Last week, we went to see Jóhann Jóhannsson at The Triple Door. The show was his Seattle debut and I was excited to hear Jóhann perform with a string quartet. We were seated at a table toward the back of the theater where other folks had purchased “standing room only” tickets. I didn’t think anything of the folks standing near our tables since we were at The Triple Door and I’ve always enjoyed concerts with minimal distraction.
That was until a group of people behind our table decided to hold a conversation as the opening artists were performing onstage. It wasn’t bad enough that people thought they were more important than the musicians, but other people around us decided to join in the sense of entitlement and talk amongst themselves.
I had absolutely no problem turning around, looking at one of the women dead in the eyes, and giving her a look that said, “You and I both know that I will get off my chair, grab you by your distressed hair, and drag you out of this theater if you do not shut the hell up this very moment.” I have mastered the art of the deathly cold stare. She and her friends quickly made tracks for another area of the theater.
I turned to my left where another two women decided that their conversation was also more important than the musicians. I shushed the woman into silence. Literally. I held my finger to my lips as I looked straight at her. At first, the woman was shocked by what she was being told by a complete stranger – the nerve! – but then quickly, quietly acquiesced.
This isn’t the first time I have had to ask/tell people to shut the hell up during a band’s performance. More often than not, I try to attend shows where the volume is so inexplicably loud that the crowd has no other choice but to watch the show. For those times when I want to see an artist with a softer side, I pray for a venue where paid staff swiftly remove entitled patrons from the theater.
I want to know when it became all right for people to talk during a musician’s performance. How is it that we still eschew people who have the audacity to talk during a concert of a symphony orchestra, but we let it slide when folks are too entitled to take their conversations outside a venue?
I wish I could paint a broad stroke and blame everything on hipsters but, alas, they are only part of the problem. To be honest, I am slowly warming up to the idea of hipsters. I mean, who would work at Whole Foods? It’s not as if those shelves are gonna stack themselves.
And I would love nothing more to attribute society’s sense of entitlement on a particular generation, but honestly this lack of etiquette spans generations. It has gotten to the point where I no longer want to see my favorite artists perform live because I will spend most of the evening flying into a rage because some yokel needs to tell his friend about something totally unrelated to the artists or the venue.
When Jóhann returns to Seattle, I hope he chooses another venue where “standing room only” tickets will not be sold and the theater staff will take swift action against any and all patrons who feel it’s important to talk with their friends during a performance. I love his music but I hate his fans.