The Audience

MrInsanePolack

MrInsanePolack

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The wife and I went to see Slipknot last night. We got lawn seat and sat way in the back, usually I'm up front but the wife gets claustrophobic. Anyhow, I noticed that people were watching the show through their phones instead of their eyes. It was weird. I decided to get out my phone and take a picture:

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The pic doesnt capture all the phones (I'm guessing because of light bleed from the stage), but from my perspective, the audience was just as lit up as the stage from the phones. It was weird.

The crowd just stort of stood there. Hardly any mosh pit. Not much movement at all. I guess the experience doesnt happen anymore unless it goes through a phone.

How does one enjoy themselves if they are super concerned with footage?
 
"I noticed everyone was on their phone, so I pulled out my phone"

Just kidding, I get your point, I just thought that was funny.

I hope eventually people will realize that nobody cares about their cell phone concert footage... If I want to see live footage of Slipknot, there's a lot of actual pro footage of them on Youtube. Why would I want to see someone's shitty distorted cell phone video?
 
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It was like that at the Wu show 2 years ago. 🤷‍♂️
 
Isn’t that weird and they probably won’t truly watch concert till they play it back on phone. The phone internet global tech thing makes us ghost in the machine I worry. I remember going to Yellowstone with wife and you are surrounded by so much beauty it is a bit sensory overload and you miss some of the beauty you later see in a pic the wife took. I do none of that I’m trying to absorb it all but I must suck at it cause I’ll ask the wife “Wow where did you take that pic I’ve never seen thst before LoL. “ Dammit but she misses stuff too I point during the experience while she is snapping away- so we are even. I use to worry about losing my wallet and now more so my iPhone thst im tapping on poorly as we speak- damn letters too close for my big fingers. When I use to go in woods no tech for me but now I worry about a health emergency, another fool pulling a gun on me, or I’m not as keen in knowing where I’m at and I can pull up a map with a blue dot where I’m at. When I was a young man a friend and I got lost in Bulltown swamp on coast of Georgia at night no light and didn’t stumble out till early morn- we had moonlight
 
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I’ve done this at a couple of shows, but only one song and mainly for my sceptic friends who made excuses for not going. Sorta rubbed it in hard you might say! So far as missing stuff when you’re out in scenery, I noticed this especially with my wife when we were in Japan. She was so fixated on taking the perfect pics, I was snapping pics in the opposite direction and all around. She would adjusts the light, the focal point, frames it all up perfectly, I would just snap and explore. When we’d get back to the hotel, she’d ask, where was this? Then said my pics turned out better than hers. Yeah, I wasn’t fixated. I was just taking them 3 to 4 at a time, then deleting the ones that didn’t turn out. We had far too many pics from that trip, but I can still tell you exactly where I was and what was behind me when I took it. I caught that on pics too.

Most everyone is recording things these days to get YouTube hits. It’s why people can get raped on subways and no one will come to their aid. Best to capture on your phone in hopes of the viral video. I snap or record for me and those I wish to share with later. Noisy concerts from 200 feet away does nothing for no one. But you certainly get to miss out.
 
I mean, I'm definitely guilty of recording specific snippets or whole songs, but I wouldn't ever just record the whole show, staring at my phone the whole time. Whenever I see my favorite band, mewithoutYou, it's always in a small venue and I'm usually up front, and I feel like that would be incredibly disrespectful to the band.
 
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MrInsanePolack said:
I guess the experience doesnt happen anymore unless it goes through a phone.

How does one enjoy themselves if they are super concerned with footage?
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The depraved practice of documenting every experience with phone footage irks me as well. If you're serving as a cameraman, you're detached from the moment itself. It's not unlike attending an NFL game -- the tickets to which are ludicrously expensive -- and gazing at the stadium's giant monitor for four quarters instead of focusing on the field in front of you. People have begun to favor artificial viewing over visceral encounter. If it doesn't happen on-screen, some can no longer relate to it. Sterility carries a higher premium than authenticity these days.
 
