Rant - Have people forgotten live gig etiquette?

[ping-ping-clicka]

And dear friends, it's easier to love everyone when you,
stay home and create noise on your computer with a DAW ( REASON 12)
Stay off all roads, by ways, foot paths, Dog runs,
Generally avoid events that include others attending,
interacting with others is like democracy a great idea,
but very messy in practice.
Try these.
avoidance is an option that is always an option. Rule number 1
continued avoidance is a constant option Rule number 2
exercising rule # 1 and rule #2 are eternally true.
Rule number 3
Remembering Rules number 1, 2, 3, are choices that are alway availabl.
Review rules 1, 2, 3, as needed, Rule number 4
All group activities involve risk.
Avoiding group activities reduces the the Risk factor
One can always leave any situation, no excuses required.
This is a free country exercise the freedom to choose.
If the last choice you made is unsatisfactory make another choice. You have a right to keep choosing until you chose a satisfactory choice.
all choices are temporary Rule five

 

[Marc Morfei]

I’ve never experienced anything like the OP, but I am surprised by the number if people that want to have a conversation with one of us while we are playing. Like they just come up and start taking to you. Sometimes between songs but sometimes during songs. Like, WTF? I guess this goes along with what everyone else is saying. A lot of people are oblivious. I imagine these being the same type of people who fall off cliffs while taking selfies.

 

[Junkyard Dog]

Others don't bother tuning up. Has anyone else noticed a change or lack in etiquette at gigs lately?

This doesn't seem like an etiquette issue. I'm not even sure how to categorize it. I mean...what musician doesn't tune before (during, etc.) performing??!?

 

[srblue5]

I’ve never experienced anything like the OP, but I am surprised by the number if people that want to have a conversation with one of us while we are playing. Like they just come up and start taking to you. Sometimes between songs but sometimes during songs. Like, WTF?

I've had that happen a few times. The most irksome time was when a former classmate clocked me at a work party gig where I was providing cocktail hour music and came up to me to ask career-related questions. When I politely told him I was in the middle of something and would happily answer his questions when I took a break, he just fired back with, "You can multitask." And carried on with his multitude of questions, distracting me all the way.

 

[cyclopean]

And dear friends, it's easier to love everyone when you,
stay home and create noise on your computer with a DAW ( REASON 12)
Stay off all roads, by ways, foot paths, Dog runs,
Generally avoid events that include others attending,
interacting with others is like democracy a great idea,
but very messy in practice.
Try these.
avoidance is an option that is always an option. Rule number 1
continued avoidance is a constant option Rule number 2
exercising rule # 1 and rule #2 are eternally true.
Rule number 3
Remembering Rules number 1, 2, 3, are choices that are alway availabl.
Review rules 1, 2, 3, as needed, Rule number 4
All group activities involve risk.
Avoiding group activities reduces the the Risk factor
One can always leave any situation, no excuses required.
This is a free country exercise the freedom to choose.
If the last choice you made is unsatisfactory make another choice. You have a right to keep choosing until you chose a satisfactory choice.
all choices are temporary Rule five View attachment 1062840

That sounds like a miserable way to waste your life.

 

[Lucius Paisley]

Probably because you had a laptop on stage.

Did your singer not know the words? If so, you don't do the song.

Was it just a paid practice gig?

This is the first time I've heard of this kind of thing happening to anybody.

 

[ping-ping-clicka]

That sounds like a miserable way to waste your life.

alert!alert! Coding error
ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

​

 

[wulfenganck]

I wouldn't blame it on the pandemic. I noticed a change in behaviour to some extent considering half the audience putting up their smartphones and recording an entire gig. But that was years before the pandemic.
Let's face it: there is (and always was) a certain amount of stupid people running around.
People tend to request songs without the slightest connection to the setlist they've been listened to for the past hour ("Do you play some Kylie Minogue?" became a running gag in our band).
If that gets out of hand, it's probably the wrong band at the wrong venue. Or you were booked at the annual D-bag-Convention....

 

[dougstrum]

Gigs always leave us with stories; hopefully the good stories outnumber the bad, and some stories are only funny in hindsight~

 

[JuneauMike]

Sounds like all the ingredients for an original song.

 

[David Barnett]

She didn't seem to be under the influence of anything. I can't confirm that for sure -- maybe she hid it well and/or is a chronic user -- but there wasn't anything about her that struck me as unusual except that she was trying to co-opt the laptop onstage to play a YouTube video and was annoyed when we wouldn't stop playing to play her video.

