Fans Making Concerts Annoying

By Broadside Style Columnist Andy Minor.

Many times before have you fine readers heard me ramble on about the importance of live music and attending shows. How it is the ideal arena for contact between artist and listener, how it can make or break how a band is perceived, et cetera, et cetera. And while I don’t mean to reiterate myself, there is a large element of the show-going experience which I have yet to comment on: fans.

All sorts of different people from different walks of life wind up at shows, and I’ve had my fair share of experiences dealing with what can sometimes be clashing, show-going personalities. It doesn’t always go well, and while there are several elements to the concert going experience, sometimes a single bad fan will ruin the whole show.

My first face-off with a fellow concert-goer was during the White Stripes tour way back in 2003. I was a junior in high school, my hair was twice as long as it was in my little picture at the top of this article and I got tickets to the show for my birthday. This was right after the Stripes’ Elephant album was released, so they were the top dogs at that time and within the closed calls of the GWU Smith Center I found myself among Washington, D.C. show-going elitists, who were not going to put up with the obscene behavior of 16-year-olds.

This obscene behavior I mentioned was tossing my hair around in all directions to the beat of the music. In the metal world, this is “head banging.” To the guy standing next to me, with his pseudo-hipster approach to life which, by this time, has probably achieved him both an iPhone and a Prius, my irresponsible hair-management techniques were crossing a line. He told me to stop because my hair was “in [his] girlfriend’s face” and my jumping “might hurt somebody.” I have always been puzzled at this man’s reaction to my visibly having a good time while he and his girlfriend stood like statues in the pit, careful not to show any signs of actual enjoyment.

This couple obviously went to shows to go to shows. What I mean by that is that they did not care about the music, atmosphere or people; they wanted to tell their friends the next day at the local Starbucks all about the show they went to the previous night.

This seems to be a big problem—at least in D.C.—because no matter where I go in the city, most of the time concert-goers refuse to dance and have a good time. If I wanted to go to a show where I didn’t have to move, I’d go to the Kennedy Center for the National Symphony Orchestra. If I go see Chuck Brown at the 9:30 Club, I’m going to do my best to connect with the musicians in my ears, mind and body.

Sometimes people do get a little too into things though, and oftentimes they are simply fueled by the desire to be as close to the stage as possible. Being in the front row has its strong advantages, but I see no reason why being a few rows back is a bad thing. Maybe people feel that if they are in the front the lead singer will notice how cool they look and invite them on stage to become best friends. I saw Muse a few years ago in Philadelphia and managed to be in the front row when they took the stage. This angered the middle-aged couple behind me, who proceeded to weave an arm between my friend and I and hang on to the front railing. This arm dug in my side for the entire two-hour set, and no matter how many times my hair went in this guy’s wife’s face, no matter how many elbows I railed into his wrist, he wouldn’t move his arm.

While I admire his perseverance, I hope his bruised forearm taught him a lesson about being in pits at huge shows. He paid the price for making the concert uncomfortable for someone else, and if you can’t put up with hair in your face, sweat in your mouth and bruises in places you didn’t know you had, stay out of the pit.

I feel like I am simply using this column as an excuse to rant about annoying concert going experiences and, in a way, I am. However, I also know that several of my friends have met people at shows even more annoying than the two examples I’ve given you above. Why does there always seem to be someone at a concert who just plain sucks?

I’ll go to other crowded events like movies and baseball games and never be annoyed by anyone, but rare is the concert where I can’t pick out at least one person who gets in my music-appreciating way. So it goes at concerts, I guess, but it’s not enough to stop me from going.