Entertainers spend a lot of time honing their craft. They perfect it until it is ready to take onstage. When they are up there, they deserve our attention and respect – even if they’re not as good as we’d like. Until you spend your time putting something together (besides Lego), I’ll thank you to at least be polite to the people who have the balls to get out there to make a living as an artist. Here are a few pointers.
*Just because YOU were too cheap to pay cover, and came in halfway through the show, does not mean other people don’t want to hear/see what’s going on. Some of us paid money, and would actually like to feel good about having spent it.
*Think about what you want BEFORE you sidle up to the bar. Make your order as quick, and as quiet as you can – this is the polite thing to do. Some of us don’t want to waste the bartender’s time, and we’d rather you don’t waste it either.
*You have two hands. When they are held out flat, perpendicular to the floor and brought together quickly, they make a “clapping” sound. Doing this several times in succession is called “applause”. If there is an act on stage, use this particular method of showing your appreciation. (I know, I used the words “perpendicular and “succession”, so I realize this might be a stretch for some of you, but when you’re out in an audience, just watch what other people do that makes the performer happy – you’ll get the hang of it.)
*If you can’t hear the act well enough to react in the right places, you’re talking too loud. When the venue you are in bursts into laughter or applause, it’s probably a pretty good indication that people aren’t there just for the ambience. So shut the hell up and you might see some pretty decent entertainment.
*Cell phones are not a right, they’re a privilege. They can be checked like coats if you’re too stupid to figure out that your ringers can be made SILENT. Unless you’re expecting a birth or a death in the family, turn the damned thing off. And while we’re on the subject, if you’re expecting a birth or a death in the family, maybe a live show is not where you should be.
*If you are speaking, and you hear someone say “Ssh!”, don’t turn around and ask “Was that directed at me?” assume it was, and shut the hell up. Don’t wait until the performers actually have to yell into the microphone and say “if those $&*#@ would shut the $%@# up, I could continue”.
Last but not least, if you can’t manage to do any of the above things to make the entertainment scene a better place, I’m going to start indiscriminately smacking assholes at an entertainment venue near you, only I will wait until a break in the enmtertainment…
—idiots should just stop going to live entertainment venues
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.
This is how you KNOW Desi WASN’T on this stage.
If the “entertainer” can’t stun the audience into silent appreciation (MAKE then WANT to listen) or fill the dance floor with loud, laughing dancers they should be entertaining at the public library… shhhhhhhh
I have to admit the OP is right in the way of applause. What really gets me is when every sole in the venue is on the dance floor then just walk off with their partners showing no appreciation for the band, the music, the song, the dance… nothing. This seems more common with an older crowd than a younger one though. Since the old-timers invented applause one would think they’d do it when appropriate.
Some were trying to pick up the bartender, OP. Just wait your turn!
BUT nowhere does it say the entertainment consisted of musicians. If this was a comedy act, a skit, or a play I digress and agree people should shut off their phones and listen whether they “get it” or not, but then again, I would question the appropriateness of the venue for such an act if cell phone use was permitted.
If it was at a bar, aren’t there doormen?? What the fuck is wrong with them? Kick ppl out already, you dont have to wait till its time to kick their teeth in to do something….Your job is to keep the peace, ok and underage sluts out, so keep the peace and kick the disrespectful idiots out.
Kay, if the person on stage is not captivating a certain individual then they should LEAVE….its not the entertainer’s fault …..they cant make EVERYONE happy!
I think it depends on the bar and the type of music being played. Obviously this isn’t a big deal when you’re at a punk show, but if there’s a solo singer-songwriter up there and everyone else in the room is totally quiet, it should be common sense to shut up before you get shushed. That said, there are people who expect church-quiet and, let’s face it, that’s rarely going to happen.
Total agreement here.
I have only started going to live music again after a bit of a break.
I LOVE live music. I LOVE that people get up there on stage and put all their energy and emotion into something not only so personal, but something so damned difficult to do.
So, yes, enjoy the show, have a good time, and give the performers and fellow fans and music lovers some respect.
And quit checking your text messages on a tiny illuminated screen when there is something amazing happening right in front of you IN REAL LIFE.
You all having a hard time hearing the bands ‘eh !
Go to the Cunard Centre tonight…Oct 29/09 .there are 4 bands playing & you won’t have any problems hearing them.
But unless you like Metal…you probably won’t want to hear them !
* Some Lego builders are extremely talented…have you ever seen Lego land stuff?
* I’m slightly confused, because any show/play/event I’ve been to, you can’t just walk up to the bar in the middle of a performance. There is an intermission for bar time or a waiter/waitress serving you at your table. If it was a musical performance and you could hear someone ordering a drink at the bar then that is a sound issue for the venue.
