Heartland

Interesting article on the 6Music page today

What grinds your gears about gigs?


apart from the absence of a human bass player

Crap beer in the venues.

Seriously - I'd love to be able to go to a gig and actually have a few nice beers to choose from instead of the usual pissy rubbish. It can't be hugely difficult.

mh wrote:Crap beer in the venues.

^^^^^
Combined with the flimsiest plastic glasses that eject half your pint all over your feet as soon as you pick it up with the slightest of grips

Trying to see the band through a sea of camera-phones and people talking are probably the worst from the list on the article.

My other pet peeve is when you've been standing near the front for ages and some beefy bastard barges in front of you and starts pogoing on your feet.

I'd like to say the phones, but then again all those videos we like of the Sisters on stage have to come from somewhere..


Talkers though, they can get in the sea.

Administration fees really p*ss me off. Even when you go and pick up the ticket. What the f**k have they done to charge you "administration" - they have just f**king stood there and wound me up by explaining why they have to charge me administration fees.

Another thing is that no matter where I stand there always manages to be someone taller in front of me. I am not a short chap but this makes no difference. The largest people in the crowd always gravitate to just in front of me.

This one is more difficult to explain and doesn't bother me as much now that I am older. But the front near the stage (the moshpit) is reserved for those folk that like to celebrate the music by wild dancing - if it is that kind of band. It annoys me when you get folk that just stand there and get in the way.

The worst thing to happen (mainly at festivals) is when people come during breaks with full (stinking) meals including sauces of all sorts to the front rows ... ...

and dispose of the remains of their meals to the floor ... ...

mh wrote:Crap beer in the venues.

Seriously - I'd love to be able to go to a gig and actually have a few nice beers to choose from instead of the usual pissy rubbish. It can't be hugely difficult.

Really? Things in the US seem to have vastly improved on that front over the last 10-15 years.

All the small people stood at the back moaning that they can't see the stage for us taller people that are stood at the Front...... because we arrived early as we wanted to see the support band(s) instead of hanging around the bar or the merch table before the main act were due to start

Big Si wrote:hanging around the bar:

Who does that?!

Gah. I NEVER moan about not being able to see. It's a given. What I do moan about is taller people standing right in front of me, practically on my toes, because they haven't even noticed that I'm there. They don't do it to Mr S. Last week at the Sissies about 4 people did this to me and I could have inhaled their leather jackets. Had to push two of them away so I could breathe - it wasn't crowded where we stood. I also mind the people who push others out of the way to get forward. I've been sent flying by these people.
Talkers. If you want to talk about crap, don't come to the gig. You're not watching and I can't hear the band over you.
'Moshers' aka complete wankers who really don't care about anyone around them. Like the fuckwit who sent me flying at the Smurphs gig because it's oh so cool and grown up and fun to play 'shoving your mate about when we've had a few' in a crowd of dancers where there wasn't even a mosh pit. That hurt, and my head missed the edge of the stage by inches. (I'm cross about this, can you tell?) If that was a one off, I'd not be so cross!
Oh, and people who are in the front two rows and don't move a muscle, cheer, sing along or even smile for the entire gig. What's the point of that?

The kind of twit who, after you've stood down the front throughout the support act, thinks it's ok to shove past you once the main act comes on.

Similarly, drunk women of an age when they really ought to know better, who spend the gig desperately trying to catch the singer's attention.
I'm not saying men never do this, but so far I've never encountered any...

not that it happens often but finding yourself in a non-participating area of the audience where singing along gets you frowned at.

Oh, I have, Erudite. Last time was last Saturday.

Always found in front of me:

Too tall man

Farty man

Snoggy couple

Bare chested sweaty bouncy man (usually of an age)


Everything else I can about deal with

emilystrange wrote:Oh, I have, Erudite. Last time was last Saturday.

Yeah, well, so long as you're not standing directly in front of me.

if i was, you'd be able to see directly over my head!
there ar several on here that will testify to that

Maybe not - my arse is pretty close to the ground, too.

we need to stick together then

I always end up next to a tone deaf wannabe lead singer, who belts out the lyrics (mostly correctly) to every track at top volume, drowning out the artiste you've spent a fortune and waited months to see. This is particularly a problem with artistes who mumble over an already low sound setting Even worse, unlike many of the hazards detailed above (sweaty topless man, the giant etc) there is no indication until the first song begins that this issue will arise, so at busier gigs it can be hard to escape.

Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:I always end up next to a tone deaf wannabe lead singer, who belts out the lyrics (mostly correctly) to every track at top volume, drowning out the artiste you've spent a fortune and waited months to see. This is particularly a problem with artistes who mumble over an already low sound setting Even worse, unlike many of the hazards detailed above (sweaty topless man, the giant etc) there is no indication until the first song begins that this issue will arise, so at busier gigs it can be hard to escape.

I swear sweaty topless man appears out of nowhere. You can be in the same place all show & suddenly he materialises out of thin air.

Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:I always end up next to a tone deaf wannabe lead singer, who belts out the lyrics (mostly correctly) to every track at top volume, drowning out the artiste you've spent a fortune and waited months to see. This is particularly a problem with artistes who mumble over an already low sound setting Even worse, unlike many of the hazards detailed above (sweaty topless man, the giant etc) there is no indication until the first song begins that this issue will arise, so at busier gigs it can be hard to escape.

No-one sings flatter than the european contingent of the Sisters' travelling choir

Festivals that don't do day tickets. Why should I have to sell a kidney to watch the one or two bands I want to see on the Friday night?

markfiend wrote:Trying to see the band through a sea of camera-phones and people talking are probably the worst from the list on the article.

THIS. At about time some band come up with the idead of painballin' those assholes' phones. The KLF, are you reading this? Mind, I take one or two pictures myself when I really like a band on stage, but I'm not filming the whole f**king show front row!

markfiend also wrote:My other pet peeve is when you've been standing near the front for ages and some beefy bastard barges in front of you and starts pogoing on your feet.

That's easily remedied for I wear Harleys and I can do a mean pogo-on-foot myself. I even specialised in finding their pinky toe and go flamenco all over that lil' bastard.
You wanna be front row, come and stand with the lot of us half an hour before the soundcheck starts.

IZ.

Izzy HaveMercy wrote:
I even specialised in finding their pinky toe and go flamenco all over that lil' bastard.