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AzHeat said:
It’s why people can get raped on subways and no one will come to their aid.
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🔥🔥🔥🔥
Well placed current event reference. I always referred to it as the city of brotherly angst.
 
It happens. I went to see Megadeth and before them, Lamb of God had a huge mosh pit. It was in a much bigger place, so phones were not that obvious. I used to write reviews and back in the day with much worse cameras I needed to take dozens of pics to just have one useful. It's also good to keep a little memory, I regret not taking more videos 20 years ago (about everyday events). But filming the whole show (especially with ultra-dumb vertical videos) is pointless. Camera use can be a measure of entertainment, I clearly remember one or two concerts where I was so much in awe that I stopped taking pictures. But I find an average show less captivating these days. I wonder if it's because of the lack of drinks.
I imagine audiences can be very different based on location, too. I've been to many show is NYC where (regardless of phones) people were just standing. Another factor is the sound quality versus visuals. Sometimes you have to stare at the movie and fires and masks and all the eye-candy and then of course take a pic. I find it more effective when the sound is perfect and hits you and there are only some strobe lights, maybe smoke.
It can also depend on venue size. When you are sitting on the 3rd balcony in row Z, there's not much to do. Can't even see the band.
 
Doraemon said:
It happens. I went to see Megadeth and before them, Lamb of God had a huge mosh pit. It was in a much bigger place, so phones were not that obvious. I used to write reviews and back in the day with much worse cameras I needed to take dozens of pics to just have one useful. It's also good to keep a little memory, I regret not taking more videos 20 years ago (about everyday events). But filming the whole show (especially with ultra-dumb vertical videos) is pointless. Camera use can be a measure of entertainment, I clearly remember one or two concerts where I was so much in awe that I stopped taking pictures. But I find an average show less captivating these days. I wonder if it's because of the lack of drinks.
I imagine audiences can be very different based on location, too. I've been to many show is NYC where (regardless of phones) people were just standing. Another factor is the sound quality versus visuals. Sometimes you have to stare at the movie and fires and masks and all the eye-candy and then of course take a pic. I find it more effective when the sound is perfect and hits you and there are only some strobe lights, maybe smoke.
It can also depend on venue size. When you are sitting on the 3rd balcony in row Z, there's not much to do. Can't even see the band.
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I still hold to the 80s concerts being the best. Audio had advanced far enough, but still analogue, so it (the band and everything) had to be good or there was no show and visual effects were still limited. Iron Maiden's Eddie was a super huge deal when he showed up towering the stage and I'm still scratching my head as to how the Scorpions appeared on stage in a flash when there was nothing to distract us. Lights went down, the stage lit up with no one on it, then a big flash and they were all playing as if they had been there for an hour already. Big video screens are impressive and all, but with all the effects and syncopation and and all that's going on, the band is mostly secondary. Just not as fun. maybe that's why we are seeing more zombies?!
 
To be fair, Slipknot put on a good show. They didnt just stand there. They had fire cannons, explosions, people running everywhere, on stage treadmills (was actually really cool), and a light show that was really well thought out. Yet they didn't even get a most pit until about halfway through.

When I saw Slayer in 2018, same venue, there were 2 mosh pits for the entire show, all 5 bands. The lawn section pit was actually bigger than the main pit at one point.

This was my first show since the pandemic, and it felt different.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
They had fire cannons, explosions, people running everywhere, on stage treadmills (was actually really cool), and a light show
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maybe that's the problem.. too much to see

Funny, I just looked at the videos I took... Lamb of God had a bandpic curtain and some smoke and a mosh pit. As soon as Megadeth started the mosh pit was gone and people stood still watching the animations on 6 screens while being on edge to see the robot come out.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
This was my first show since the pandemic, and it felt different.
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Might be pandemic fatigue but you'd think it would go the opposite way (ie people going crazy with all that pent up emotion after lockdown).

In any case, bit sad it took half the concert to get a mosh pit going (especially for Slipknot) and what's the point of filming a concert you're never going to watch again anyway?
 
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