blog post CBC Radio 3 Exclusive: Fans Ruin Feist Show (for me)

I agree 100000 times over... My wife and I went to see Amy Millan in Edmonton and people were talking about cheese, phoning each other (as a joke they were side by side) and not even looking at the stage; which is annoying since they were right in the middle near the front... go to the back or hang out at Chilli's or wherever the hell you people like to congregate before stumbling upon this neat little club you want to see... ARGGGH is right. People pay money to see the band not hear your voice AND for God's sake turn off or leave the cell phones at home... it's a concert and you're not important!!!!

I was at that show, and I guess I lucked out. Aside from a few juveniles antics, the people around me were quite good. It really was the kind of show which demanded (perhaps to Feist's protests) complete and total silence, because the music was just that damn good.

Maybe it's my age, but I'm increasingly annoyed with the 'kids' at most shows I go to. At a Decemberists show a few years ago, these people behind me didn't like the quiet, acoustic set that Colin was playing, so decided to chat about other concerts instead. I didn't quite turn and punch the jerks in the balls, but I was prepared to, and I gave them an ear-full.

I never felt older or less hip.

OK, I'd be pissed if the tone deaf dude next to me was loader than Feist, but you can't bitch about people singing along to Arcade Fire - they're called anthemic for a reason.

Forget singing along or standing up - the jerk next to me at Feist's show in Regina insisted on clapping loudly throughout the show - and he couldn't keep the beat!!!! I swear, he was clapping so loud he slowed the band down. Totally ruined the whole experience for me. Jerk. I already ranted once on community radio, but this post re-ignited my rage!

I was as anxious to see Chad Van as I was Feist, but everyone just talked right through his set.
Two women (who seemed more suited to a monster truck rally) sitting in front of us were screaming "Feist! Feist! Feist!" like they were Romans at the Colosseum. Oddly, thankfully, they left after she played a couple of songs. The people behind us complained all through the show that it sounded like Christmas music.
I'm sticking to smelly clubs with 200 seats but where patrons take their music seriously....

This discussion makes me think of the classic Sloan lyric from Coax Me:
It's not the band I hate, it's their fans.

complaining about concerts...yikes...
People are excited! Did Feist complain?

I agree. I disagree. I have no opinion.

I just went to Arcade Fire on my birthday in Burnaby at an outdoor venue where I almost lost my voice I was singing so loud. That is probly the best way to see a show--outdoors. I danced, jumped, moshed, screamed, sang, laughed and clapped hanging off every moment as if the end of the world was imminent (HA). But for sit down theatre shows i understand i wouldnt be doing all these things it just makes sense. Yet I went to see Bob Dylan at a sit down show and i felt like a caged animal. There were a lot of middle agers looking at each other, every time i tryed to show some enthusiasm, with disgust. I held myself back out of respect but as another mentioned it felt so cruel like the whole point of seeing these amazing artists is defeated by in way of keeping up with social ettiquettes in which we, or i, turn to the arts to get a breath of fresh air and a break from this mundane system of caste and iron. But i did respect the other and remained quiet until the encore where 'rolling stone' and 'all along the watchtower' curtailed my conformity.

A sidenote i felt i should mention is about modern day culture here, where our ego's are overinflating toward a unsafe degree. With the internet's and other forms of multi-media having the ability to make our opinions and sense of self grow perhaps irresponsibly, even bigger then ever, a lot of people in a concert setting will feel as though they are quite important forgetting the concept that selflessness can be very enrichening. All in all we, especially in N. America, we may feel like we are each celebrities and such, and we stretch our sense of ourselves beyond reason in which we forget about one another as if we are the same thing going through the same things. It's like a sense of natural affection toward one another is negated by our modern day ways.. This is separation..

me vs. u
us vs. them

we are all ironically one..

Peace in the hearts of us all and..
LOve uNDer WILL

Or perhaps we need bombs to calm us all down..

Truly I say to you---I am sorry for us the dinosaurs roam the earth..

Dear Bands,

Please consider the addition of a queue-card girl to your shows. This will help us know when to get excited and when to listen intently. Perhaps you could lead by example and sit on the stage when you would like us to “settle down”.

Or perhaps you could have some programs printed up prior to the show. They could highlight what songs may be good for us to get into and which are best to quietly meditate upon.

I, for one, am getting tired of the antiquated idea of spontaneous audience reaction in rock and roll.

Yours,
The die-hard fans.

my first post, and see what happens? maybe I should have gone with my Israel/Palestine rant instead.

one more thought, to all those who speak of freedom and expression: do you smoke in theatres? in airplanes? at Massey Hall? No. because we have all agreed that your "freedom" infringes on my health.

and like I said at the beginning of all of this: we paid $100 to listen to Feist, not to her fans. if she chooses to play these kinds of venues, at these kinds of prices, the freedom to hear her perform is what most of us demand in return.

