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by: Shannon West
Guitars and Saxes 2008. Jeff Golub, my guitar hero, front and center.
Jessy J. jammin' on the side of the stage. Great sound, good room, but
it's not a theater so the floor doesn't slant toward the front. I'm about
15 rows back. In front of me, a couple who are obviously newly in love.
He puts his arm around her. I lean to the right. She turns her head to
whisper something to him. I lean to the left. They cuddle, her head on
his shoulder. I crane my neck like a giraffe to peer over them. Then
she starts nibbling on his ear and making this slurping sound. Eeeeeeuuuuu...
I run for cover to the back of the room where there were some tables
with empty seats and try not to imagine what they are going to do next.
Then there was the time I went to see Al Jarreau doing his symphony program with the Charlotte N.C. Orchestra. It was in a hall that was designed for classical music - velvet curtains, chairs with stuff carved on them, the whole nine yards. Beautifully designed signs by the entrance doors reminded people to please turn cell phones off during the performance. There is a point where he does this very quiet piece based on a Bach composition. It was at that moment that I heard Pachibel's Canon being played on a calliope right behind me. A ringtone of course. Did the owner of that phone have a child on the way to the emergency room? Was he the caregiver for an elderly parent who had just had a fall? No. He needed to stop by the store on the way home and pick up several items, which he wrote down by the light of his phone as he leaned closer to my seat to speak as he wrote. C'mon people! You're supposed to go to a concert to get into the music. If you are going for other reasons please don't sit in front of me. I'm a live music junkie and I'm short. I wanna see and hear what's going on onstage.
I started going to concerts when I was a kid. Since then I have been craning my neck, standing on tiptoes, or desperately searching for a place to sit or stand where I could see and hear the artist instead being thrown into other people's lives due to proximity. Experiencing live music surrounded by others who love it as much as you do is a heavenly experience. Being stuck in the middle of a group who could just as well be at home playing a CD while they go about their lives is pure hell. I found myself enjoying Mindi Abair's virtual concert way too much. I could see, I could hear, I could dance around the room and sing along without annoying anyone else, I could request a song without having to shout (you just typed it on the screen and hit send), and I could eat my Nachos without offending a table of foodies. The whole process could become so tempting that people quit going out to see and hear live music at all. That would be very sad because virtual concerts have a definite place in the overall picture but the magic that happens when you experience live music surrounded by other fans just isn't going to happen if we are all in our respective living rooms or home offices watching a screen. I realize that making the world a more fun place for me is probably not high on your priority list but please, if you fall into any of the following categories sit on the aisle, sit in the back, or better yet, stay home and watch a DVD.
See and Be Seens: See and Be Seen's (SABS) have really proliferated since festivals started offering more corporate VIP tables in front of the stage. These people are usually couples at the high end of the socio-economic pecking order. Everything they wear, carry and drive was designed by the same people who designed the stuff that everyone else they know wears, carries, and drives. They converse loudly while communicating on various gadgets and make frequent trips to the catering area and to visit friends at other VIP tables, bobbing up and down like a mass of buoys on rough seas. Collectively they will create a noise level that easily drowns out that guitar solo you drove two hours to hear. There are several subgroups in this category, most notably "Foodies" and "Wine Aficionados" whose conversations are more focused but equally distracting.
Educators: If your date wanted to know the title of the CD the drummer released in 1982 and who produced it she would probably ask you. I say "she" because Educators seem to be mostly guys. Yeah, that may be sexist to say but the lectures I've heard from a few seats down have always been from guys to the women they are with. Maybe they are trying to share the music they enjoy and they think the way to do so is to bludgeon their companions with trivia. Actually, the best way to get them hooked would be to let them listen. It really gets interesting when two Educators are sitting close to each other and began an obscure factoid challenge, usually yelling over several people's heads. This is called a Pi**ing Match. It gets even more interesting if there is a woman somewhere in the line of fire who can blurt out an obscurity that even they didn't know and shut 'em both up. Oh, that would be me. Sorry. Couldn't resist the ego battle.
Gadget Geeks - These people aren't as distracting as they were back in the early days of gadget obsession, when you needed five or six toys to do what one can do now. They had PDAs, Beepers, Cameras, Cell Phones, recording devices and God knows what else stashed in so many pockets that they beeped and blinked like Christmas trees and were constantly in motion trying to find the gadget that was demanding their attention. Now most people carry one item that does all those jobs and while it makes most people crazy to be subjected to a ringing cell phone during a quiet or emotional song or someone trying to take a picture by holding their phone in your line of sight at least nobody is showing everyone how cool it is that they can get the weather forecast on their beeper. Progress. Sigh.
