this is fucking annoying guys



it's pointless, you're not even engaging the live show in front of you, you're staring into your screen, getting highlights of all the screens in front of you

you are beyond privileged to have so much entertainment, stop acting like you need to record it

i... i have to. you don't understand

My mom did that at the Billy Joel concert Friday. Didn't have the heart to tell her it's bad etiquette.

but who couldn't resist snapping a pic of this handsome devil

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-I...billie_joe.jpg

omg he's so punk rock

I don't even know why people even bother when the photos and videos tend to look like blurry muliticoloured shit and sound like overdriven BWOOOOOO

no, I need someone more... punk rock?

She did take a picture of me, yes.

As for phones, I don't mind if people want to take a few pictures over the course of the night, and I am just as guilty of wanting to snap one of the National doing an all acoustic encore as the next guy, but some music enthusiasts feel the need to hold their fucking phones up the whole damn show. It definitely gets obnoxious quickly.

but my biggest concert peeve is that people, at least DC crowds, do not move. like at all. I'm generally a pretty reserved guy in public but somehow I find myself always moving more than literally anyone else in the fucking venue, and it's not like I get drunk and thrash around like a maniac. your average DC crowd for a rock show is usually packed with clean-cut young professionals who head straight from work to the show, sling their sports jackets over their shoulders and stand awkwardly in their suits and ties, shifting weight from one foot to the other all night, staring miserably at the stage and acting in general like attending this awesome concert is such a fucking burden. It's a real downer and I feel bad for artists. I don't know how you can look out into the crowd and get excited when everyone is standing around like a capitol hill zombie douche

deafheaven played here last week and i couldn't go because i really didn't have the money for theater tickets :(

oh my god punch city we could have a contest who can knock the most phones to the ground before the song is done

the other most obnoxious thing to me is when the venue has seats and people want to sit down. As far as I am concerned, standing up at rock shows is what you do and if you want to sit, you're going to have to deal with not being able to see. sorry. Saw Pumpkins do that two night white crosses black souls bullshit at DAR hall in 2008. Shows were pretty good actually, crowd was terrible. People kept standing up for the hits and then sitting down during the acoustic songs, yelling at others to sit down when they wanted to sit down, etc. They played Speed Kills and I was just like am I really going to sit down through Speed Kills? No, I'm not. So I just ignored the people shouting down in the front and eventually everyone around me stood up too.

I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse last year, and look, I understand that a lot of the people in the crowd are old, but it seemed like they were expecting him to sit on a stool and play Needle and the Damage Done all night. The show was a blizzard of noise insanity, Neil Young jumped on his organ, snapped all his strings, etc. But everyone sat through the entire thing. The guy in front of me fell asleep during Out of the Black. Another guy kept putting his fingers in his ears. Neil played Powderfinger and I stood up because fuck that, and in ten seconds some irate 70 year old dick rushed down to frantically tell me I had to sit down and had I never been to a show before and his wife couldn't see. sorry you old dick, but fuck you. pissed me off an especially large amount because I am poor and can't afford to drop big bucks on a ticket. I usually don't go to anything more than 30 bucks. Because I wanted to see Crazy Horse before they don't tour again, I dropped 100 dollars to see them, and my seat was really shitty, all the way up in the arena and far away from the stage. I didn't pay $100 to sit down all night while Neil Young, who looks like a dessicated corpse, jumps around like he is 20 years old.

depends on the venue if you ask me. mob rules. if you were raised southern baptist snakehandler and then you went to a methodist church yea you would probably get stared at and/or escorted out if you started shaking and speaking in tongues.

but on the other hand you can't let anyone ruin your good time and i'm sure you weren't being an obnoxious fuck about it and climbing on the chairs and woo-hooing in peoples ears and spilling beer on grandma

i just realized most of the shows i've been to in the past 5 years have been country and western acts

i find that the crowds in orlando are quite awesome. people talk about the awful crowds in places like NYC, LA, Austin etc. But I've always thought the crowds here are especially gracious and enthusiastic towards the touring bands.

i dunno, i think if a venue has seats it's ok to sit. what is gained by standing? when i stand for a whole show my back starts to hurt. : /

last show i went to was fiona apple and pretty much everyone sat the whole time. still really good energy though.

it really comes down to this

oh man check out this video i took during vampire weekend! *blurry, indistinct shapes on stage, lots of shaking, visual blotted by seven hundred cellphones, sound quality sounds like an elephant inside of an indoor swimming pool*

austin is a double edged sword, shows like deafheaven or titus andronicus are full of believers and the leonard cohen show was downright reverential

we're gregarious and spoiled on live music...so there's a lot of chatting and drinking, also lots of people are really just going to whatever's on because twitter says so

I saw Young at the Hippodrome and sat for most the night. It's a fuckng gorgeous theater with super steep balconies, sitting is the most viable option.

It depends entirely on venue IMO.

I haven't been to a show in Austin since, I thnk, 08 so much might have changed, but the Austin crowds were always great. It helps they get more live music than most anywhere else in the country. I miss Emo's.

last live music rock show i went to was kid rock in atlanta and i paid $80 for two tall boys

people say NYC has awful crowds? my understanding is that even bands regard NYC and LA as places with great crowds who ~care. also how often do you actually see the situation in that pic? maybe i don't see it cause i am pretty short so my standard concert position is stage left front row. if i have friends coming with me we get there early. if not, i can always get there on my own regardless of what time i arrive. i am usually very in the moment/only record something out of the usual/a particular song. i wouldn't try to get a video being that far behind though. closeness is also why my boots tend to be pretty clean. not sure how putting my camera literally on the stage gets in the way of anyone's experience but ok.

i was at the (apparently now deceased) red palace in dc in 2011 i think and i liked it well enough/crowd was alright no zombies. the only show i ever went to in austin was at the mohawk and it kinda sucked but it was my birthday and that always sucks for other reasons anyway.

florida crowds are pretty good from my experience, too.

to me it depends on the music. like I said, I was talking about rock shows. just my opinion, but I think sitting down for a noisy rock and roll concert fucking sucks. If I was seeing someone sitting at a piano all night or an acoustic act, sitting makes more sense.

but like

why

i say it depends on the music if it's punk or metal you're a dork for sitting down

same with dance music

if it's like, leonard cohen or sp, or you know shoegaze, atmospheric noise jamming dammit i want to have a seat and space the fuck out, thank you DEERHUNTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I like making videos with a DSLR (when allowed) or a small compact + a Zoom audio recorder - usually from the front row. Is that bad etiquette, you guys?

i don't know

maybe not bad etiquette but bad taping skills. the sound is going to get better the further back or closer to the soundboard you get, monte.

i don't pirate music anymore because of spotify

the difference between spotify and outright piracy in terms of revenue seen by the artist is negligible.

citation? i thought artists get paid for every play on spotify.

well they do get paid on a per-play basis: about 3/10 of a cent. per play

originally heard this story on npr

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8993-the-cloud/

well shit. that doesn't seem fair.

what i'm trying to say is that it's not the artists you're hurting by pirating music, because they will get screwed by the record companies no matter what.

best way to support bands is to throw money at their bandcamp page, or go to their show and buy merch.

i rounded that figure incorrectly. 3/1000 of a cent per play.

$0.00003

there's no way you can sell unlimited plays for 7.99 a month without screwing somebody over. and if anyone will get screwed over in that process it's the artists. every time. unless your name is mick or keith.

if they're not making enough as musicians then they should get jobs