I do wonder if she was maybe lacking in "social niceties" (for lack of a better, more compassionate term). At the end of the night, the other organizer came and thanked us one by one -- the video-requesting one stood off to the side and didn't talk to us.

About how old do you think this person is?

 

[ping-ping-clicka]

This is what happens when you home thinking about a nice romantic evening of cocktails for two and a nice set of lounge B-3 organ tunes ala Brother Jack McDuff. It's the modern age for modern Rubes.

 

[Unionjack515]

I’m sure this will be a rather unpopular take on this, but I need to ask…what was the laptop being used for? Set list? Lyrics? A device to deliver/manage lighting cues/video on a screen behind the band? Being used as a mixer?

Not that I’m agreeing AT ALL with what the organizer/attendees did, but if someone in the band was constantly fidgeting with the laptop during the set, it may have sent mixed signals or annoyed the folks in question. I might suggest (IF the laptop is 100% necessary—mixer, lighting/video cues, etc) putting it in a more discrete location. If being used for lyrics only…memorize them instead. If being used for set list only…write it down instead and tape it to the stage.

 

[playforfun]

I've definitely had a few words with some of the band members. The singer who goofs off keeps reassuring me that the next time will be better but we seem to have lost a lot of gigs since he started his shenanigans so pretty soon I don't think there will be a next time. I'm starting to get some new people together for a new project as a result, so we'll see where that goes.

There is a difference between putting on a show and showing your a$$. I’ll admit when I started becoming confident on stage I had to learn this quickly and of course the hard way. Lol.

 

[Bourbon Burst]

Forgive my rant but I've played about a half dozen gigs since the pandemic began and I feel like people have generally forgotten what it's like to watch a band play live or even what it's like to play live as a band. The general etiquette (or even respect) seems to be lacking.

I played a gig with one of my bands this past weekend in a town about 4 hours away. The organizers paid for our gas. However, partway through our first set, one of the organizers came up to our lead singer's laptop on stage and started trying to thumb the screen (it was not a touch screen but she thought it was) -- we asked what she was doing and she said she wanted to play a song from a YouTube playlist. We thought she was looking for a request idea but no, she wanted to hear the music video version exactly. Keep in mind, we had asked both of the organizers if they had any special requests weeks in advance and they did not give us any. We offered to play the YouTube video during a break between sets but she wasn't happy about that. Before long, a lot of audience members were coming up to the stage and requesting YouTube videos or Spotify playlists...all of this while we were still playing the first set. It sort of calmed down by the second set but we felt pretty deflated and disrespected. It showed in some of the band members' playing. We essentially drove 8 hours to play a 3-hour gig that was truncated and disrupted by the organizer and several audience members demanding YouTube videos -- like, seriously, why are you at a live gig if you want to hear videos off of YouTube?

I'd understand if it was the first gig after the pandemic began -- and maybe it is for some audience members -- but seriously? There is the possibility that we sucked but I've seen audiences at open mic nights that have been more respectful than that, even when the onstage performing is floundering.

I've also noticed that with some of my bandmates, they seem to have forgotten how to put on a live concert since the pandemic began. For example, the lead singer of my other band has been increasingly goofing off on stage, forgetting lyrics, calling out for songs that we've never played before, or changing arrangements on the fly (e.g. moving the key down just as he's kicking off the song, calling out for a solo when there isn't one) -- things he rarely (if ever) did before. Others don't bother tuning up or just crank up their amps blasting away while telling everyone else to turn themselves down because it's too loud. I know live gigs are about being in the moment, but I think the audiences came to see a semi-professional performance at the very least -- not a spur-of-the-moment rehearsal or jam session with mis-remembered songs and sloppy playing/sound.

Has anyone else noticed a change or lack in etiquette at gigs lately? Or am I an old man just yelling at a cloud (or crowd)? (It probably is at the very least partly the latter.)

For the nervy organizer that wanted to play a youtube song while you were in your set, ask her if it is okay for you to bring in your own alcohol then instead of buying theirs.

 

[ReverendRevolver]

Should've been a poll thread.
Add another vote for general stupidity.


