We pay to go to a live show. The crowd is excited to see the artist. You can feel it in the air. They appear on stage, plug in, start with a quiet but heartfelt acoustic number.
And 600 people keep their conversations going.
What. The. Hell. People?
Between songs, the artist makes polite but vague statements about how even with the PA, he can’t compete with all that noise.
They keep talking.
Grrrrrrr…
I think that it has gotten substantially worse in the last 10 years, but I don’t have hard data.
At first I thought it was just a festival phenomenon, where people present might not be particularly interested in that act. But it happens at individual band shows, and not just during the opening act.
Are people more self-absorbed? Or have ticket prices ironically meant a higher percentage of filthy rich people in attendance who don’t care all that much?