I’ve never seen the point of wearing a shirt to proclaim your loyalty to anything - a musical act, a sports team, or whatever. The unspoken assumption is that the general public gives a rat’s ass what some random stranger is a fan of. No one cares, and no one’s paying attention to you.
I liken it to those nausea-inducing stick figure families on the backs of minivans. Or any bumper sticker, for that matter. Is the person behind you supposed to be impressed by your loyalty to political party X or your love of dog breed Y? I dun geddit. (I swear to Og I’ve seen bumper stickers that say “I LOVE MY HUSBAND!” Um, yeah…? Isn’t that supposed to go without saying? Who are you trying to convince?)
Last year I attended a Pink concert. (I refuse to spell it with the exclamation point. Love her, love her music, but I draw the line.) A LARGE portion of the audience - I’d say approaching 50% - was middle-aged women who had gone to great lengths to emulate her hair, her mode of dress, and overall style/persona. And it obviously wasn’t just for the concert; the degree of time, effort and commitment indicated that they lived that way. It made me sad, for reasons I’m not sure I can put my finger on. It’s like wearing a concert tee, but orders of magnitude more…desperate? Their entire identities were defined by their fandom of a particular entertainer.
Yeah, I have a student whose whole persona is Taylor Swift Fan. Her friends introduce her as “This is Leah. She’s a huge Taylor fan.” To which she always puts her hands over her heart and swoons “Oh, I AMMMMM…” Keep in mind, this is college. Leah is chronologically a twenty-something.
We were on a field trip and she came back out of the Art Institute to an earlier tweet re: Ms. Swift. and was crushed. “I missed it! … NO, it’s not the same. I didn’t get it in real time!” I stayed away from her the rest of the day, because it was all she could talk about.
I’m sure she’d wear a Taylor shirt to a Taylor concert.
As would **most **people, as the results of this poll show.
I don’t know why you think wearing a shirt of a band to a concert says anything more than “I am a fan of this band.”
It really does look like some type of insecurity. “I can’t show that I like this, even though I do! *Those *crazy people over there like this! I’m not like them!”
I guess the point of this Facebook commercial is lost on you, then.
The point is that wearing band merchandise or sports merchandise, besides making a buttload of money for the sellers, of course, is to promote a sense of fellowship, belonging, and togetherness. But if it has to be explained to you, then you indeed don’t get it.
I gotta have that! I searched for years for a poster of that, but never found any and finally settled for “Maximum R&B” poster. But now I’ve got to look out for that tee…
I’ve never worn a band shirt for a concert, but if I did, it would be one I bought there. And it would only be for an up and coming band or some other band that wasn’t gazillionaires and could really use the merch money.
My Rule - all band shirts are fair game at a gig, but musicians wearing their own shorts onstage?
Nope.
Yeah yeah I saw that earlier link with page after page of bands wearing their own shirts: douchey.
Seeing Maiden on the 14th. I’ll probably wear the tour shirt I buy online instead of at the show.
Seeing Rush many times, the majority of tees were D’Addario, Gibson, Fender, Rickenbacker, Zildian, Tama, Pearl, Paiste…
Will wear Slayer shirt to Slayer’s 2nd to last show ever with Ministry, Primus, others. But if you wear a Megadeth or Metallica tee, it shows the metal brotherhood or “metalhood”, if you will.
I agree with your loophole. Two years ago I was at the Rogers Waters “Us and Them” tour in Philadelphia. Last summer the tour came to the UK and I went to Glasgow both nights. One night I wore my Us and Them T shirt from Philly - yes, it was for the same tour, except it had “2017” on the back, and it was a design of shirt that they weren’t selling in Glasgow. Bonus cool points.
The other night I wore my “The Wall Live” T shirt from May 2011.
Speaking of which, at The Wall Live in 2011, I spotted someone in a T Shirt from Pink Floyd The Wall at Earl’s Court in 1981. She lost cool points by having to confess she’d been given it to wear, and wasn’t actually there. (My shirt from 1981 is long gone, and a size I would be completely unable to wear now anyway…).
Wow, never heard of this dumb rule, and I’m now glad I’ve never seen PCH.
If I own a shirt of the band I’m going to see, I’m likely to wear it. And if I own the a shirt of the band I’m opening for, I’m absolutely going to wear it when I play. If you’re the sort of person who worries about what someone else is wearing, making you avoid me because you think I’m uncool is just a bonus.
I don’t care what anyone wears, but I personally wouldn’t wear the t-shirt of the band I’m seeing to the show, unless maybe it’s a vintage shirt of some kind. That’s just how I grew up.
That said, the only tee shirts I really have left are for bands that don’t exist anymore or haven’t toured in ages, so it doesn’t really matter. I’ve never really worn band tee-shirts to shows even during the height of my live music viewing days but, if I did, it was for another band. And I did like checking out other people’s shirts, as sometimes I might find a band I wasn’t familiar with and it would have me check them out (back in the day before the internet and the ease of finding related artists.)
It’s a typo for PCU which is the movie the “Don’t be that guy” quote (with link) in post #26 is from.
First concert I went to was Cheap Trick. There was a guy wearing a Police shirt and my first thought was it was kind of insulting to wear a shirt for a different band (not that I got too worked up about it, I am sure the band didn’t care). I never heard the “rule” until someone mentioned that scene from the movie. I think it comes from that same kind of cynicism and concern for being “cool” that has to mock other people for feeling real joy and enthusiasm for something.
Yeah, that’s it! Sorry, drinking and posting last night.
As far as wearing the shirt of a different band goes - ehh, you’re wearing a shirt. It’s not like it’s a sporting event and they’re playing against them. I’d rather you wear my band’s shirt when you see me, I could always use the support. But wearing a different band’s shirt doesn’t even come close to offense.
