Mobile phones in the air filming concerts

[Johnny Canuck3]

The filming of concerts on phones is less to do with preserving the moment for personal enjoyment but more for posting up on facebook in a kind of show off way IMO. After all, why would you bother filming anything when there are 50 other people filming it ahead of you with a better angle and the footage is likely to show up on the youtube within hours..

Probably for the same reason if you go to the Grand Canyon, 50 people will be filming/photographing the place, even though there are way better photos and videos available. Also, chances are good that most of those holiday videos never get watched. They still get made, though. Seems to be human nature.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

This was there scene when I was at the Louvre a couple of years back, you couldn't get near the Mona Lisa for hoards of people hankering to get a photo of it. Kind of ruined the experience in much the same way.

*note the ipad also

When I first saw the Mona Lisa in the early 70s, it was just as hard to get close, even though no photos were allowed at that time.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

I it was once just lit fag lighters held aloft.

 

[trashpony]

I really hope they ban tablets at events. There was a wall of them at the foal's nativity plus one mum kneeling in the aisle just in front of my seat with a massive camera with a telephoto lens. At a fucking infant school nativity

 

[SpookyFrank]

This was there scene when I was at the Louvre a couple of years back, you couldn't get near the Mona Lisa for hoards of people hankering to get a photo of it. Kind of ruined the experience in much the same way.

*note the ipad also

I went about ten years ago before camera phones really took off and the scene was the same, only the gawpers had normal cameras instead.

Fuck knows why you'd even want a crappy phone picture of the mona lisa, it's not like reproductions are hard to come by is it? The museum shop just down the corridor has billions of them. I suspect it's just to prove to yourself that you've seen it in real life, although if you were paying attention to the picture instead of your iphone screen you'd probably be more likely to remember the occasion.

To be honest I found the Mona Lisa underwhelming, not least thanks to the glare reflecting off the Tom Hanks-proof glass. There are paintings in there by the likes of Bosch which people were walking past without a second glance

 

[SpookyFrank]

I really hope they ban tablets at events. There was a wall of them at the foal's nativity plus one mum kneeling in the aisle just in front of my seat with a massive camera with a telephoto lens. At a fucking infant school nativity

The very cruelest thing you can do to your child is film it in a school play and keep the footage forever.

I'm not gonna film my parents making twats of themselves when alzheimers has reduced them to a mental age of six because it would be in extremely poor taste to do so. Why is doing the same thing to an actual six year old, who has been conned by adults into behaving in all sorts of ridiculous ways, seen as normal and acceptable?

And what with the world as it is nowadays, I think a universal, 'no filming in a primary school' rule would probably be no bad thing.

 

[blossie33]

Personally, I have no desire to film a concert in my mobile. I just go to enjoy the music not worry about filming something that probably wouldn't turn out very well.
I don't take my mobile out anyway, the less I carry with me the better!

 

[DaleyMale]

I really hope they ban tablets at events. There was a wall of them at the foal's nativity plus one mum kneeling in the aisle just in front of my seat with a massive camera with a telephoto lens. At a fucking infant school nativity

When our kids were at infants, the school had a camera at the back of the hall during all plays etc.

The very cruelest thing you can do to your child is film it in a school play and keep the footage forever.

I'm not gonna film my parents making twats of themselves when alzheimers has reduced them to a mental age of six because it would be in extremely poor taste to do so. Why is doing the same thing to an actual six year old, who has been conned by adults into behaving in all sorts of ridiculous ways, seen as normal and acceptable?

And what with the world as it is nowadays, I think a universal, 'no filming in a primary school' rule would probably be no bad thing.

The very cruelest thing you can do to your child is film it in a school play and keep the footage forever.

I'm not gonna film my parents making twats of themselves when alzheimers has reduced them to a mental age of six because it would be in extremely poor taste to do so. Why is doing the same thing to an actual six year old, who has been conned by adults into behaving in all sorts of ridiculous ways, seen as normal and acceptable?

And what with the world as it is nowadays, I think a universal, 'no filming in a primary school' rule would probably be no bad thing.

What sort of parent are you that doesn't want to watch their child squirm uncomfortably on the sofa next to their prospective life partner,( let's say when their in their early twenties,) watching themselves dressed as a Balthazar, picking at monster nouggie and wiping it on the myrrh before handing to the Virgin Mary.

Not to mention the montage of stills & video clips, shown at the wedding reception, illustrating all those character forming moments of their lives from birth, through childhood & adolescence up to the time they met their partner.

What has the world come to?

 

[skyscraper101]

I went about ten years ago before camera phones really took off and the scene was the same, only the gawpers had normal cameras instead.

