Nothing cuts through the sweet collective vibe like the obnoxious glare of a cellphone screen.Įarlier this year, Jack White announced all phones would be banned at his upcoming gigs. There’s something about the warmth of jostling bodies all moving together that creates this feeling of being one tiny part of a bigger thing. Great music transports you out of your small life and taps you into something larger. Sensing my frustration, my date told me to ignore it, but it’s not that easy. I even shot a quick video:īut in what situation is it OK to come to a gig and reply to an email about an online shopping order? To hold your phone up in front of someone else’s face to film five minutes of video that looks and sounds like utter shite and will never be watched again? To stream a minute of the performance over Facebook live (fine), but then spend the rest of the gig replying to every comment that rolls in?Īnd yet these are all things I’ve seen: at Neil and Liam Finn’s beautiful family gig in a tiny Paekakariki Hall at The Opera House for both Fleet Foxes and Aldous Harding in the second row at Nadia Reid and – as Nick Bollinger tells it – up front at one of Marlon Williams’ recent shows, where a kerfuffle broke out between an older audience member and the younger one he’d ordered to ‘put that bloody cellphone away’, which was thankfully diffused by Marlon himself.Īt Kendrick, I came pretty close to quoting a pertinent song at the woman on her phone. In fact, one of my favourite moments at that Kendrick show was when just about every person there turned on their phones’ torches and waved them in unison. So long as the artist is cool with it, I don’t see any problem with people taking photos or shooting a quick Insta vid to spark FOMO in their mates. It’s not the first time someone’s ruined the mood with a too big, too bright screen, but the fact it was Kendrick and the person spent 20 minutes scrolling through Spotify made it the most baffling.įor the record, I’m not one of those hysterical types calling for phones to be banned from all concerts, galleries and restaurants. This happened at Kendrick Lamar last week. All around you fans are rapping along, throwing their hands up, screaming in anticipation of the drop… and the person next to you is on their phone. Imagine you’re in a packed stadium, watching one of your favourite musicians tearing it up on stage. RNZ Music’s Melody Thomas lays down the rules for using your phone at a concert. These days, when people wave their hands at a gig, more often then not there’s a phone in them.
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