Phones at gigs

[clewsr]

Good on the yeah yeah yeahs...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/shortcu ... hones-gigs

[flokie]

the funny thing is that a lot of these vids aren't bad quality nowadays and i do enjoy watching some on on YT.... but yes i get really irritated with people who spend the whole gig with their phone up!

[clewsr]

I know what you mean - its quite surprising the quality of footage that can be filmed on a phone these days, but its the army of people all looking through their screens that distracts and removes people's involvement from the gig. Its surely hard to get lost in the music if you are filming at the same time, or standing behind someone who is filming.

If it was just one person each each gig who shared the show on t'internet it might make more sense.

[redcloud]

This is a personal pet peeve on mine. I hate it. I hate all the illuminated screens, I hate the people who hold both arms up and film entire gigs or large portions (very distracting to those behind) and I hate that people go to gigs and sit around on their facebook. I don't understand why somebody would do that when they have paid money to see a band. But, you see it everywhere. Even in restaurants and bars people sit on phones when they should be out enjoying a drink or dinner with company.

Guess I'm just old.

[angelsighs]

I agree, it does my nut in, my biggest bugbear along with people who talk over the band.

nowt wrong with checking out clips on youtube, we all do it. so I guess it's okay in moderation. but why does EVERYONE feel the need to film a gig as some kind of badge of being there. a sea of lit up faces sucks the atmosphere out of the room.

[sunray]

I agree, it does my nut in, my biggest bugbear along with people who talk over the band.

Those two.
You can't be experiencing the gig if you're looking through your fucking phone the whole time. People who talk throughout gigs, what's the point? Why waste your money on paying into a venue if you're just there for a chat and a beer? Fuck off to the boozer ya cunts!

[flokie]

And sometimes the fuckers even manage to combine the two and take pictures of themselves holding their drinks!

Not sure whether I should be surprised that Ian Brown talks sense or not, but I liked what the Guardian quoted from him:
"If you put your cameras down you might be able to live in the moment. You have a memory there of something you've never lived."

PS: I'm guilty of pics + a vid + being steaming drunk and chatting a lot at ONE gig last year. Mind you that was on holiday in Croatia and a Tom Jones gig.

[Broc]

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco goes nuts over this, "you're forfeiting your memories for an imperfect medium. It cannot replace your real life"..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ScUwlhmuo8

And on talkers..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew3AOlbJXos

[Hofstadter]

Part of the reason why I have sort of stopped going to shows with friends as much recently and mostly just go alone, can't really stand it at all when they are either texting or taking photos; when people around me do it it is really annoying but what are you going to do, just ignore them and have your own experience no big deal let them suffer for it if that's what they are into, but I just get way more uncomfortable when my friends do it because I hate it but don't feel like being a dick and telling them to stop (just not very assertive), but at the same time I don't like being with people who sort of turn it into a social event... just easier (and generally more enjoyable too in the end) to go to shows alone the majority of the time... I guess I also can't blame them too much because it would always be me bringing them along, not the other way around...

Great Tweedy quote, captures it really nicely.

[runcible]

I don't agree that taking pictures at a gig is a total no no. I'll admit to taking a few shots at gigs with a decent camera. I am conscious of people around me so try not to get in their way. I have known people behave badly though - a mate was watching a gig when a camera appeared just in front of his forehead as the guy behind him tried to get a better shot. But a few pics is acceptable as far as I'm concerned although filming endlessly isn't. I like to have some souvenirs and I enjoy looking back at what I've taken. At the earliest gigs I went to in the 70s I remember thinking I wish I'd been able to take pictures and I also recall the excitement I felt when I got my fuzzy and blurred pictures back from the chemist from a punk festival I went to in 1981 when I took a camera for the 1st time.

Seems this debate is rife at the moment!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22113326

[toomilk]

I take photos and I don't have anything against others that do the same. The thing that pisses me off is when people POST the pictures they just took on Instagram or Facebook. That's when it becomes more about saying you were at a show rather than going to a show to enjoy it.

In Salt Lake City, there was someone in the front who was taking pictures on his phone and then trying out different filters on them and even cropping them while 3' in front of Jason. When editing your shitty camera phone pictures is more important than watching the show, fuck off.

A similar thing happened in Boise. In the wide open balcony, someone sat down two seats over from me. Right when spiritualized went on, he took a picture on Instagram and posted it. Annoying, but throughout the show, he kept checking Instagram AND Facebook to see the comments and likes on the pic. When you do that in a dark theater, YOUR PHONE LIGHTS UP YOUR UGLY FUCKING FACE FOR EVERYONE TO SEE. Funny thing is, I found this picture after the show and it is awful. I'll find it and post it here.

[toomilk]

http://instagram.com/p/XyZCTqoXvI/

All that for 6 likes. What an idiot.

[The Dr]

This peculiar 21st-century urge to keep a record of everything


Erica Wagner
Published at 12:01AM, April 13 2013

Stars of stage and screen are, we’re told, up in arms about the relentless use of mobile phones to take pictures. James McAvoy, currently appearing in London as Macbeth, recently interrupted his performance to ask a woman to stop filming him. At the nominations for the Olivier awards this week, he railed against the practice, as did Billie Piper, nominated for best actress for The Effect. “You can feel the flashes,” she said. “I don’t know what you do about that, other than confiscate people’s phones at the door.”

It’s peculiar, isn’t it, this 21st-century urge to keep a record of everything; as if you had to prove your own existence to yourself. Is it our digital equivalent of scrawling “Kilroy was here” on the wall? I’m not sure; it feels more disturbing to me.

The wonder — and the horror — of this life is its evanescence. We only go round once; every experience we have, every person we love, every action we participate in or observe, passes through us and disappears, never to return. All we have are our memories, and the stories we tell, to ourselves and to others.

The trouble is that it’s easy to be distracted from really participating in those experiences by reflecting them back to yourselves and other people, with a camera, over Twitter, on Facebook. It’s as true of reading as it is of anything else. I was halfway through a fascinating piece in The New Yorker the other week when I found myself tweeting a link, even though I didn’t yet know what the conclusion of the piece would be or, indeed, how I’d feel about it in a day, a week, or longer.

And there’s more: we provide this proof of our existence to other people, hoping to find some validation. That too is possible now with books. If you read an e-book, you can see the passages highlighted by others if you choose to. Will this make you feel better about yourself, or worse? This is not quite the same as coming across a secondhand book with crabbed handwriting in the margins: that is, for all its distance, a personal, physical encounter, not a virtual one.

Not everything can be, or should be, shared — at least, not literally. Photos of James McAvoy as Macbeth on your Facebook page are not the same as telling your best friend how amazing he was in Macbeth. I’ll be a little more careful, perhaps, when I’m tweeting those links.