* Why should ANYONE applaud if they don’t enjoy the performane?? That is such an American thing to do. That’s how shitty artists continue to produce crap…people keep letting them think they are good, when they suck!!!! I would like to think if someone stinks they would get booed off stage!
Wow, what a bitter entertainer.
I think it was at a comedy venue. Maybe in a hotel. Because the same thing happened to me when I went to see a friend perform and a big group of drunk idiots came in and were very loud and rude. When they were asked, discreetly, to be quiet, they lost it. Started screaming and flipping out. They finally got them out and promised everyone a free show, which we never did get.
Are all of these complaints from the same event? That would clear up some of the confusion…
Im pretty sure it doesn’t matter……The point is….have some respect, use some commun sense and if you dont like it GET THE FUCK OUT!!! Don’t ruin if for people that are liking it.
Jesus people!
Just to clarify, this was written in reference to the more “quiet” performances (open mics, spoken word, comedy, etc.) – although many of the points should be common courtesy… and I`ve never seen a venue post a notice that cell phones are not allowed…
I’m talking to those people who come into the establishment midway through someone’s performance and don’t have the courtesy to wait until the performer pauses before they start rearranging tables and chairs.
I’m talking to those people who have loud conversations or laugh uproariously while the performer onstage is introing a song about a serious topic. (Especially when they follow their conversation with `What did he just say?`)
I’m talking about those people who yell at the bartender for “3 of the same as last time” when the entire rest of the bar is quiet.
I’m talking about those people who walk in toward the end of the night because their friend is not on until second-last, and disrupt everyone else who paid cover to get in.
As for Kay`s comments about people leaving the dance floor without applauding – dancing to the band is a form of applause, IMO. (And before you jump on me about being `uninformed`, I am an entertainer, I just choose not to broadcast it at every opportunity.)
And I am actually in disagreement with the age of the non-applauders – I`ve been a pro entertainer for almost 20 years, and I find the under 25 crowd less likely to applaud…
This is just one of my major pet peeves, and felt that this post might make at least ONE person pay a little more attention to courtesy…
Maybe people don’t clap because you suck. Maybe people don’t pay attention to you because you suck. Maybe people can’t wait for you to finish your song to get a drink because you suck and the only way they can get through a show they were dragged to by their friend is to drown their misery, toute suite. Maybe people are so bored by your suckiness that they’d rather frantically check for non-existent text messages.
The onus is not the performer to properly entertain the audience, not on the audience to massage the delicate ego of the entertainer.
Exactly qwerty!
That is why I thought it was important to know if all of this happened at the same event. If you have a whole bunch of different groups of people not paying attention and not clapping, its probably a shitty performance. If its just one group of people ruining the whole thing for everyone else, then I think it was a shitty venue/security/management issue.
It drives me a little nutty when “entertainers,” especially songwriters, want to talk about what they’re about to do. If it’s such a great song and means so much to you we should be able to get that if you’d just get to the performance part. We can’t hear you anyway since your mic isn’t EQ’d for a chat.
The terrible silence as people file off the dance floor at the end of a song or four is NOT applause for the band. Tapping your foot during a good song is not acknowledgment nor applause for the band either. After 20 years, Gidget, you know that much.
qwerty, you’re right on the mark as usual IMO
Was this at the Seahorse or the Rebecca Cohn? Speaking during performance really depends on the background noise level. At a violin soloist show, yes turn your cellphone off, at open mic night at Reflections you’d be lucky to even hear it.
A lot of bars actually rely on people to buy drinks before, during and after the performance in order to make it worthwhile in the first place.
Even if a band is talented if I don’t feel entertained I won’t clap – it’s an empty gesture – besides chances are I already paid cover so that should cover anything I owe the performer.
If you were to “indiscriminately smack” assholes at entertainment venues you’d no doubt A) be barred B) indiscriminately have your ass kicked on the sidewalk out front.
Ha, more Desi talk. Kay stopped taking her schizo-meds and is already being delusional again 😀
Try doing stand-up.
You’d last 2 seconds.
1) Yes, this bitch was written about a particular show; all of the things I mentioned were perpetrated by a group of about 6 people who sauntered in toward the end of the show, but most of the things discussed in this bitch I have seen at other venues…
2)QWERTY: You are correct, but very often I find the audience is not necessarily there to *be* entertained – sometimes they are just going to the local watering hole to have a few, and they’re not expecting live entertainment. Since the idea of people performing is foreign to these folks, they have no idea how to react, which is part of why I wrote this bitch in the first place – think of it as instructions for those people who are “surpised” by an event…
3) KAY: I agree that not every song, sketch, poem, etc. needs an introduction, but you, of all people, who have an entertainer as a husband (assuming this is true), should surely know that there are times when the entertainer needs to tune an instrument, intro other performers, start winding down the performance, or give it some flow. Dead air is far less desirable than *GASP* an introduction. And, again, as you *should be aware*, a good sound man with a proper set list can actually EQ a mic for “chatting”.
