I Dub The Unforgiven
Last night, I took my older brother to see Metallica for his birthday. He has been listening to their music nearly all his life and by proxy I also became a fan. He owned nearly every album of theirs and since our bedrooms shared a wall, I became very familiar with their work. When I heard they were going to be in town the day before his birthday, I pounced at the chance to buy tickets for the two of us as a way to say “thanks for helping me develop my musical interests”.
The show was amazing. The energy was high. The band played great and really explored the centralized square stage with the drums setup on a rotating platform in the center. They had free range to sing on any of the 8 microphones which were placed in the corners and along the sides of the stage. There were giant moving video cubes and pyrotechnics galore. In a word, it was awesome.
However…
I get so frustrated by the people who go to live shows these days. People shell out tons of money to sit there holding their cell phone in the air recording and/or live streaming the show. I will never understand the idea that “in order for me to have fun, others must know what fun I am having”. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand taking a few pics and posting them online, but are you really going to watch the crappy audio and blurry video you took on your phone again?
To make matters worse, before and after the show they made announcements that the entire show was being professionally recorded and if you went online and scanned your ticket in 2-3 days, you can get a much better version of the thing you were at than what you have on your iPhone, Spielberg.
Like… c’mon… can we just put our phones down for 2 hours and share the experience together with the people we came with and the people who also paid to be there? You bought a ticket to a live show. Enjoy the moment. They even made it so you don’t have to stand there holding your phone to get a good recording.
One guy who must have been a complete super fan <sarcasm> was sitting next to me. When the band were doing a tribute to their deceased bass player, Cliff Burton, this asshole was texting multiple people. I told him to put his phone away and he got all huffy about it, but complied after a few choice words.
Why is this acceptable at concerts and live shows, but not at movies? The answer is that it isn’t and shouldn’t be tolerated at either. It has been a couple years since I went to a live show, but next time, I am going to be more adamant about telling people to put their phone away and enjoy the show. I hope you will join me in my quest to put an end to this shit.
I came across this Uproxx article. It was written by some baby who feels “insulted” by the notion of banning phones at concerts and basically highlights why Jack White is everything that is good about live music, in my opinion.
