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Just One Request
Going to A Concert? Don't Play The Fool.

By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 20, 2004; Page C01

Nick Lowe has just finished 90 minutes of solo music at the Birchmere, a set that included all of his best-known songs -- except one. The silver-haired daddy of British pop hasn't played "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding," a track that he wrote and that helped make Elvis Costello famous in the 1970s. So everybody knows what's coming when Lowe returns to the stage for an encore. He strums the opening chords and a ripple of delight rolls through the room.

Then stops. A man in a striped shirt has wobbled up to the stage, a
hand-drawn sign in one hand, a drink in the other. He edges so close to the spotlight that Lowe has no choice but to ask what he wants.

"Zmmuphhmen," comes the reply. Or something like that. Lowe looks baffled.

"What?" he asks, politely.

"Zmmuphhmen!" There's a Web address on the sign, and Lowe gamely tries to read it out loud. By now, whatever spell had mesmerized this room is gone, replaced by confusion, which is soon replaced by rage. All at once, fans realize what has happened. Their joy has been killed -- at least for the moment -- by a Concert Fool.

There is no escaping the Concert Fool. He (and every once in a while, she) is the chronic carbuncle on the butt of rock, an inflammation that makes it hard to really get comfortable. The Concert Fool is either unglued by music, or drunk, or unaware of the invisible line that separates civilization from anarchy.

Or aware of the line but past caring about it. Mostly, the Concert Fool is
having a great time because these guys rawwwwk and because it's a concert and up top, dude. Rock and roll!

Ultimately, the Concert Fool is confused. He believes that the rules of
courtesy have been suspended during showtime, which isn't exactly true.
Though it's not entirely false, either. At a typical rock concert, you get far
more leash than you do at, say, the theater or the symphony. The Concert Fool, however, misconstrues limited license for an excuse to vomit on your girlfriend's pants.

Decorum at a rock concert is actually venue-dependent; what will fly at the 9:30 club, where bands skew loud and young, will get you tossed from the Birchmere, where the acts are generally quieter and pitched to adults. You need to sit down and zip it at the Birchmere and halls like it, which seems proper for a singer like Nick Lowe, whose distorted-amp days are well behind him. But even at 9:30 -- as well as the Black Cat, MCI Center, Merriweather Post and other venues -- you need a set of manners, even if those manners fall somewhere between the standards of decency for a baseball game and the standards of decency for a kegger. Most fans settle comfortably within that fairly broad range, finding a way to exult in the show without thrashing the collective buzz.

The Concert Fool, on the other hand, finds inventive ways to annoy. A wide variety stalk the nation's pop venues, and during my years as a pop-music critic, I've seen them all. So here's a field guide to what's out there -- a taxonomy, if you will, of show-going morons. Avoid them if you can.

The Singer wants to the world to know he's got a great voice. So he sings. Really, really loud, during the lulls, during the shrieks. All the time. Fans of James Mercer met a prime example of this genus of Concert Fool last year at Iota, when Mercer, the lead singer of the Shins, closed a showcase for the Seattle label Sub Pop. Toward the end of his set, Mercer played "New Slang," his most popular tune, but suddenly you could barely hear the guy. A Singer had chimed in -- eyes closed, shot glass hoisted -- at a volume loud enough to drown out the man everyone had paid to hear.

The Reckless Smoker -- A cigarette is a dangerous weapon around people packed together tight. At a Guided by Voices show in New York -- before that glorious smoking ban went into effect -- fans were so jammed one night at a club called Tramps that you had to applaud with your hands above your head. This didn't stop a guy behind me from lighting up -- and then singeing some unlucky fan standing in front of him. "Sorry, man," the Smoker said. No doubt this made the burn victim feel a whole lot better.

The Angler -- They arrived late, and they don't want to stand in the back. So the Anglers connive to get close to the stage, which is tricky -- and rude -- at a show that's sold out. The most inventive Angler I've seen waited till right before the first song and pretended to be on the verge of vomiting as he waded toward the lip of the stage. People leapt out of his way. When he got to the front, he just smiled.

More recently, at a Bob Dylan show, a woman murmured "That's my
husband" as she nudged her way to a place at a forward section on the floor of the 9:30 club. She slipped an arm around a tall man and smiled as if greeting her mate. Which he wasn't. The man gave her a confounded look and a polite brushoff. Why she thought this would work is a mystery, but I had the sense it wasn't the first time she'd tried the gambit. In this instance she retreated, muttering: "What a jerk."

