Sexual harassment and groping is still prevalent, but most venues and festivals have dedicated staff and zero-tolerance policies there are multiple safe-space campaigns, and it’s not uncommon to hear musicians speak out on the issue. But gigs have changed hugely in the past decade, often thanks to artists and venues taking steps to protect the audience.
#A little bit closer song for free
Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CoachellaĪny attempt to change or impose rules on the culture of gig-going generally meets with resistance: counterarguments that these are places for free expression, unlike the enforced decorum of the theatre or the physically passive cinema-going experience that paying the price of entry means the ticket holder can do whatever they want (a pretty entitled argument that wouldn’t work with much other paid-in entertainment).
While there’s been no visible backlash yet – Big Thief fans perhaps being naturally inclined to reverence – you only have to circle back to Mitski to witness the most extreme kind of galling disinterest Lenker is talking about: at one recent gig, her fans reportedly sat on the floor looking at their phones during the opening act, waiting for the headline act to start.īillie Eilish at Coachella this year. “There is a real magic that happens when there is a floor of actual silence when somebody is playing and performing … people are missing so much because every time there’s meant to be a silence, there’s all this white noise, chatter,” she said in an Instagram video.
Just this week, Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker asked fans not to talk through support acts. (This may well be more of an issue in the US than it is the UK, though mask-wearers have been in the minority at every gig I’ve attended.) Yet many fans responded to these pleas with indignation, interpreting them as mandates that impinged on their freedom to do as they please at gigs.
“If we get Covid on the road the tour is wrecked and so is being able to pay bills and the energy to rally and try again.” Several artists interviewed for a Pitchfork feature on the matter also recognised that they had the potential to become super-spreaders, carrying the virus from city to city. “We only have one shot at touring this year,” tweeted 4AD songwriter Helado Negro in one of many such requests. Many artists have asked fans to wear masks to their concerts to protect each other – as well as their own livelihoods. And there was an ugly social media backlash, with some fans claiming that mental health disorders increased their reliance on capturing such footage to help them remember the concert later. (Photos were fine, she clarified.) You only have to look at the many videos and TikToks of her current tour, which show hundreds of other people making their version of the same video, to see how that worked out for her. Photograph: Mark Holloway/RedfernsĪlt-pop songwriter Mitski recently asked fans to stop filming whole shows on their phones because it made her feel “as though those of us on stage are being taken from and consumed as content, instead of getting to share a moment with you”. The crowd for Wolf Alice in Bournemouth, July 2021. While the novelty of seeing shows again may quickly wear off, some musicians are looking at the return of live music as an opportunity to ask fans to reconsider the gig-going experience and make it anew. (Theatre critics have reported a similarly heightened sense of intensity.) In time, though, I’ve also turned up late, talked and texted throughout other post-pandemic gigs. Moreover, I’ve been to shows where the communal sense of awe at live music seems stronger than ever: Alabaster DePlume at Le Guess Who? festival in November, closing the day at 7pm after the Dutch government brought in a surprise Covid curfew and holding the room in the palm of his hand Self Esteem at Kentish Town Forum in March, nourishing a palpably deep hunger in her faithful Sparks taking a hilarious and profound victory lap at the Roundhouse last weekend. Is there any sound sweeter than a pair of mates chatting through every song? No, there is not! How I missed you, being crammed in butt to butt with strangers. Ahh, £6 for pint of lager that will haunt my guts tomorrow. A t my first gig back after 18 months of lockdowns, I greeted old irritations like a lost lover returning from sea.