For those about to rock, we salute you ... let the music play

Running on empty, buried alive in the blues, to Beijing busker Bai Ming, rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution.

“It’s still rock ‘n’ roll to me,” Bai said about his life’s love and breadwinner — strumming streetside on his Paul Reed Smith guitar.

Smartphones, known to traditional conversationalists and lovers of the daily dally over broadsheets with bacon as an invasion of a virtual virus, first made themselves known in the middle of the last decade — some two score years after the British Invasion.

But the Beatles had throngs of North American teens swooning at the feet of the Fab Four, and fanatical fans would actually watch the Brits perform with their own two eyes at the time rather than squander their parents’ pensions on tickets just to get front-row concert seats and record the whole show on their smartphones.

“Back in the day, we’d hold lighters aloft when the lights were killed to show devotion to our divas and their ditties. Kids nowadays just hold up their handsets en masse in a zombified, zoned-out illumination of inanity masquerading as adoration,” pined Bai.

The somewhat cynical yet sagacious street performer wasn’t done.

“I don’t begrudge kids their playthings, as I am a bit hypocritical in that I of course also own a cellphone, though it’s still a Nokia flipper with no net access. But really now, what’s in it for us not infamous, but not famous, performers, with these glitzy gadgets?”

Come to think of it, he’s right. The typical rationale given for watching a live event unfold before your very eyes — on a smartphone screen — is that attendees want to record it for later enjoyment.

The obvious follow-up is … how about living in the moment and enjoying it as presented?

“But if I don’t record it, and periodically flip the cam back to me, how will my friends and Sina Weibo followers believe I was actually there?” Bai said on what he often hears from young concertgoers.

It’s even more disheartening in the clubs, he said.

Bai is a solo performer, always struggling to be neither known as a singer nor a guitarist, but a singing guitarist.

“Going solo allows me to sing my own songs, choose my own routine, keep my full pay, and book my own gigs.’’

He said that whether he’s playing in a small pub with a smattering of patrons, or at a large venue with dining dates, there is something sadly missing from his scheduled indoor performances. “Eye contact,” he said. Without exception, nearly every table has a dim blue light, often clearly visible because customers don’t even think to face the stage, allowing Bai to clearly see their glowing screens.

“I know I’m no Jimi Hendrix or Cui Jian,” Bai said, referring to late and aging, respectively, master guitarists.

“But I’ve been at this since I learned to carry a tune, yet when I’m jamming in bars — especially small, cozy joints — some of these cats will do anything to avoid eye contact, especially when I’m singing about lost loves. It’s almost as if they don’t want to get in my space, or head.”

Bai said the great outdoors is actually the coziest of venues for buskers, but not for reasons that immediately come to mind.

“When jamming on a busy overpass, or outside a major subway station, when people stop to listen, I know they really want to hear. Because people won’t risk being late for work to lend an ear to tedious tinny tunes,” he reasoned.

But busking had its own hazards, mainly from a financial standpoint.

“My bar gigs guarantee a paycheck come closing time, no matter how many people exchange a glance with me or, God forbid, applaud. Clappers seem to do so out of politeness, perhaps pity, but only for as long as they can keep their hands off their handsets.

“But out in the wild, I’ve had countless people stop and say they love my music, but don’t carry coinage, and ask if they can scan my QR code,” Bai said.

He typically tells them he’s glad they enjoyed the show, and moves onto the next song, often more dirge-like.

“I could get a new phone and do the whole virtual pay thing. But that would be like sellin’ out to the Man,” he said.

To Bai and other guitarpicking purists who live imaginary rent-free lives in my head: For those about to rock, we salute you.