Fuck knows why you'd even want a crappy phone picture of the mona lisa, it's not like reproductions are hard to come by is it? The museum shop just down the corridor has billions of them. I suspect it's just to prove to yourself that you've seen it in real life, although if you were paying attention to the picture instead of your iphone screen you'd probably be more likely to remember the occasion.

To be honest I found the Mona Lisa underwhelming, not least thanks to the glare reflecting off the Tom Hanks-proof glass. There are paintings in there by the likes of Bosch which people were walking past without a second glance

I had much the same feeling about it. Such frenzy and hype about it and no way to actually see it properly. Then there was Van Goghs sunflowers pic which you can actually touch in the Van Gogh museum - if you wanted.

 

[ska invita]

What's the etiquette when you've paid a hefty wedge to see a band in comfort sitting down at the Hammersmith Apollo in the upper tier when a group of people sitting in front of you suddenly stand up and start dancing when the band starts playing?
Happened not to me but a bloke in the next section of the crowd - he looked incredibly pissed off but didn't say anything for some reason.
If it had been me a polite "sit the fuck down" would have probably been my call.

Personally if people are up and dancing i think get up and join them is default.

last time i was in the upper tier of hammersmith apollo was to see my bloody valentine and some dickhead in front of us kept checking his fucking iphone for god knows what reason throughout- nearly ruined the gig for me other than i use him as a figure of hate for all thats wrong with the western world.

Now, I'm as guilty as the next person of taking a few photos at concerts, but there seems to be a growing trend for people to hold their phones aloft for the entire show, usually while they stand right in front of the act.

do you have any thoughts as to where the line is? Is the whole show worse than half the show? Do you think members of the public should be asked permission to have their photos taken? What are your red lines are...

 

[Silva]

I'm usually lucky (or lack of social life, which is more likely) to always be in the first row of concerts, and I take around a dozen photos from each band. However, I'm considerate enough to block the light of the camera screen with my hand or face because yes, it's fucking annoying. At this point, they might as well keep everything lighted up because it might be less distracting than dozens of camera screens.

People who want to video stuff should be pushed to the sides of the stage. But hey, at least they're not the wankers who can spend a good part of the gig taking selfies with the band on the background, usually in EXTREEM ANGLES.

 

[Part 2]

It's one of the things I hate most about gigs currently. When a woman in front of him did it, my mate put his hands round her eyes and told her that was what he could see.

At Nick Cave's last Manchester show mid song he said something about the devil with an iPhone in his hand but was happy enough to pose for the camera.

Lykke Li played one song at Manchester Acedemy then made a very pleasant request for people to enjoy the moment and put their cameras away. It worked very well and I saw only one fella grab one quick snap through the rest of the gig, (although Youtube suggests there were a few more videoing).

 

[ck]

This was there scene when I was at the Louvre a couple of years back, you couldn't get near the Mona Lisa for hoards of people hankering to get a photo of it. Kind of ruined the experience in much the same way.

*note the ipad also

taking photo's of something that is SO readily available...?! and not that amazing in the first place.

 

[billy_bob]

Concerts should operate like the courts. No filming or photography,with only artists drawings available to buy after the show.

View attachment 52786

£30

I have a lovely mental image of him off the Fast Show sitting down the front at, say, a Killing Joke gig with an easel.

"Black, black! What's for tea mother, shadows and lies....on toast?"

 

[DaleyMale]

There's a few in that pic filming in portrait view

 

[Yossarian]

I saw The Cure last night and when the guy in front of me held his phone in the air and started filming as soon as they came on, I thought, "oh fuck, this idiot's going to be blocking my view for the entire concert."

When he dropped it 30 seconds later I thought for a second that I must have developed psychic powers. I don't think the phone was wrecked but I didn't see much of it over the next couple of hours

 

[platinumsage]

 

[Part 2]

Lykke Li played one song at Manchester Acedemy then made a very pleasant request for people to enjoy the moment and put their cameras away. It worked very well and I saw only one fella grab one quick snap through the rest of the gig, (although Youtube suggests there were a few more videoing).

The next time I saw her a few years later she was positively encouraging the whole crowd to get their phones out. I wondered if management had told her she needed to maximize her social media exposure.

It's something I'm guilty of now. I usually get 30 seconds here and there at gigs, telling myself it'll be an aid to my rapidly failing memory when dementia finally sets in.

 

[skyscraper101]

I don't mind people grabbing a few seconds for social media or sending their mates or whatever, but people who capture entire gigs and spend the whole time obscuring things for people behind are annoying and selfish. And for what, some shitty phone video with poor sound.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't mind people grabbing a few seconds for social media or sending their mates or whatever, but people who capture entire gigs and spend the whole time obscuring things for people behind are annoying and selfish. And for what, some shitty phone video with poor sound.

