FROM camping outside for eight hours, to blocking your view in increasingly inventive ways, here’s how youngsters are ruining concerts.
Camping out
Whatever happened to the time-honoured tradition of barging your way to the front? Now queues of teenagers camp outside even small venues to secure a spot by the barrier. By the time the gig starts, every song is interrupted four times because another 17-year-old just fainted from dehydration and only eating Maoams for the past 10 hours.
Filming songs
You go to a gig to see your favourite artist in the flesh. Unfortunately you’ll be forced to watch said artist through hundreds of phone screens thrust in the air so the Gen Zers in front of you can get four likes and a heart emoji on their shaky TikTok video. Concerts now look like the TV section at Currys.
Holding up a big sign
If your view isn’t blocked by a TikTok livestream, it probably will be blocked by an A2 cardboard sign reading ‘Taylor pleeease play Blank Space’. Of course she’s going to play Blank Space. But now when she does, the ten rows behind you can only see the blank space on the back of your monstrous bubble-written sign.
Giving the artist their phone
Harry Styles is there to sing songs in a sparkly jumpsuit. He’s not there to take on-stage selfies and chat to your parents over FaceTime. You came to hear Sign of the Times, but you have to wait because Lola in the front row wanted Harry to call her grandma and ask what she had for tea.
Throwing stuff
Cardi B recently threw her microphone at a fan who chucked a drink at her. Good on her. When did gigs become about dousing singers in IPA? A fan recently emptied their mother’s ashes on stage at a P!nk concert; Harry Styles has been pelted with chicken nuggets. Get a grip. If you want to throw things, be socially responsible and get Mumford & Sons with a bottle of piss.
