Flogging Molly came to town and played a show at Memorial Union Friday night. I was at the concert and decided I might share some thoughts on it with you, but I've been told concert reviews are largely useless. Even if such a review convinces you that the show was worth attending, you are, first, too late to do anything about it, and second, in want of a time machine. Therefore, I will not review the show itself, other than to say it was a jolly good time.
Instead, I will review the crowd.
We need to have a serious talk about concert etiquette, guys. I'm not talking about how it is forbidden on pain of death by lightning bolt to wear a T-shirt with the name of the band you're seeing on it. I'm talking about how to act in such a way that the surrounding concert-goers won't think about how much they'd like to give you a colonoscopy with a venomous black mamba snake.
Specifically, I'm talking about how to handle the warm-up band. Flogging Molly shared the bill with two opening acts. One was a fairly by-the-numbers punk band that decided to class up their act with a mandolin and was well-received.
The first warm-up band, however, was savaged in a most deplorable way. I thought the band was an odd fit for the bill; they sounded a bit like Strokes a knock-offs, minus the sullen-eyed joie de vivre. In any event, it was an odd choice to have New York-style garage rockers open for two folk-punk groups.
So they weren't great. Now, the classy thing to do when faced with this situation is to shrug your shoulders, let the band finish their set and find something else to occupy your mind if they so offend your musical sensibilities. I understand you can play Tetris on cell phones now, so really, nobody has any excuse anymore for being bored.
The crowd, however, would have none of it. Cries of 'You suck!' and 'Get off the stage!' rang out. Aside from being just rude and immature, this confused me. What would their getting off the stage actually accomplish? Flogging Molly still wouldn't have come out until 10 p.m. It's not as though lead acts are dying to get on stage earlier and play their set for twice as long, reducing their vocal chords and guitar strings to atomized dust in an apocalyptic extended rock session. Besides, without opening bands, your entire concert experience would be over at about 9:15, leaving you with nothing to do on a Friday night but go home and catch 'Sister, Sister' on the Disney Channel.
Possibly more annoying than yelling insults toward the stage and raising one's middle finger in protest is ironic cheering. There was a chap about two rows up from me who, viewing himself as some sort of trickster god on the order of Ananasi, who got tired of yelling insults at the band and thought it would be hilarious to pretend to enjoy the set. 'You guys are totally awesome,' he would say, sarcastically. Truly, his was a wit on par with Oscar Wilde.
Why must we be so mean to warm-up bands? Theirs is a hard lot, knowing that no one has come to see them, facing a crowd that's merely biding their time until the headliner comes out on stage. And yet they try their best'although they're not always successful'to make your wait a little more pleasurable. I think the least you could do in return is not flip them the bird.