The mass proliferation of the Internet has given people an undeserved sense of entitlement in EVERYTHING they experience. It started accelerating in the 2010s when nerd trolls nerd raged over comic book movies pushing what was "their thing" into the biggest mainstream thing ever. Justified, imo. But then the gate keeping and the "this is how it REALLY is....". (I will say, those keyboard trolls would've probably done better than the theatrical release of justice league, but I digress...). Then, because it was mainstream, all the new fans jumped on, and it evolved to everyone being entitled and feeling like they were owed certain things from movies, music, tv shows, etc.

On a toxic level.

And as we approached 2020, the gap between creator/product and fan base shrank, and it got worse.
So what was once an established order to the universe (tip a DJ for a song, buy the band drinks for a song, etc) is eroded to stupid people thinking the band is just like streaming Netflix in thier living room and switching to YouTube.

If dinosaurs roamed the streets feeding on humans, they'd be eaten first. Take solace in that as you look them in their moron face and tell em to leave the stage.

 

[Blackmore Fan]

Forgive my rant but I've played about a half dozen gigs since the pandemic began and I feel like people have generally forgotten what it's like to watch a band play live or even what it's like to play live as a band. The general etiquette (or even respect) seems to be lacking.

I played a gig with one of my bands this past weekend in a town about 4 hours away. The organizers paid for our gas. However, partway through our first set, one of the organizers came up to our lead singer's laptop on stage and started trying to thumb the screen (it was not a touch screen but she thought it was) -- we asked what she was doing and she said she wanted to play a song from a YouTube playlist. We thought she was looking for a request idea but no, she wanted to hear the music video version exactly. Keep in mind, we had asked both of the organizers if they had any special requests weeks in advance and they did not give us any. We offered to play the YouTube video during a break between sets but she wasn't happy about that. Before long, a lot of audience members were coming up to the stage and requesting YouTube videos or Spotify playlists...all of this while we were still playing the first set. It sort of calmed down by the second set but we felt pretty deflated and disrespected. It showed in some of the band members' playing. We essentially drove 8 hours to play a 3-hour gig that was truncated and disrupted by the organizer and several audience members demanding YouTube videos -- like, seriously, why are you at a live gig if you want to hear videos off of YouTube?

I'd understand if it was the first gig after the pandemic began -- and maybe it is for some audience members -- but seriously? There is the possibility that we sucked but I've seen audiences at open mic nights that have been more respectful than that, even when the onstage performing is floundering.

I've also noticed that with some of my bandmates, they seem to have forgotten how to put on a live concert since the pandemic began. For example, the lead singer of my other band has been increasingly goofing off on stage, forgetting lyrics, calling out for songs that we've never played before, or changing arrangements on the fly (e.g. moving the key down just as he's kicking off the song, calling out for a solo when there isn't one) -- things he rarely (if ever) did before. Others don't bother tuning up or just crank up their amps blasting away while telling everyone else to turn themselves down because it's too loud. I know live gigs are about being in the moment, but I think the audiences came to see a semi-professional performance at the very least -- not a spur-of-the-moment rehearsal or jam session with mis-remembered songs and sloppy playing/sound.

Has anyone else noticed a change or lack in etiquette at gigs lately? Or am I an old man just yelling at a cloud (or crowd)? (It probably is at the very least partly the latter.)

I would suggest that incorrect behavior (to put it politely) will run for as long as we allow it, in every walk of life. If we value what we do, we'll politely put a quick end to it and just as quickly return to what we are doing. When we believe in what we're doing, its easier to simply move that stuff aside and keep going.

 

[BelindasShadow]

There's a lower-Broadway Nashville Honky Tonk that live-streams....and I love it. But...it has opened my eyes to some new phenomena.
One thing I noticed that seems related to this thread is requests that are completely cross-genre from what a band is playing. I saw one band doing a fairly awesome job on some recent country tunes when someone requested Rage Against the Machine. Another band, doing pretty hard rock being asked to do a Whitney Houston song. I was thinking to myself: "Are you in the room....do you hear what they just played?"
Lots of bar-goers think the band is their personal jukebox. Now, for the right "contribution" in the tip bucket....the bands all do the outlandish requests (whether they should or not), and that is certainly contributing to the problem, but that may be a different discussion.

Genre is dead, the kids know it.

 

[bottlenecker]

This is bizarre behavior, even if the band was terrible. What kind of gig was this exactly? What were they "organizers" of?

 

[gkterry]

The human species has become flooded with stupid people, The older I get the less patience I have with stupidity.