I have personally *never* had “terrible silence as people file off the dance floor”, but I *do* know that people don’t generally get on the dance floor if the band bites ass, so for those of us who know that you’re not going to get frenetic applause for every song played at a local pub, *I* consider it a compliment when people dance – or when an entire bar is singing along, or people are tapping their feet, and/or tabletop. (When music is what I am performing, when I am doing other types of performances, there are other types of non-applause that are *barely* acceptable… like a fiver in my g-string… KIDDING!) Obviously, “the clap” is preferable (at least in the first of those situations…)
4) MURDER JUNKIE: Yes, bars/establishments who sell liquor expect people to buy it. I certainly wouldn’t make a whole lot of cash if the venues I play close down for lack of sales. My point is, screaming out at a quiet point for another round is not necessarily polite.
And I agree that you should be entertained to show appreciation, but these greasers weren’t even listening, so how would they know whether they were entertained? However, paying cover does not exempt you from showing appreciation for someone’s work. Generally speaking, cover charge does not go to the act. For small venue organized shows, ticket sales or admission are to cover overhead for the organizers, NOT for the performers, who usually get paid a set fee by the establishment – or in the case of the performance this bitch was written about, did it voluntarily for a good cause. (**PLEASE NOTE MY USAGE OF TERMS LIKE “GENERALLY AND USUALLY”).
At the very least, *everybody* deserves the chance to do their job well. You wouldn’t want to do *your* job with somebody screaming at the top of their lungs, or missing hearing vital information because they were blatantly ignoring your efforts to communicate with them.
I’m just asking people to give a little more thought to the work that goes into any type of performance, and maybe actually take the time to *find out* whether you appreciate it before you basically give a public “fuck you” to someone who’s worked hard enough to be able to do what they love for a living.
Filling the dance floor is only a sign that the crowd likes your band if you play dance(able) music, lol.
If, however, you are singing your morose cover of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and some girl comes out and starts doing the seagull, she’s probably just high…
My favorite was a guy in Montreal that came out and tore off his own T-shirt into pieces and ate it in front of us…I took that as the ultimate compliment at the time. Later I found out he was a regular, with, I presume, a full closet and a healthy appetite for cotton…
Years ago in Kentville at the Big Apple, a scruffy bloke came up and asked to sing a cover of “Walk of Life” with us. We kinda faked through it, and this guy shouted the lyrics atonely into the wireless mic while strutting around the dance floor…the audience was cracking up…I couldn’t quite see it was THAT funny – until after the set and they told us – it was one of the Goehlers.
Hmmm.
Better to play non-bar venues IMO, if you want the audience’s rapt attention, although those gigs are hard to get in this “Beer Parlour-by-the-Sea”…
Halifax especially has a lot of noisey bar-goers who see the acts as a back-drop to the bar “scene”, Lower-Deck style,
Contrary to what someone said, some idiots in the audience won’t shut up no matter who’s playing…I only need point to The U2 concert where the drunks wouldn’t shut up for Van Morrison, until Bono had to come out and say “Do you know who this fucking is?”
Or Frank Zappa, peace be upon him, who admonished the rowdy Halifax audience to “Shut up and sit down” before he would play another note…they did, and he did…
😉
Ya , we were lucky he didn’t throw muffins at us………steaming muffins!……..or steaming shit!……Oh crap….we were even luckier for that! Or he could of addressed us as C L A S S!!……C – L – A – S – S!!!
Last nights show at the Cunard Center…you couldn’t hear a conversation screamed into your ear !
You sure as hell couldn’t hear anyone, except the band,anywhere until you got out on the street & it was clean. A very nice sound system, owned by a local company as well.
Not my taste in music, but it was well attended, & they all seemed to be having a good time.
I bet you applauded, More? You clearly paid at least *some* attention, even though it wasn’t your “cup of tea” 🙂
I just felt really bad for the folks at the other show I saw recently that prompted my bitch.
Rock & Roll is a viscous game. That it is.
I agree with Gidget, 100%. I don’t care where you are, or what you’re doing, but if your behavior is ruining it for someone else, you need to grow up, and fuck off. That includes spilling drinks on people, screaming over the music about stupid, irrelevant shit, and my personal fave, standing dead-center stage, back turned to the musician(s), carrying on assine conversations. I’ve seen this happen at Marquee/Paragon countless times. If you’re not interested in what’s going on onstage, make way for those of us that are.
Basically, I think Gidget is trying to get across that it’s OKAY to use your manners in everyday activities, and to use your indoor voice when appropriate.
And Kay, I think you mean “vicious”. Unless you mean rock and roll is a gelatinous liquid.