Unless you’re my sister…
We went to see Jersey Boys on Broadway and the crowd seemed …torn on this issue. Good tunes to move to, yes, but it’s a Broadway show, for crissakes! Siddown and shaddap!
You might be surprised about Manilow, or at least about the crowd he gets these days. This is the opening of a gig he did in London last year:
That lot seem pretty up for it...I’m with the “mob rules” crowd, mostly. If everybody’s standing, I stand. If everybody’s sitting, I sit. There are only three things that really annoy me:
- The people in front of me stand up when nobody else is standing.
- The people around me dance and flail and fling their beer around so enthusiastically that they run into me/spill on me/hit me.
- The people in front of me hoist a small child onto their shoulders so he/she can see better (at a concert by a performer/band who isn’t a kids’ act).
I, my spouse, and several other people around us (not anyone we knew) nearly came to blows (only a slight exaggeration–it got pretty heated) with some asshat many years ago because he insisted on hoisting his 2-year-old onto his shoulders and would not put the kid down even when being yelled at by about 20 people behind him. This was even after the ushers/security guards asked him to take the kid down–he’d do it, then once the usher went on, up went the kid again.
Yes! We saw Movin’ Out (Billy Joel’s musical) and too many in the back were treating it like a rock concert- singing a long, dancing. Annoyed the hell out of us.
I’m not really a musical theater guy but I would assume that sitting is the rule there even if it’s rock music.
Right you are. I …um… stand corrected.
Yes, that’s been the case with all the musicals I’ve been to (people sitting down and not singing along.)
When did the Dope turn 70? Never heard of lawn seating? Seriously? If people aren’t on their feet then I would say that the concert probably sucks. And yes, I’m a middle aged guy with three kids, and I would expect people to be up and dancing. Long ago I used to perform and I can tell you that the more the audience gets into it the more the band gets into it… it is a win win situation.
All that said… Billy Joel… well that is a tough one since I can’t think of a much more mellow “rocker” than that so I could see people sitting (maybe sleeping) during that show.
Now, get off of my lawn (seat)!
If you paid for specific seats, then sit down. By standing up you’re basically forcing everyone behind you to stand up. It’s selfish and rude.
If it’s General Admission, do whatever the hell you want.
Lastly, put your friggin’ phone away. If you’re going to “watch” the whole show through the screen of your phone while you record it, just stay home and watch YouTube clips.
The phones don’t bother me too much, but the other night we went to see Rush, and the guy down the row from us was trying to record using a light so bright that it was essentially a flash. We yelled at him till he shut it off. It wasn’t like he was gonna use it to get better light on the band, given how far back we all were.
Not necessarily. What’s rude is not bothering to read a thread before replying.
My brother has been going to quite a few concerts lately and he has some great rants. I particularly enjoyed one about a person sitting next to him that brought her service dog to the show…the kicker was that she proceeded to take dozens of “dog selfie” pics (with flash) while the show was going on.
If you sister is a blonde, wearing a black dress and was in section 127 of the Billy Joel concert in Baltimore this past Saturday, then I was in the row in front of her and a few seats to the right.
The above mentioned woman (whether or not she is your sister) was indeed “rockin out” , whooping and standing and dancing. Wasn’t bothering me, but I can see how it might have been annoying to people next to or immediately behind her.
FWIW, there were several times when the crowd was almost unanimously on their feet (he did a tribute to the troops during ‘Goodnight, Saigon’, for example) but most people stayed seated most of the time.
So basically one very small defibrillator trying desperately to breath a spark of life back into a bored crowd.
Unless the title act includes “symphony orchestra” in the name you should be up and dancing. Apparently Billy Joel may now fit in this category as well.
(bolding mine)
Ugh, that reminds me when I went to see King Crimson in Boston. I still have nightmares about it.
I really like King Crimson music, but holy shit that concert almost traumatized me. A small venue – maybe 3000 seats – and of course we all sat quietly in our seats. Only Christina Ricci can dance to King Crimson.
But I don’t think there was a single female in that entire 3000-person audience. Not one. I have my moments of insecurity here and there and that was a huge one. I never felt more like a virgin loser than I did that night (despite having had a healthy sex life since my teens. Still felt like a total virgin.)
I saw Natalie Merchant in a venue that was very much a theater, not a club nor an arena.
People sat because it kinda felt like a sitting venue, and her music is pretty mellow anyway. After about the fourth song, she said to the crowd “Hey, will you do me a favor? Will you try standing for just one song, just to see if you like it?”
She got thunderous applause, everyone stood up and stayed standing for the rest of the show. From this point on through the night she gave a significantly better performance than she did for the first four songs when everyone was seated.
P.S. Anyone going to see Jersey Boys or Moving Out isn’t interested in real theater. Same for Mama Mia! or Rock of Ages or any of the other nostalgia porn “So, you want to be able to tell your friends that you went to a Broadway show without risking being exposed to anything too ‘theater-y’ that you might have to actually pay attention to?” shows.
I don’t know what section she was in, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t own a black dress. I just scrolled back thru her FB photos of the evening, and not only was she not in black, it wasn’t a dress, so that was someone else.
I went to go see Train a month ago, and they had a great compromise. First of all, me and my SO were against the back wall, so my row had no problem getting up and dancing. For everyone else, all of the dancers went down to the first level of the balcony seating and danced up against the wall - there was room there, and it let everyone else see.
Train was encouraging everyone to get up and dance, and holding out their mikes for us to sing along, so I felt no guilt as I belted the songs out with everyone else.
Concerts are a group experience, and as such, I enjoy doing what the group is doing. At home I can sit and quietly listen to the music. At a concert, I go for the group experience. Needless to say, I had a wonderful time.
That being said, I like when the crowd jumps up and dances. I don’t want to go sit with the old folks and watch them all falling asleep. I’m still young yet!
The only time I’ve ever had anyone complain about me standing at a rock concert was an old grump seated behind me at a Santana show a few years back who seemed to think that it was completely uncalled for to be on your feet and banging your head for a cover of “Back in Black”. Lucky for him, Carlos’ next song after that was a much more mellow one.
I’ve been to concerts where everybody stood up as soon as the featured act hit the stage, and concerts where everyone stayed seated. I’ve been to shows where the band gestured for the audience to sit down and some where they called for the crowd to stand up and/or dance. I’ve been to shows where everyone just spontaneously stood up mid-set - like a Slash show where, after 45 minutes of playing from his solo catalogue, he launched into “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and the house went nuts. Or a Roger Daltrey solo show which he opened by playing “Tommy” all the way through, where everyone stayed seated until the “See Me Feel Me” grand finale when everybody got on their feet and stayed there the rest of the show. I saw the Doors on their reunion tour in 2003 with Ian Astbury fronting, and he responded to a guy jumping the stage by calling for the rest of the front row to jump the stage as well.
There’s no hard and fast rule. One follows the crowd and/or the directions of the artist.