The Requestaholic -- They came for one song, and they're going to hear that song if it kills them. Which it nearly did at a couple of Bruce Springsteen's solo shows during his "Ghost of Tom Joad" tour in 1996. The Boss asked fans at the outset not to shout for tunes, and in those cities where the Requestaholics wouldn't stop, Springsteen threatened to ask fans nearby to take matters into their own hands.

For performers, you can imagine the frustration, especially at a show for an album like "Joad," which was somber and low-key. Anyway, most set lists are cooked up well before a tour hits the road, so shouting is nearly always pointless. It's just annoying. One of the few things I remember about the Steve Earle show at the 9:30 two years ago is a twit who screamed "Jackalope Eye!" at least 25 times over the course of the show. Earle tried to shut him up by doing a belittling impersonation of him. But the true Requestaholic won't let a little humiliation get in the way.

"Jackalope Eye!" he screamed during the very next break.

The Talker -- The bane of nearly every show. A shocking number of ticket
buyers regard rock concerts as ideal moments to catch up with friends. I can remember a pair of women nattering through a My Morning Jacket concert, a guy flirting shamelessly with a mini-shirted damsel at a Peaches show, a half-dozen drinkers at Iota who didn't seem to realize a band was in the room.

The most stupefying Talker I've seen was at a Melissa Etheridge show at the Warner Theatre, a woman who called a friend on her cell phone just as Etheridge hit the stage.

"I'm at the show! Yeah, Melissa just came on! Yeah! Can you hear me?
What? Can you hear her? What?" There were murderous stares from
everyone in her vicinity -- and then verbal threats -- but it didn't matter. The dedicated Talker doesn't care.

The Stander -- Ordinarily, this is not a big deal. But if everyone else is
sitting, it can lead to violence. At a Peter Gabriel show at MCI Center, one Stander, a thirtyish woman in jeans, had the misfortune of blocking the view of a true Concert Fool (see Grabber, below) who slapped her rear end when she refused to have a seat. She ran for the cops, and he hustled out of that section of the arena, presumably to watch the show from another seat.

The Grabber -- One who grabs. See above.

That's the list. If you recognize yourself in any of these categories, let me
ask a favor on behalf of everyone else who loves live music: Stay home and wait for the DVD.

Even if there won't be a DVD.

Pretty please?

Yup, I've met me a few of those people!!

"The Sociological Perspective" indeed... I have to admit that in my 20+ years of going to concerts (years ago) one or two might apply:

Judge- Guilty as charged.

Sentence: "Kurt, you should know haw to act at a concert- at whatever venue it might be. We sentence you to 10-30 years of future shows- with at least 2 per year at JB concerts until you can get it right."

...There were no dissenting remarks.

Kurt: Thank goodness for those Kafka-doorkeepers... I mean Ticket-Gate Keepers!

kurt wrote:We sentence you to 10-30 years of future shows- with at least 2 per year at JB concerts until you can get it right.

I'm pretty sure that will only make it worse.

I'm a singer, but I know I have a bad voice, so I make sure not to be loud about it....

Freebird!!!!!!!

phjrsaunt wrote:Freebird!!!!!!!

Of Space Invaders and Wet Blankets:
A Quick Guide to Concert-going Types
by Rick Cornell

http://www.clinkmagazine.com/features/o ... ure15.html

(Disclaimer #1: It's best to get this sort of thing out of
the way first. A year ago, I was alerted to an online article that
categorized different types of people who go out to hear live music
in clubs. I stubbornly refused to read the piece because I had been
thinking about writing something similar and wanted to be able to
plead, if not ignorance, at least innocence. Thus, any similarity to
that earlier article in – you know, I ignored it so completely
that I can't even tell you where it appeared – is purely
coincidental.)

There was a period in the mid `90s when I did a lot of
research in the area of concert-going types -- two or three nights a
week's worth, as a matter of fact -- all in the name of music,
anthropology, and big-ass cans of Foster's. These days, I'm
down to a just a couple shows a month, but the specimens I
encountered regularly five years ago appear to be thriving still.
Here are my 10 favorites, using that term loosely in some cases.

Claim Stakers - These are the folks who get to a no-seats venue when
the doors open and immediately secure a spot center stage. They
spread their arms out and, this is important, keep in constant
contact with the stage, as if not touching it at all times is grounds
for immediate disqualification. They must travel, at minimum, in
pairs so one can maintain stage contact while the other buys the
beer.

Head Cheerleaders – You've seen these guys (and, yes, 99%
of the time it's a guy) near the front of the stage with
their backs to the band, pumping fists, throwing goats, and
engaging in any other hand gestures that they feel will get
the rest of the crowd to reach their overheated level of
enthusiasm. It's the back-to-the-band thing that gets me;
if you're such a fan, turn and face `em for crying out loud.

