On a similar note, it bothers me when people clap after a pre-recorded version of the Star Spangled Banner (or any other song for that matter) is played. I could see it if there was actually a band or someone singing it. But you clap for a badly recorded cassette?
Once at a concert my friend the Celtic harpist was performing, the piece she was playing ended with a single low note. After she plucked it, that note must have hung in there, slowly fading, for a full minute before it finally died completely. And everyone in the room (granted, a very small one) sat in total silence, listening to that note to see just how long it would last. It was really magical. No one began applauding until a good five seconds after it ended.
And I’ve never experienced anything like that before or since.
I think it’s the same reason that karaoke is pushing out live music in clubs all over the place. People today have this need to feel like they’re “participating” instead of “spectating”. The entire country has ADHD.
As far as applauding the MC and the sponsors, etc, you have to admit that the MC encourages this.
She had the good grace to look embarrassed at the applause for her. The sponsors probably deserve some thanks, like $2.00 a gallon at the pump.
Wolfian: I thought this was going to be a thread about people who clap early during the Star Spangled Banner.
How can you clap during the Star Spangled Banner? You’d have to take your right hand off your heart.
I’ve never interpreted the clapping as being for the performance of the Star-Spangled Banner or some spontaneous overflow of patriotic passion, but rather because the ballgame’s about to start.
And, sorry to disappoint you Kimtsu, but there’s plenty of people who don’t even bother to put their right hand over their heart during the anthem.
My husband’s (somewhat) related peeve is people who clap and whistle at concerts for every word out of the band’s mouth.
“Hello Calgary!”
WOOOOOWOOWOOWOOOWOOOWCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP
Yes, somebody famous said the name of our city. Woowoo indeed.
Well, if you want to get technical, your hand should only be at your heart if you are wearing a hat, but I appreciate the sentiment.
But… but I thought you removed the hat and held it over your heart…
Have I been saluting the flag wrong? 
I used to be part of a children’s choir, and we’d actually have printed in the programs they gave out “Please do not applaud until the following breaks in the performance”, before listing the breaks. It didn’t work. Only our conductor seemed to get ticked off, though.
How about at a rock concert: the band is obviously in the middle of a song, but it’s a quiet part, so that somehow seems to be the signal for a huge portion of the crowd to screech and whistle and yell and carry on like two-year-olds being told they’re having ice cream for dinner? I really love that. Not. I’m pretty sure most of them do it to hear the sound of their own voice, not to express their love and admiration for the band on stage.
-from here. YMMV.
It can certainly be disruptive to the performers. I’ve sung in many concerts where the choir has had to pitch its first note for the next movement from the final chord of the previous one. This can become quite a bit harder if the audience bursts into applause between movements (even though it’s great that the people are enjoying the work enough to want to applaud).
At the Proms in London, the music weeds who assemble three hours before the concert in the bit reserved for standing and swap Schoenberg jokes vie to be the first to clap when a piece ends, to show how fucking smart (read “sad”) they are. It’s always the cretin (of either sex, usually indeterminate) with the lank greasy hair, spots and glasses who wins. The look of triumph on his face as he turns to the others who were too scared that the world premiere of Igor Scrotum’s Ode in Honour of the Vaginal Blessing hadn’t actually finished - after all, they learn at music school that the pause is the most important note in musicdom - is truly pathetic. You would almost say he is glowing, except the ghastly pallor of his face makes that impossible.
These losers also wait in a state of orgasmic anticipation for the principal oboist to play a D for the orchestra to tune up before the concert. When he starts to move the reed to his lips, the scene resembles a group of dwarf hamsters descending on a female who’s just come into heat. When he actually blows his instrument (their chronic joke, not mine), they’ll clap and cheer and blow their klaxons as if Lynn Harrell himself had just finished playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
Talking of Harrell, I once heard him here in HK. Went along because I like a bit of the old Edward E. Had never heard of Harrell before. Now I’m not much of a musician, but I know quality when I hear it. At the end of the piece, I rose in a one-man standing ovation. Later, a friend of mine who was sitting a few rows behind me said that he had wanted to stand but had only had the courage to do so when I led the way. That’s me. A trailblazer. “A fighter among giants”, as my 7-year old school report put it.
Now you know how I’m able to withstand all the horrible things that people say about me here! And, worse still, all the fuckers who dare to IGNORE me.
I know every single word in roger thornhill’s post, yet in that order the words mean nothing to me. Could someone parse it for me?
He said that there’s a bunch of wankers that think it’s the ultimate cool thing to be the first to clap. Then there was a bunch of mumbo jumbo, then he said that he’s a seven-year old giant.
That’s what I got, anyway.
Gotcha! My peice was lifted word for word from a old post of Eve’s!
Glad someone else didn’t get it too. I was too scared to mention that at the time.
Eve’s a seven-year old giant? I’m so confused. 
Oooh, thank you for that. I now have something to throw back at my pretentious friend, who made such a big deal when I clapped.
In my defense, it was my first time, and other people were clapping. :o
If I might quote the wisdom of Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Richard Stilgoe:
“Let your mind
Start a journey through a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the life you knew before!
Let your soul take you where you long to be!
Only then can you belong to me”
New starts. New journeys. New lives.
You left out my favorite part of that song: where he rhymes “succumb to me” with “succumb to me.”
Ah, poetry.