Incoming from Lucy May Walker, this:
OK. Let’s begin with a couple of disclaimers here.
Firstly, LMW isn’t my favourite artist. No real problem with her, just that her music isn’t really my sort of thing. I’m just mentioning that so you don’t think that my opinion on the above has anything to do with any sort of connection or fondness for her or her work.
And secondly, because she is a mainly acoustic folk music artist, and her stuff is very much thoughtful, thought-provoking, gentle, peaceful music, then any iffy behaviour from the audience is likely to have more of an effect than if someone was to chat through, say Mutter by Rammstein.
But still…
YES! YES! ALL OF THIS! THANK YOU!
I’m so tired of going to concerts and having to endure people talking through the whole performance. And I recognise that the experience of watching a concert is a very personal thing; different for every person, but honestly – for that exact reason – your behaviour shouldn’t impinge or affect any one else’s experience.
And I have mentioned this so many times before, but it’s symptomatic of the way that people behave everywhere these days: like they are the only ones that matter. I just don’t get it when you have paid A LOT of money (and likely gone to a lot of trouble) to enjoy the music of a band or artist, and then you do something that you could – and should – maybe do literally anywhere else.
Don’t spend five hundred and forty five fecking Rands each to sit on a dark grassy slope and ruin things for people who – really weirdly – have actually turned up at a concert to hear the band playing and not you shouting to your mate about taking junior to the fecking Constantia Uitsig fecking bike park in the morning.
Stay at home.
I just saved you R1090. That’s, like, two overpriced coffees while he’s on the pisspoor dirt track tomorrow. Boom.
Or if you really did pay your Rands to come along to hear the band, then couldn’t your utterly mundane shouty conversation just have waited for an hour and a half?
You bunch of self-absorbed, stereotypical, Southern Suburbs twats.
No wonder everyone hates you.
Yeah. That was from me back in November 2018. And it wasn’t even all of my rant. Click through for the whole thing. I was clearly rather upset after seeing James at Kirstenbosch.
But I’m not alone.
So yes, I’m all for Lucy May Walker’s helpful guide above. Of course, we shouldn’t really need to be telling grown adults how to behave with respect for other people, but hey ho, here we are.