Couples with Relationship Issues: That hostility radiates. You can feel them seethe as they glare at each other. He gets up and walks out. Everyone stands so he can pass by. Five minutes later she gets up and walks out. Everyone stands so she can pass by. He comes back in and sits down with a huff (everyone stands). She leans against the wall at the end of the row holding her drink and cutting her eyes at him. He pulls the car keys out of the pocket. She walks about three seats in and reaches over 4 more people to grab them (everyone scrunches back in their seats). He sits back for a moment, then pulls out his cell phone and loudly asks someone if he can crash at their house for the night. Subspecies: The Newly In Love and/or Lust (see above).
Drunks: Aaaahhh. Drunks are so much fun. When they are you. It's not so much fun when it is someone else who is lurching past you with a glass of something thick and red splashing side to side, singing loudly and off key, trying to prove they can do a pole dance on a lawn chair, or land on top of your stuff when they pass out flat on their face, or worse. A nice happy buzz is one thing, could hurl any minute is something entirely different.
People I Can't See Through: Remember your first grade class picture. They seated everyone by height - short in front and tall in the back. In my dream world concert seating is done by height so we all have a good shot at seeing over the heads of everyone in front of us. That's not going to happen though, so you just have to trust fate that the person who is seven feet tall or has a really big head will not plop down right in front of you. There are factors that can be controlled though. Please don't wear a big hat. I've been lucky so far because I don't have much in common with the Red Hat people as far as entertainment choices, but the time I did get stuck in back of a bunch of them was pure torture. Big hair hasn't made a comeback but hairstyles with height are showing up in the fashion mags. Shoulder sitting is pretty much forbidden now, to the relief of short people everywhere. If you are seven feet tall and have managed to put a hat on top of a 5 inch high Mohawk please stand in the back of the room.
You, the reader, could probably add to this list. You might even add something like this:
Working Media: They run up to the stage like lemmings when the first song starts, carrying bulky photo equipment and trying to attract the attention of the musicians so they can get the perfect shot. They either hog the space in front of the stage or get in the way of the people who paid to sit there. They gather in clusters and talk, point, and take notes through the whole set, which makes the area look like a classroom instead of an entertainment event. Some even pull out their laptops. Isn't such conspicuous reviewing going to distract the band? They're so focused on covering the event that one wonders if they actually experience it! On top of that, they get to use the backstage bathroom while you have to use the Port-o-let. Annoying! Just flat out annoying!
Then there was the time I went to see Al Jarreau doing his symphony program with the Charlotte N.C. Orchestra. It was in a hall that was designed for classical music - velvet curtains, chairs with stuff carved on them, the whole nine yards. Beautifully designed signs by the entrance doors reminded people to please turn cell phones off during the performance. There is a point where he does this very quiet piece based on a Bach composition. It was at that moment that I heard Pachibel's Canon being played on a calliope right behind me. A ringtone of course. Did the owner of that phone have a child on the way to the emergency room? Was he the caregiver for an elderly parent who had just had a fall? No. He needed to stop by the store on the way home and pick up several items, which he wrote down by the light of his phone as he leaned closer to my seat to speak as he wrote. C'mon people! You're supposed to go to a concert to get into the music. If you are going for other reasons please don't sit in front of me. I'm a live music junkie and I'm short. I wanna see and hear what's going on onstage.
I started going to concerts when I was a kid. Since then I have been craning my neck, standing on tiptoes, or desperately searching for a place to sit or stand where I could see and hear the artist instead being thrown into other people's lives due to proximity. Experiencing live music surrounded by others who love it as much as you do is a heavenly experience. Being stuck in the middle of a group who could just as well be at home playing a CD while they go about their lives is pure hell. I found myself enjoying Mindi Abair's virtual concert way too much. I could see, I could hear, I could dance around the room and sing along without annoying anyone else, I could request a song without having to shout (you just typed it on the screen and hit send), and I could eat my Nachos without offending a table of foodies. The whole process could become so tempting that people quit going out to see and hear live music at all. That would be very sad because virtual concerts have a definite place in the overall picture but the magic that happens when you experience live music surrounded by other fans just isn't going to happen if we are all in our respective living rooms or home offices watching a screen. I realize that making the world a more fun place for me is probably not high on your priority list but please, if you fall into any of the following categories sit on the aisle, sit in the back, or better yet, stay home and watch a DVD.
