From The Guardian’s Michael Hann’s review of Kraftwerk at Tate Modern:
Three times I move around the front of the hall – one of the wonderful things about the arrangement of these shows is the ability to move without any hindrance to wherever you want – to escape groups of people not just exchanging the occasional word but having full and loud conversations. Hang on, you sold your mother’s soul to get a ticket for one of these events, and now you’re going to talk through it? It’s music-as-social-event writ large.
Seriously, what is it about some people? It does give the impression that there were far too many people at the Tate Modern that weren’t actually there for the music, but because it was the place to be seen. I’d like to say one advantage of like obsure progressive rock bands is that they don’t attract the poseurs, but sadly prog gigs aren’t immune to loud talking either.
That is one of my pet hates! It is often the women who have been dragged along by their boyfriends and who aren’t particularly into the music and it drives me MAD – especially during the quiet passages. Why on earth do people do this? It’s so rude and inconsiderate. Fine to comment in between tracks – but to shout consistently…. Grr!
I’ll never forget the Breathing Space + Mermaid Kiss gig in Mansfield where the sound engineer asked two people to leave during Mermaid Kiss’ support set. This is something that needs to happen more often.
It’s everywhere. I’ve asked people to shut up at times only to draw stares of uncomprehension. Rudeness abounds worldwide.
Sadly some band members (I will mention no names) have been particularly bad offenders in the past.
I’m reminded of when Alan Vega gave a chattery (and hostile) crowd a piece of his mind with a well-chosen F-bomb.
Then again, “hostile” summed up most of the people who saw Suicide live in their early days. Most of them seemed to show up just to bait the band … which might explain why Vega sometimes showed up with a length of motorcycle drive chain, which he used as a whip to smash out pieces of the venue wall.