True, I wouldn't be competing with the act with my audience feedback, but my expectation at a show is to have some fun. And I'm sorry Pedro and Craig, but my idea of fun is not sitting quietly in a theatre showing how respectful I can be to my fellow patrons.
I saw Queens of the Stone Age at the Orpheum and did not sit in my seat past the second song. I stood up front and quite possibly - I now see - may have ruined people's big night out. But I'm not sorry. I had an amazing time standing and singing...and being a live music fan! And I don't think the band was the least bit upset either.
But then maybe Mark is on to something, and a list of rules can be clearly posted. And I'll try to abide...

1. Red, crushed velour seats = be quiet and respectful… in fact pretend you are at a library or play "adulty" type games like "Shut Up".

2. No seats, a small venue filled with douchebags you'd never want to go over to their house after school to see their Star Wars figure collection = Get up, stand up, shout dance and scream along (if you have trouble with this notion buy beer. By the pitcher. And after the first few gulps, it will be your dancing/jumping partner… which you can spill to 'lube up' the floor for the "moshing" (aka jumping around suburbanites occasionally grazing a fellow suburbanites… yah it's just like the kind of moshing that happened at a DRI show)

3. Outdoors = Carte blanche! Feel free to strip down to your birthday suit and act like monkeys in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Note: someone else's VW camper van makes a good monolith… but do know that you will look like an escapee from the African Lion Safari.

And this is the most important of all:
4. A show that I buy tickets for = Don't go. Everyone. That means all of you. That would be great. When I go to a show, I don't want to see, touch, smell or hear any of you. You're all soylent green to me.


Seriously though… to some extent, I agree the venue dictates to some extent what you can and should expect out of the fellow concert goers. But I gotta say Lisa makes a valid point in that as soon as you allow for other like and not like minded individuals congregating in a place, you have to allow that not everyone is going to act within the boundaries of what you deem appropriate. The only true way to enjoy anything exactly like you want to is to stay in your house and avoid people.

Or download leaked movies on the internets.

Jeez. I leave for a few days, and come back to a nigh riot.

Seeing as Pedro works for a rock and roll station, I think it's safe to assume that he isn't suggesting that everyone sit politely throughout the show.

Are you guys who are arguing that he drove in from Squaresville honestly saying that there is no limit to how one should behave at a sitdown show?

P.S. Like a really bad pic rotation on your Flickr account, Feist's song selection was almost engineered to deny the emergence of any sort of continuity, momentum or excitement. Her band seemed repressed, too. Almost creepy. Like they'd been molested.

Lisa - how dare you compare a mostly whisper-quiet Feist show with a Queens Of The Stonehenge Show?!? Go clean out that bong because you're delusional! Should I see you at a concert in the future I will tell the ushers I saw you peeing in the lobby, behaving like Rae Dong Chong in "A Quest For Fire".

I don't think anybody is suggesting that "shh bouncers" be hired.

I think though that Pedro is hoping that a good shaming on the internet will serve to get people thinking that "hey... my way of enjoying the show appears to be invasive, and maybe I should knock it down a notch.

I agree with you Pedro...and what's sad is when you point out to an asshole, that they are bothering you and acting like an asshole, they will act like you are being rude for pointing that out to them and then they will continue to act like assholes, but do it even louder...why...because they're assholes, that's what they do. So, if someone is singing loudly or talking and ruing a show for me...can I fart? I'm having fun, I'm enjoying the show, I don't want to hold it in, I wanna let it all out, I want to fart...I want to fart with the bass drum...if the smell bothers you, F**K YOU, it's a show and I'm having fun, tell me to stop farting and I'll fart even louder...I may even shart I'm having so much fun. Hey, I paid to see a show, you paid to see a show, but I do whatever the hell I want. Screw You!
There's enjoying a show and having fun and then there's just plain obnoxious and stupid. That's pretty much why I don't go to shows...there's always...ALWAYS someone, and chances are, I wil be right next to them.

2010 RIOT Vancouver!

Then 2012 RIOT World

Then Husha Husha We All Fall Down!

With My Lightning Bolts A-Glowing I Can See Where I Am G-Going!
You Better Look Out Below!




Okay, really in all honesty of anything that resides inside the truth... N. Americans debating audio levels of music fans at shows while the world is in this state (eg. the bees cannot find there ways home!) is like spinning plates...............just like spinning plates!
And this just feels like....


Sorry I ordinarily do this.

I was at the Friday show, on the 25th. Yes, this was the more "subdued" night but still, there was nothing like as bad as what was mentioned. No-one were shouting out stuff, or singing inappropriatly, and after everyone danced on, and next to the stage, they sat down politely.
Total respect for Feist.

I was at the Friday show, on the 25th. Yes, this was the more "subdued" night but still, there was nothing like as bad as what was mentioned. No-one were shouting out stuff, or singing inappropriatly, and after everyone danced on, and next to the stage, they sat down politely.
Total respect for Feist.