Bring back concerts, please! All is forgiven
Spilled drinks, drunken chatter, phone overuse still can’t kill magic.
Here are several things I thought I’d never miss about going to concerts.
1. Boozed-up people spilling their drinks on other people, me included.
2. People using their cellphones to take endless selfies and film entire concerts, obliviously blocking the views of others in the process.
3. People loudly gabbing throughout concerts, about various inane topics, despite having paid sizable amounts of money for their tickets.
Now, more than two months into the coronavirus pandemic and life without live music, I’m ready to reconsider.
That doesn’t mean I’ll warmly welcome rude, amped-up concertgoers with open arms. “Please spill your drink on me, bro! Please block my view! Please blather as loudly as possible during the performance! Please, please, please!”
But it does mean I am eager to resume going to concerts, when it’s safe to again. So eager, in fact, that I’ll happily deal with distracting behavior — honest — in return for being able to experience live music again, no matter how many drinks are spilled or feet stepped on in the process.
Why? Because consuming concerts online just doesn’t do it for me.
No, I’m not a Luddite. Before this terrible pandemic enveloped much of the world and shut down live performances, I regularly listened to music and watched vintage and recent performances online.
But I did so to augment going to concerts and festivals in person, not to replace them. And the sound of music is best appreciated when it moves through the air from the stage directly to your ears, not through buds or the tinny speakers in your phone or computer.
Livestreamed music events
serve a purpose, certainly, especially for bands and solo artists whose touring incomes have evaporated. Ditto for music-lovers eager to experience something new, be it on their phones, iPads or laptops. And even, perhaps, at drive-in movie concerts, which are kind of becoming a thing now.
But music was meant to be experienced in the flesh, in real time, as it happens in front of you. Music feeds on the interaction between the audience and the performers making it. The reaction of the audience is pivotal, whether in a small club, a concert hall, a stadium, or venues of any sizes in between.
“How are you all feeling tonight?” is indeed a cliched question, which performers trot out in each city.
But the cheers, polite applause or near-silence that can result speaks volumes. And the genuinely spontaneous moments that occur during a concert as an artist feeds off their audience, and vice versa, are when the real magic can begin to happen.
So, chatter, take selfies and spill your drinks on me at will (which may be more difficult from 6 feet away). I won’t mutter or scowl. I won’t even try to spill a reciprocal drink. I’ll simply join you in celebrating the return of live music.