Socialites – The members of this group, as a friend likes to say,
would be having a good time if the damn performer didn't keep
getting in the way of their conversation. Not unlike the old joke
about going to a fight and having a hockey game break out, Socialites
go to music shows in the hope that a cocktail party breaks out. In
fact, when a fed-up Freedy Johnston opened for Billy Bragg a couple
years back at The Ritz, he commented between songs that "It sounds
like a f**king cocktail party in here." Of course, only a few of us
heard him over the incessant chattering.

Band Liaisons – These are the people who feel it's their
responsibility to converse with the band, kind of an unwelcome
welcoming committee. Obscure requests and inside jokes are specialty,
often so obscure and inside that the band has no idea what the
Liaisons are talking about – not that it ever seems to discourage
them. Another prevalent species, The Heavily Intoxicated, can also
display Band Liaison tendencies, albeit without the backpack-load of
trivia. The one time that I chose to intervene in a Band Liaison-like
activity involved such a character, a hammered guy who attempted to
carry on a conversation with the keyboard player throughout an entire
set. I said to hammered guy's friend, a leathery, flint-eyed sort
who had muscled his way into a booth I had fought hard for, "You need
to get him away from there." "Are you telling me what to do, friend?"
was the reply, sealed with a look that said "I've already killed
one man today, so another's no big deal." I decided that the
keyboard player could fend for himself.

"Free Bird" Yellers – You could argue that, because of
the request-yelling component, this group could be included
with the Band Liaisons. Nope. "Free Bird" Yellers deserve
their own category, and their own special ring of Hell. I remain
astounded that there are people out there--presumably intelligent,
functioning people (I mean, they must have jobs that allow them to
afford concert tickets)--who continue to think that hollering "Free
Bird!!" represents the height of social wit. Noel Coward and Ronnie
Van Zant are exhausted from rolling over in their graves. (Even
worse, in some ways, are the enablers who laugh at the yellers as if
they've just witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime comedy tour
de force.) I've seen performers deal with this annoyance
in several ways. More than a couple bands have honored the request
and played the song in all its 12-minute-plus glory. Solo artists
have been known to reward the requester with a middle-digit greeting
accompanied by "I've got your free bird right here"; a
friend once found himself on the business end of just such a one-
finger salute from Mojo Nixon. My favorite response, courtesy of Yo
La Tengo's Ira Kaplan: "You know, that just gets funnier
every time I hear it."

Space Invaders – Despite the Pac-Man-era name, this category is
rather self-explanatory. This is the music-club equivalent of the
person who chooses the seat right next to you in a half-empty movie
theater. More often than not, it's an oblivious 6'2" guy
standing in front of, and 5 inches away from, a 5'4" woman when
there's a good 50 feet of unoccupied space available.

Get-a-Room Couples – It's not just what the kids call
"slow songs" that gets lips locking; I've seen some impressive
groping during drum solos. And I can tie this category to the
previous one: my space was once invaded by a Get-a-Room Couple that
were so close that I was almost hit by a darting tongue. For a while,
it appeared that they were going to have a cool little story to tell
their firstborn about how he or she was conceived at a Matthew Sweet
show.

Wet Blankets – Also answers to I'm Only Here Because She (or He)
Wants to Be Here. This is the half of the couple who was clearly
dragged to the show because the other half is a huge fan. These folks
couldn't give a rat's ass, and they're not afraid to show
it by pulling out every disgruntled facial expression in the book,
displaying exaggerated yawns, and checking their watches every 5
minutes. The best they can hope for is a little Get-a-Room action.

(Disclaimer #2: Just want to stop to say that I hope I'm not
coming off overly critical of these people. For one thing, I'm
thrilled and thankful that people actually still go out to clubs to
hear music. For another, I have been some of these types.)

Harmonizers – This type is sometimes hard to spot unless
you're at a solo acoustic show, where they dutifully fill in the
missing harmony parts of each song as a public (albeit, unrequested)
service to the rest of the audience. Case in point, the guy one row
behind me and two seats to the right at the recent Richard Thompson
show at the Carolina Theater. Hard to fault them for their love of
the music; easy to fault them for their lack of even a nodding
acquaintance with something called key. See also their quieter kin:
air guitarists, air drummers, and other air-playing understudies
hoping to be discovered. May I respectfully suggest air harmonies?

