go with the flow. At more aggressive shows intervention is still needed sometimes. I hate crowd surfing but at giant summer rock festival you might have to live with it. But people take it to far. Still I always remember the show being stopped to tell some serial crowd surfer that being a giant of a man (he was something like 6′4″ 300 lbs.) that he was simply too enormous to except for people to keep him aloft and people were going to get hurt. I have seen acts ask at least that the pass people back away from the stage so people did not get there necks crushed. I have been to other shows where they have put an end to crowd surfing, fighting, over zealous security guards. Most of the time I haven’t had a problem with it. Yet others do. I don’t think purchase a ticket is license to do what ever the hell you want. The artist have the respect and and a mic plugged into the PA which gives the a voice and power. Who else at a show is going to lead the sheep when the need to be lead.
Jeff Tweedy can come to the movies with me anytime.
I’ve heard plenty of bootlegs from the 1970s and 1980s of Roger Waters having to stop in the middle of a song and scold the audience for making continuous noise through the quiet parts, so it’s not an entirely new problem. Tweedy handles it more articulately than Waters did, though.
It’s sad that anyone should need an explanation of how to be a respectful audience member, and I have to wonder if the people who needed the message most even got it or not.