Here’s the situation: you find yourself in a sweaty pit of people, waiting for your favorite band to come on—the excitement of the crowd is palpable. Then the lights drop.
There was once a time where that moment would create a deafening roar and uproarious applause, but not anymore. The screams are still there, but instead of applause, you get a sea of iPhone screens.
While Prince, Savages and others would prefer you leave your phones either at home or in your pocket the whole night, I understand wanting to capture a photo or two so your friends on the Internet can see how cool you are.
My real problem comes with videos.
When I take a picture using my phone, I stick my arm in the air, press the little button and then quickly bring my arm back down. That whole process takes about three seconds.
When one takes a video, there are two routes they can go down.
The first is 45 seconds of a hand shaking, holding the speaker while singing the words to the song (typically off-key). This bothers me for two reasons. The first: When are you ever going to watch it again? “Hey guys, look, I was at [insert band here] and I got this great video of their most famous song!”
What usually ensues after that is a lot of screaming, an occasional glimpse of the stage and usually an epileptic fit.
The second reason why the 45-second video bothers me is because let’s say you are actually trying to capture this for posterity. Will a little less than a verse or a chorus of a song really bring back a wave of memories? Will that really be what you remember from the show? Make your own memories, tangible ones—ones that don’t require you to live vicariously through your iPhone.
While the 45-second video guy is bad, the full song or, even more, amateur videographer is my arch nemesis.
Let me preface this next statement with the fact that I am relatively tall (my driver’s license says six feet, but that’s an overstatement). I bring this up because I can see over the heads of the average concertgoer. While I often feel like I end up behind Shawn Bradley (a ’90s basketball reference for the uninitiated), usually I can see pretty well.
In this scenario though, I am behind an average-height male (5’9”). For the first six songs, my only gripe with this average-sized male is that he has no regard for my personal space (but that’s for another column). Yet, song seven is our misaligned fan’s (let’s call him Chad) favorite song.
Instantly, Chad freaks out. I too may be very happy that this song is on, and Chad’s visible excitement is a good thing, as bands on stage tend to react well to crowd surges of energy.
Chad whips out his iPhone and because he wants the perfect video, throws both hands in the air, gently cradling his phone as he proceeds to spend the next five minutes with both hands in the air, singing along to his favorite song while obstructing my view.
While in this scenario I must sound like a crotchety old man (and that statement isn’t without its merits), this is terribly annoying. By virtue of Chad singing along to the whole song while dancing and having both hands in the air, he is invading my personal space, obstructing my view and ruining his video.
Sing along to “Mr. November” in the shower, or even at the show, but if you are going to obstruct my view of the stage, at least do so peacefully, without your shrill voice superseding Matt Berninger’s as I try to peacefully enjoy my concert experience.
Some crowds are much worse about this than others.
Electronic music crowds love taking a video of the pretty lights, and then another one because these visuals are SO UNIQUE, and then another one because this light show wasn’t this cool 15 minutes ago.
Indie music crowds are filled with people who are content to check their Twitter feed for 90 percent of the show, yet when that one song comes on they have been waiting for all night, they turn into Chad.
Now, we all have our pet peeves and when you attend as many concerts as I do, some of them are exacerbated and others you learn to get over. I have stopped caring for the most part about my personal space, as I am 19 and not 91. I understand people want to have a good time and if that means jumping around and occasionally bumping into me, so be it.
I understand that everyone wants a picture or 12 at a show. Personally, I take a picture or two at the beginning and a picture somewhere in the middle of the show if it looks really cool. You may want to take 30 pictures and that’s fine as long as you don’t spend three minutes making sure that each picture is exactly perfect.
But when it comes to Chad, the amateur videographer, I hate that guy. And your friends silently hate you too as no one wants to watch your terrible video of your favorite song from the band you saw last night and their apparent kindness is actually jealousy of the show that you “saw” that they didn’t.
Are you a “pro” at filming concerts on your iPhone? Send your sick footage to Brian at weidy@wisc.edu.
