Just got back from seeing my favorite band, Gypsy Soul, performing at a club in San Juan Capistrano. While trying to enjoy the show, there were people in the room making so much commotion I thought they were having cockfights in the back.
Question: Why would somebody pay to hear a concert and then chatter the whole time? What’s the point? Can’t you go someplace free to talk your head off? Or maybe go to a movie theater or something: it’s cheaper. Are you so annoying that people pay for you to go somewhere to get you out of their hair? I mean, I’da paid you myself to leave the club…
This was a great show spoiled by selfish, inconsiderate jerks who, I can only guess, wanted to bring attention to themselves by being loud, obnoxious assholes…well, guess what? It worked.
Obviously they didn’t care as much for the concert as you did. Some people like hearing themselves talk, and think they’re the funniest fucking guys in the room. (Hey, this is the Pit, I had to swear at least once in this post.) Chances are, if they irritated you, they irritated a lot of people. Imagine the guys behind them who heard nothing but them.
Sorry your concert sucked.
Sorry, but it was me. I get that way when a blind date I can’t stand insists I blow a lot of dough on tickets to something I hate, then insists we drink all evening beforehand, and only orders expensive wine, and is still whiny and I feel bad.
It’s my fault.
It’s happened before, but it won’t happen again. Next time I feel drunk and irritated, I promise to leave her there and sneak out during the first piece (and leave you in peace).
Ab-so-fucking-lutely!
I was thinking of starting a thread like this after a Jimmy Buffett concert two weeks ago. I scalped my tickets…alot of dough…only to listen to the giant fucking ASSHOLE in the seat next to me talking on his fucking CELL PHONE the whole damn time. A cell phone at a concert. Give me a fucking break. Shut the goddamn thing off and listen to the concert, and while you’re at it, keep your wide-assed girlfriend off my shoulder when we’re sitting down.
If you want to sing along, great. That’s half the fun at a Buffet show. If you want to call your friends and tell them what you’re doing, then the story you’re gonna tell is about how the guy in the seat next to you (a lover, not a fighter)shoved your damn phone so far down your throat, it’s sticking out your ass.
I went with my (at the time) girlfriend and some of her friends to the HORDE concert two years ago. During Ben Harper’s acoustic set, she started talking loudly with her friends. I told her that other people probably wanted to hear the show. She smiled and kept talking. I told her I wanted to hear the show. She smiled and kept talking. I finally actually told her to please shut up, beginning the end of the relationship. I stand by my decision.
I used to conduct a lot of interviews with artists for an alternative-radio show in Chicago, so I would often be on the guest list in small venues after or before having interviewed the artist.
The people in the back are generally record company hangers-on, and are talking to appear cool. They didn’t pay to get in, and they don’t want you thinking they did. They look down on the rest of you who stood in line and paid cash and actually want to listen to what’s going on on stage. If you were to ask them to be quiet, they would exchange an eyeroll with their companion and tell you to get a life.
Those in the back who did pay to get in are just trying to hand out with the cool kids.
I hear ya Mojo.
I took two friends of mine and one friends girlfriend (note the specific labling) to see Dave Matthews in Raleigh NC two Fridays ago. “Took” as in I got the tickets - no, I didn’t pay for them - I work in radio, but these folks where seeing them for free because of me. DMB is my favorite band in the whole world. I had been looking forward to this show for 6 months.
Well, big assed idiot chick decides to get shit-faced before we even leave the house and then continues to drink once we get there. This girl already has a connection missing between her brain and her mouth, now drunk she WILL NOT SHUT the fuck UP. . . and she is sitting next to me. I don’t want to be rude, really I don’t. She is my best friends girlfriend (why ?? WHY ??) and I respect him if not his dumbass decision. So . . . I try to be subtle - “this is a great song, listen”. I try to scare her - “I think you are making those large guys behind us angry by talking so loud”. I try to be friendly - “I can’t quite hear the music”. Nothing works.
By now I am on my second large IceHouse and losing patience. I mouth to my friend “sorry”. Then, I proceed to tell motor mouthed bad breathed hefer-woman to SHUT HER FUCKING YAP. She got mad, she hates me now, but she got quiet.
I completely enjoyed the rest of the show. The best part is, my friend wanted to tell her the same thing, but he also wanted to get laid later that night so he wouldn’t do it. Moron.
- NM
The solution to this is, of course, to go to concerts so damn loud that you wouldn’t hear someone screaming at the top of their lungs. I swear that I didn’t hear anybody jabbering during the Sisters of Mercy concert I went to last. 
Well, I’ve not been to any concerts recently where someone talking was disruptive, but some friends and I were at a concert recently, and were wondering what sort of mindset drives one to pay $15 for a ticket, then do everything in his power to piss off the other concert-goers by slamming into them repeatedly from the mosh pit, up to the point of being ejected by the no-necked goons who always seem to be working security?
Waste
NM, I have several DMB bootlegs that are IMHO ruined by incessant talking and drunks yelling “I love you Dave!”. I thank you for your effort. And I know the “She got mad, she hates me now, but she got quiet” feeling all too well.
I had this same problem at a DMB concert recently (and almost started my own pit thread about it) - the couple behind us talked through the whole fucking show, except for the encore, because they LEFT before it! The problem was, it wouldn’t have done any good at all to ask them to shut up, because as far as I could tell the entire back row was also talking!
I was afraid I was going to have to hold my father down, though…he was getting really pissed.
Oh, and after “Crush” the bimbo behind us says, “I can die happy now that I’ve heard that song.” I’m thinking: WTF? You didn’t hear a fucking thing, bitch, you yammered through the whole thing. Hell, I barely heard it for your talking.
Strangely, this was not a problem at either of the Duran shows I attended last week. I wonder if this was a problem at Greatful Dead concerts?
I can’t stand it when assholes go to a show and could care less why they’re there. I swear, every concert I’ve been to has been marred by at least one asshole, usually a whole group of assholes.
First, talk all you want between sets, or even between songs, but shut the fuck up when the music starts. If you would like to sing along, well, at least know the words and for christ’s sake, be able to carry a fucking tune! I’d prefer you just shut up anyway, unless it’s one of those songs or a part of a song where everyone joins in. But if you’re the lone schmuck who’s howling away, stop. I didn’t pay 30 or 40 outrageous modern-day concert dollars to hear your sorry-ass attempt at “singing”.
Second, if you’re in the third level at an arena show, please don’t scream your request for a song right in my fucking ear. No one on stage can hear you. Shut up.
Third, stay the fuck home with a case of beer if you’re going to spend the whole goddamn night getting up and down and up and down and up and down, squeezing your way down the row, sticking your fat fucking ass in everyone’s face as you stagger by, stepping on people’s feet and knocking their beverages over. Aren’t you at least mildly interested in seeing the show?
Fourth, leave your phone home or in the car. “Whoo-hoo, look at me, I’m the asshole on the cell phone in the middle of a concert. Guess where I am? I’m at a concert! Now I’m going to hold the phone up so you can hear, too! Whoo-hoo!”
Fifth, if you must get shit-faced, please watch your step, you bumbling, drunken moron. I’m all for getting your mind right, but I am tired of fat drunken bastards slipping in spilled beer and vomit, and crashing their 250 pounds of lard-ass on me or Mrs Wolf.
And speaking of vomit, must you let fly in the middle of an aisle or a walkway, so everyone else can step in it?
Wow. I sure do feel better now.
To answer dogsbody’s question, this shit happened all the time at Grateful Dead shows.