Monday, October 24, 2011

Discordant Arrangement.


There was something that struck me as odd at the Sam Roberts concert the Sidekick and I attended Saturday night.

There was a lot of old people there.

Now, I'm close to 40, so when I say someone is "Old", I'm saying around late-50's. I'm not going to judge these people, but I will admit that maybe they were at the wrong concert - I did a quick Google search and there isn't any operas or classical artists named Sam Roberts, so maybe they were at the right venue after all. There where quite a lot of them, (I'd say 10% of the people there) and I just chalked to up to season's ticket holders or some such thing.

But they sure weren't there to have fun.

There's one thing that happens at every concert I've been to: People stand up and groove along to the music and the people behind them stand up and so on and so on. It always happens. Sit down when ya want, but once the music starts, prepare to stand up.

These people were having none of that.

When the teenage (mid-20's? - I can never tell anymore) girls in front of them started dancing, they complained to the usher. When the people in front of the girls were standing, they complained to the usher. No matter what, they complained to the usher. It wasn't just an isolated incident either - I could see him running around to every group of older people and receiving some kind of bitching. This 19-year old kid looked like he was frazzled from having to try to appease all these people, and all because some kids want to dance.

The Sidekick's comment: "These people make the parents from Footloose look like a bunch of party animals."

When I go to a concert, I don't expect to sit down. In fact, I really only use the chair to hold my jacket and to mark the general area where I'm permitted to do my flailing about. (That's dancing, for those of you who have never seen the spectacle of my moves.) There was a bunch of old people around us, but since no one was standing (and I could see just fine) I restrained myself from jumping up.

The Sidekick's brilliant plan saved the day.

He had seen that even though the ushers had moved some people around to seat the dancers and non-dancers together, there was still a couple five or six rows in front of us who weren't looking like they were having a good time. He took it upon himself to approach the usher (who looked completely terrified at the thought of someone else complaining) and suggest that we switch seats  - as stated before, I'm perfectly fine with standing up and dancing my ass off.

So we switched, the people were happy, and all was well.


But the question remains: Who the fuck goes to a ROCK CONCERT and just sits down? Elvis would be rolling in his grave at the sight of it.

That older generation - I'll never understand them.





Later.

2 comments:

  1. You only sit down at one of those easy listening/soft rock concert.

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  2. Heh!

    Totally agree about having a good time at gigs - the last one I went to was Kasabian in Sheffield. I'm 40 and there were still a few older than me in the mosh pit giving it what for. Best of all, the only seats in the place were on a small balcony well out of the way of those wanting to actually have fun!

    You should come to the UK for your gigs, much more fun (although it could get expensive pretty quickly...)

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