My partner says things like that you should look at and enjoy live, where's the point in your memory of the gig being filming it, badly

 

[spitfire]

I like taking the odd photo at gigs, the only time I did record a full song was IDLES doing GREAT at Kentish Town in full for my daughter as we sing it together on Friday nights and she loves it.

Is there a thread for gig photo's? There should be, if there isn't I'll start one.

 

[CNT36]

I do wonder when people watch those videos. I did film a song last night as someone couldn't make it. It was one of the longer songs. Luckily being a hard-core gig it was 33 seconds long.

 

[hitmouse]

Just remembered when Mitski very politely asked her fans to put their phones away and she got so much shit for it she had to delete her post:

A Beloved Indie Rocker Asked Fans to Put Their Phones Down. Then Things Got Ugly.

The notoriously private Mitski started a very public debate about who’s really calling the shots.

slate.com

On Thursday, Feb. 24, a note appeared on indie musician Mitski’s Twitter account. “Hello!” it read. “I wanted to speak with you about phones at shows. … Sometimes when I see people filming entire songs or whole sets, it makes me feel as though we are not here together.”

It was a simple request, one that the average music fan would likely scroll by without so much as raising an eyebrow. Live music, Mitski continued, offers “the feeling of connection, of sharing a dream, and remembering that we have a brief miraculous moment of being alive at the same time.” But when her fans watch her perform live through their phone screens, she said, “it makes me feel as though those of us on stage are being taken from and consumed as content.”

Despite the post’s unobtrusive nature, it triggered a fiery debate. But in the combative, hyper-emotional world of Mitski fans, the response it garnered comes with the territory.

While Mitski wrote the note, she wasn’t the one who actually uploaded it to Twitter: Her management team now runs her social media accounts, after the artist quit both social media and touring entirely in 2019. In the years before then—before she was a mainstream music darling topping “best of” lists—Mitski kept an active online presence. But after years on the road touring with her 2018 album Be the Cowboy, she took a hiatus from the public eye, only to reemerge two years later to release Laurel Hell, a gloomy synth-pop hallucination of an album that dropped this February.

The pushback her innocuous Twitter note received might explain some of why Mitski chose to withdraw from her fans, and everyone else, in the first place. In response to her plea to put the phones down during her current tour, followers lashed out. One Twitter user replied, “Bestie that’s great and all, but some of us have mental health issues that cause dissociation & i film to remember the moment i’m not looking at my phone the entire time just to press record on.” Other fans piled on to that sentiment, claiming that ADHD and depression necessitated their reliance on their phones. Eventually, the response grew so fervent and negative that her management team deleted the tweet.

 

[DJWrongspeed]

I don't mind people grabbing a few seconds for social media or sending their mates or whatever, but people who capture entire gigs and spend the whole time obscuring things for people behind are annoying and selfish. And for what, some shitty phone video with poor sound.

I find it infuriating. A friend sent me a few clips of a gig we went to recently …it meant nothing. As one commenter said “Why miniaturise your life?” I wish only to maximise experience.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Couple of decent lasers from the stage, sweep the crowd with them, several hundred knackered phones. Sorted.

 

[shambler]

All photography should be banned at gigs and clubs, end of. Serves no purpose other than to mythologise or boast

 

[PR1Berske]

Now, I'm as guilty as the next person of taking a few photos at concerts, but there seems to be a growing trend for people to hold their phones aloft for the entire show, usually while they stand right in front of the act.

Apart from the fact that it can't be a lot of fun holding up your phone for so long, it must be even less fun for the people behind.

View attachment 52748

This was the view at the Brixton Fridge a few days ago. Amusingly, I was told at the door that Ziggy Marley has insisted on a "strict no cameras policy."

What's interesting to me is the date of this post, because I'm stunned it was so prominent so many years ago! My memory is of gigs pre-2020 having a few phones in the air, not as many as this.

The genies can't be put back in the bottle. I've seen footage of artists I've never heard of where the venue might as well have not bothered with lighting.

 

[hitmouse]

All photography should be banned at gigs and clubs, end of. Serves no purpose other than to mythologise or boast

I mean, I'm as sympathetic to the anti-phone cause as anyone else, but where would music scenes be without mythologising and boasting?

 

[Karl Masks]

Now, I'm as guilty as the next person of taking a few photos at concerts, but there seems to be a growing trend for people to hold their phones aloft for the entire show, usually while they stand right in front of the act.

Apart from the fact that it can't be a lot of fun holding up your phone for so long, it must be even less fun for the people behind.

View attachment 52748

This was the view at the Brixton Fridge a few days ago. Amusingly, I was told at the door that Ziggy Marley has insisted on a "strict no cameras policy."

No Camera No Cry

 

[gosub]

I mean, I'm as sympathetic to the anti-phone cause as anyone else, but where would music scenes be without mythologising and boasting?

Full of people actually in the moment