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Concerts and Cell Phones
Last night my husband Seth and I went to a concert in D.C., something we rarely do. Nine times out of ten, they’re his concerts, and I don’t really enjoy them regardless, and so, people doing things around me that ruin the experience don’t resonate, because I’m already not particularly enjoying the experience. But last night was a concert of mine, something we do every five years or so, and I actually cared about the experience.
We were sitting in the rafters until the concert started, and then stood up. Because I’m short, this was basically my view:
I kept my cell phone down outside of taking that quick ten-second video as a joke for Instagram because I don’t really see the point of taking video I’ll never rewatch, and also, well, that’s my view, so what’s the point? There were folks in front of me taking video, and through their screens, I could actually see the stage, which I found a strange appreciation for.
In the beginning of one of the songs during the encore, the (rather large, in width and height) man standing next to me yelled at some of the women who had been taking videos and selfies throughout the whole show. He was standing closer to them, and it looked like their videoing was blocking his view. He tapped on their shoulders and yelled at them to put their phones down; yelling to just watch the show with their eyes. It turned into a screaming match that bled into the rest of the encore, and soon, security was called over. What was a minor annoyance (for some folks) with the phones, turned into a standoff so tense that I told Seth we could just leave. I was tired of standing and this appeared to be the last song they would play anyway, and it was far from a favorite. But honestly, the whole section had become tense and not particularly enjoyable.
On the way home we talked about whose side we were on, and largely we both fell on the side of the guy. There’s really no need to take that much iPhone video of a show, and it’s also become a troubling phenomenon how few in our society are able to experience life without a phone in their hands (I fully admit I am part of the problem). I can see how his admonishments were intimidating for the women, who were standing a stair below him and were much smaller than he was. I generally appreciate when women stand up to men who intimidate women, though their choice to do it while the show was still going on was indicative of how little they cared about ruining the experience of the concert-goers around them.
So what would have been the right way to handle the situation? I tend to believe it could’ve been done better with the man asking the women to put their phones down, and out of his view, in a much more gentle and quiet way while the band was talking or playing a song off their new album (let’s be real, we all enjoyed those a bit less than the nostalgic 20-year old tunes we came for).
But what do you think? Did he have a right to say anything at all? Did he owe them any courtesy in how and when he did it?
Published in Entertainment
Chuckles wrote: “Kevin Williamson can probably get away with things that I can’t. For sure, a sweet young lady is more likely to survive kicking seat backs than an unattractive old man.”
Chuckles. I would rather you didn’t talk about me like that.
People do all kinds of things that annoy me on a daily basis. I find that saying something about it – however politely (and I am Canadian) – is rarely productive, the best thing I’ve found is to grow thicker skin and let the annoying things go.
If everyone did that what would Zuckerberg do?
Or bit the head off a bat that didn’t agree with him.
I admire those guys, they do a lot of songs in various foreign languages.
Yeah, Chuck, it’s creepy when you call Kent a sweet young lady.
I don’t know, I’m going a bit against the grain here but I side with the woman. My friends who know me well know I often rail against cell phones overall and highlight numerous reasons why I don’t think they’re a net positive to society. So, I’m really really sympathetic to the guy but I think he was wrong and probably his complaint had more to do with him having similar beliefs. What was such a big deal if she wants to watch it that way? Was it actually in his way? Maybe, but what if the person in front of him was 6″ taller… does he have the right to complain then? She doesn’t have the right to memorialize the event? For all we know, she doesn’t go to concerts often and it was a really big night out for her. To top it off, it doesn’t seem like he was being very gentlemanly. I think you should go to an event like that being fully aware you’re sharing the space with a lot of other people and you’ll be inconvenienced to some degree. You can ask someone politely but you lose me when you think you’re entitled to perfect viewing at an event like that and then proceed to act in a rude way, especially a man towards a woman.
You mean low aspect ratio. Aspect ratio is the relationship of width and height. Okay, I don’t think of it the way Wiki makes it x/y like with TV screens. I’m an aeronautical engineer. When we say a wing has high aspect ratio, that means a long thin wing, an example would be a glider wing. Low aspect ratio wings are more short and stubby. For amusement, I use this to compare peoples’ shapes. For people, it’s more like y/x. The greater y (height dimension, also h) is relative to x (horizontal dimension, also w), the higher the aspect ratio. A tall thin woman (typical model) would be high aspect ratio. A person who is considerably wider in proportion to their height would be low aspect ratio. For an adult example, we’re talking a person who might have to buy two airline tickets to be comfortably seated. I use this figure of speech, ‘low aspect ratio,’ to convey my perceptions to RushBabe in casual conversations. If overheard, the person likely will think I’m talking about TV screens.
On the West Coast even concert goers of classical music (at least for chamber music) are much more laid back. And they can be very aged. Maybe they can’t even hear their own phone ringing. (but I guess they can still hear the acoustic music on stage). It’s the last thing I can think of happening that someone might actually be ejected for allowing their phones to ring during a performance. Hey, we’re Seattle, we’re all one big happy family. One of my beefs is that if they’re going to allow their phone ringing to be audible, at least make the ringtone interesting. Something like the default ringtone just says total loser.
8th best Black Sabbath concert story.
I was at a Jo Koy concert a year or so back (catch him live or on Netflix, he’s hilarious). A few people on our right, in the same aisle, kept talking through his jokes – loud enough so we actually started missing some of it, and so were a few people around us. Let it go for a few minutes, then just as I’m about to say something, my girlfriend leans across me and speaks to them, politely (she is Canadian, after all) “Can you please stop talking, I can’t hear him”, and they shut up.
Same stuff happens in movie theaters, too – people just talking, out loud. Never mind the phones. Just talking. Hey, you’re not in your living room, chunkles, so put down the M&Ms and close your mouth. Else give me 12.50 to cover my loss.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a concert, but as I recall you could not record, take pictures or use any device – so I am out of step – maybe things have changed. It is probably frustrating but I don’t think a guy asking these girls to put the phone down has anything to do with his sex or the fact that he was standing one row up. You can’t do it in a movie theatre – you have to turn the phone off. Common courtesy for others is out the window. Phones rule every experience it seems.
Strategic deterrent via superior throw-weight.
I just realized “cellophane wrapper” might be obscure. It used to be the bane of classical music venues. The orchestra would be in the middle of a quiet passage when the little old ladies in the front row decided they needed a lozenge. Out would come the hard candy lozenges, wrapped in cellophane plastic, which would loudly crinkle.
Or so went the stereotype and occasional comic bit.