Saviors – Can be heard shouting "Just play what you want, ______
(fill in the first name of the artist)!" in response to an abundance
of requests from their crowdmates. Also, they're the ones
who line the front of the stage with bottles of beer or shots when
the band makes their thirst public. You'd think that this
would be a job for Band Liaisons, but they're too busy trying to
remember the title of the band's contribution to the compilation
released on that tiny Danish label so they can yell out a request.

Occasionally, something happens that breaks down all walls and
dissolves all categories. I heard of such a moment at a recent Local
506 show when a high-energy, and apparently extremely persuasive,
Japanese band named Gasoline had the whole place singing and writhing
and gatoring along to the long-in-the-tooth party anthem "Shout." Wet
Blankets dried out, and Claim Stakers abandoned their posts.
Everybody was encouraged to harmonize, thus drowning out all
peripheral conversations. Get-a-Room Couples now had an excuse to be
on the floor. No "Free Bird" requests were uttered for the duration
of the song. And in the back of the room, for a split second, a
scenester (a category deserving of an entire article) actually looked
toward the stage. And it was good.

Hey why cant I stand, everyone should stand and dance!!!!! I get yelled at for that all the time

"SING THE MARGARITA SONG, SING THE MARGARITA SONG!!!"
"AND SIT DOWN YOU FUNNY DRESSED PARROT PERSON!!!"

photogal wrote:Hey why cant I stand, everyone should stand and dance!!!!! I get yelled at for that all the time

We almost got thrown out of Berk's Jazz Fest because we stood and danced through part of Club Trini Back in Town!!! I was MAD until the usher asked to see my ticket and I accidentally grabbed the one for the PMG show from that afternoon that was a much better seat- they made me go sit there (and those people were fun!)!

What? No mention of Two-Can Sam? The guy or girl that power drinks before the show, obviously can't handle it, then proceeds to pass out and fall into you and/or puke on your shoes? Hell, even I'VE been that fool once in my life (err, maybe twice).

Now y'all have to admit.. It's fun to share these stories!!!

I don't agree with all of these but there are a few I agree with 100%.

I hate people who think that there are really "rules" to a concert.

............however the worst person is the person who spends the entire time p*** off because everyone is standing and they cant see anything while sitting down and no one will sit down

I'm short, not gonna sit down until everyone in front of me does.
Therefore I will remain standing until the end of the performance
or until I get too damned tired to stand anymore (Which is sooner and sooner
as I age)

I was at a JB concert, don't remember which one, and some young
fool a few feet away kept blowing a loud whistle during every song.
After a few songs I said out loud I was going to "shove a whistle
up someone's a** real soon". Not surprisingly, he stopped and there
was great rejoicing.

I attended an acoustic show several months ago by Chris Knight here in Raleigh. During the concert people proceeded to chit-chat (rather loudly I might add), text, take photos of one another (not that there's anything the matter with that but there's an appropriate time and place for everything) and talk on their phones all while Chris was attempting to perform onstage. To top that off, the singalong crowd greatly detracted from the performance as it was very difficult to make out Chris' vocals at times. Singing along at a loud, electric show? Fine but in an acoustic setting it doesn't go over so well. Exceptions being when the person on stage encourages it. This sort of thing makes me wonder why someone would fork over the $15 to go to a concert only to stand with their back towards the person onstage (which quite a few people did on this evening, even some on the front row) and act as though the performer isn't there at all. In all fairness, Chris Knight's music is of the country variety so a certain level of rowdiness is expected but even so, such blatant disregard for the person on stage (as well as fellow fans) is something I'm not able to wrap my head around.

The last time I saw Chris perform in this area (also an acoustic show), a lady on the front row kept screaming, "I LOVE YOU CHRIS KKKKKNIIIIIGHT!!!!!" at the top of her lungs between every song. About 15-20 minutes into the show, he finally said, "Lady, I heard you the first seven f*cking times!!!" It embarrassed her but she shut the hell up after that. Why he didn't do something similar at the more recent concert I attended, I'm not sure. Perhaps because he's grown used to it. By the way, this sort of behavior isn't just unique to Chris Knight concerts. As I'm sure everyone is aware, since the advent of the cellphone (as well as the ability to connect to the internet), it's grown increasingly worse. Personally, I may snap a few shots at concerts (using an actual camera) but I turn my phone to vibrate. And, I know it puts me in the minority, but I don't use my phone to connect to the internet. I use it as a phone and occasionally for texting. So, no video gaming or Facebooking for me. No offense to those that do, it's just that when I'm out in public I'm there to engage with my friends and, if I'm at a concert or movie, to enjoy the performance (or film) that's happening right in front of me.