See and Be Seens: See and Be Seen's (SABS) have really proliferated since festivals started offering more corporate VIP tables in front of the stage. These people are usually couples at the high end of the socio-economic pecking order. Everything they wear, carry and drive was designed by the same people who designed the stuff that everyone else they know wears, carries, and drives. They converse loudly while communicating on various gadgets and make frequent trips to the catering area and to visit friends at other VIP tables, bobbing up and down like a mass of buoys on rough seas. Collectively they will create a noise level that easily drowns out that guitar solo you drove two hours to hear. There are several subgroups in this category, most notably "Foodies" and "Wine Aficionados" whose conversations are more focused but equally distracting.
Educators: If your date wanted to know the title of the CD the drummer released in 1982 and who produced it she would probably ask you. I say "she" because Educators seem to be mostly guys. Yeah, that may be sexist to say but the lectures I've heard from a few seats down have always been from guys to the women they are with. Maybe they are trying to share the music they enjoy and they think the way to do so is to bludgeon their companions with trivia. Actually, the best way to get them hooked would be to let them listen. It really gets interesting when two Educators are sitting close to each other and began an obscure factoid challenge, usually yelling over several people's heads. This is called a Pi**ing Match. It gets even more interesting if there is a woman somewhere in the line of fire who can blurt out an obscurity that even they didn't know and shut 'em both up. Oh, that would be me. Sorry. Couldn't resist the ego battle.
Gadget Geeks - These people aren't as distracting as they were back in the early days of gadget obsession, when you needed five or six toys to do what one can do now. They had PDAs, Beepers, Cameras, Cell Phones, recording devices and God knows what else stashed in so many pockets that they beeped and blinked like Christmas trees and were constantly in motion trying to find the gadget that was demanding their attention. Now most people carry one item that does all those jobs and while it makes most people crazy to be subjected to a ringing cell phone during a quiet or emotional song or someone trying to take a picture by holding their phone in your line of sight at least nobody is showing everyone how cool it is that they can get the weather forecast on their beeper. Progress. Sigh.
Couples with Relationship Issues: That hostility radiates. You can feel them seethe as they glare at each other. He gets up and walks out. Everyone stands so he can pass by. Five minutes later she gets up and walks out. Everyone stands so she can pass by. He comes back in and sits down with a huff (everyone stands). She leans against the wall at the end of the row holding her drink and cutting her eyes at him. He pulls the car keys out of the pocket. She walks about three seats in and reaches over 4 more people to grab them (everyone scrunches back in their seats). He sits back for a moment, then pulls out his cell phone and loudly asks someone if he can crash at their house for the night. Subspecies: The Newly In Love and/or Lust (see above).
Drunks: Aaaahhh. Drunks are so much fun. When they are you. It's not so much fun when it is someone else who is lurching past you with a glass of something thick and red splashing side to side, singing loudly and off key, trying to prove they can do a pole dance on a lawn chair, or land on top of your stuff when they pass out flat on their face, or worse. A nice happy buzz is one thing, could hurl any minute is something entirely different.
People I Can't See Through: Remember your first grade class picture. They seated everyone by height - short in front and tall in the back. In my dream world concert seating is done by height so we all have a good shot at seeing over the heads of everyone in front of us. That's not going to happen though, so you just have to trust fate that the person who is seven feet tall or has a really big head will not plop down right in front of you. There are factors that can be controlled though. Please don't wear a big hat. I've been lucky so far because I don't have much in common with the Red Hat people as far as entertainment choices, but the time I did get stuck in back of a bunch of them was pure torture. Big hair hasn't made a comeback but hairstyles with height are showing up in the fashion mags. Shoulder sitting is pretty much forbidden now, to the relief of short people everywhere. If you are seven feet tall and have managed to put a hat on top of a 5 inch high Mohawk please stand in the back of the room.
You, the reader, could probably add to this list. You might even add something like this:
Working Media: They run up to the stage like lemmings when the first song starts, carrying bulky photo equipment and trying to attract the attention of the musicians so they can get the perfect shot. They either hog the space in front of the stage or get in the way of the people who paid to sit there. They gather in clusters and talk, point, and take notes through the whole set, which makes the area look like a classroom instead of an entertainment event. Some even pull out their laptops. Isn't such conspicuous reviewing going to distract the band? They're so focused on covering the event that one wonders if they actually experience it! On top of that, they get to use the backstage bathroom while you have to use the Port-o-let. Annoying! Just flat out annoying!
