I think I have been to about 1,000 gigs. I had a spreadsheet listing them all, but it got corrupted. That was at over 660 back in 2017, and 6 years of sweaty venues have passed Even allowing for COVID, I am averaging 50 a year, so it’s a safe bet…over a 1,000 gigs…. I have got old, greyer, plumper and more likely to leave before the end of the gig to get home earlier. But the gigs still keep coming.
Sounds a lot? It's NOTHING compared to Roger Mairlot (AKA the Gigslut), the 74 year old who sees a band virtually every night, and once saw gigs on 725 consecutive nights - see recent Guardian article - he is a legend and as I slowly get closer and closer to retirement perhap I will join him...
People at gigs are complete Blunts...
Not only have gigs continued to dominate my social life, another thing that has not changed is the gob-smacking ability of fellow gig-goers to be selfish, ignorant arseholes. I need to watch my blood pressure these days, but these bastards do not help this...I’d drop the “C” bomb here normally, but I know some friends have strong views on its use, so I am trying to minimise deploying that particular vulgarity…more on this later…
I remain baffled that people go to gigs and then spend the whole show ruining the evening for other people. Whilst our educational system is in a shockingly poor state these days (Hey, Tories….leave those schools alone), most of these people are old enough to know better.
And gigs aren’t cheap – people are handing over wads of cash to talk incessantly, watch the whole show through their phone and just spoil the whole thing for everyone else.
Sexual harassment and assault at gigs
Before we go into the ten most heinous gig sins, let’s get the really, truly appalling one out of the way first. I am a middle class, white, heterosexual man, so in relation to other people my life is pretty safe. I am baffled that men want to commit acts of sexual harassment and worse anywhere, but at a gig? It just astounds me. I am not going to trivialise this dreadful thing by adding it to a list. But it has happened. It still happens, and although bands are getting better at calling it out, and fabulous organisations like Safe Gigs For Women are campaigning to improve artists', venues' and gig-goers' understanding of the issue, how to minimise the risk and how to support women at gigs, it will sadly I fear still continue.
Picture of my friend Mel fighting the good gig fight...
Everything I whinge and moan about pales in significance to the shadow this fact throws over the wonder that is the UK’s live music scene. I am and will I fear remain, ashamed of what my gender is capable of doing. And I am lucky, in all likelihood I won’t ever experience this myself. How terrible it’s even a consideration for some of my friends when they see a band.
Back to the Blunts...
Right, that’s covered, let’s get to the full-on whinge list of 10 bad gig behaviours. Mostly limited to gig-goers, but one or two apply to artists as well. I said we would return to the “C” bomb – each crime will be rated in terms of where it sits on the James Blunt scale (no disrespect to the lovely Mr Blunt himself, though frankly his songs are not my cup of tea – shame, as he seems a really decent chap). Modern cockney rhyming slang though is a fabulous thing…
1 is a pretty mild James Blunt, 10 is the absolute worst James Blunt you can imagine...Got it? Right, here goes….
11. Welcome to the Cheap Seats – lost in a crowd
If you are at a seated gig, you have a ticket. That ticket has a row and a number. Usually a letter and a number to indicate the row and seat. Larger venues might throw in a block as well.
So...three things you might have to understand:
· Block - xxx
· Row - xx
· Seat x
Still not sure? I've marked it up for you on this pristine 1984 ticket for Marillion at the Hammersmith Odeon (a gig I was sadly not at - my first time seeing Marillion is detailed here!). But hopefully, you'll agree, this is not a complicated thing to understand...
But some people seem to find this epically hard to comprehend. I mean, how and why? They turn up late, stand in the aisles, blocking your view, looking at their ticket, as if they have been asked to explain what E=MC2 actually means (the equation, not the excellent song by Big Audio Dynamite).
Worse, they then get it wrong and barge their way down the wrong aisles, berating people who are sat in their correct seats, because these people cannot manage to work out directions using three, crystal clear indicators to find their way. They never say sorry and always look indignant, as if somehow the venue has tricked them, or it’s someone else’s fault. I know it’s dark (especially if you’re late), but phones have lights and venues have staff.
I literally cannot understand how they manage in every day life. And genuinely worry that I share a taste in music with these people. These people voted for Brexit, I swear…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
It’s a just a 1 James Blunt - it usually ends by the first two songs, it’s only at seated gigs...and you’ve got to feel a little sorry for them, as well as buckets of contempt – I doubt they can even manage the trip to Tescos each week…and imagine what they do when Tescos routinely moves its goods around the store? They must be there for days....
10. Time Is Running Out….late arrivals at gigs
I live and work in London, and have done for nearly 30 years – you’re a true Londoner if you are already mentally working out how you get home when you arrive somewhere. And proper Londoners know exactly how to get where they’re going on time and how long it will take.
So, lateness at a gig is inexcusable. BUT. There’s a caveat here. Things go wrong, trains get delayed, buses breakdown and one quick beer becomes five…it happens.
But if you arrive late, you don’t have some God-given right to barge your way passed everyone to get to the front. And you certainly don’t have the right to square up to people who don’t move and scream “it’s a gig, man!” and shove your way past. And frankly, if you use call people “man” like some deluded hippy, you deserve a good kicking.
If you were really such a massive fan, you’d be there early. This behaviour is almost exclusively men trying to impress someone they are trying to shag, or repressed lads who don’t realise they are really trying to impress someone they want to shag…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
It’s a full on 2 James Blunts this time:
It’s annoying, but it doesn’t happen that often and again, there is a pity element here…these people are just tragic. I often stick my foot out and trip them up as they barge passed…you can get away with a lot in a dark gig venue…
9. Pissing in the wind…and in the crowd
Gigs and beer are synonymous…I don’t think I have ever seen a band and not had at least one pint….you get in, get settled, grab a beer and catch up with your mates until the band hit the stage.
But beers and bladders mean at some stage, you’ll need to go to the loo. But that’s too much for some people. For women, I understand that the lack of adequate and sufficient loos is a challenge, and jumping into the men’s is fully acceptable – fight the patriarchy! I saw Snow Patrol in Edinburgh at Murrayfield stadium, which has startlingly few toilets for women…so two Irish women came in the gents…they decided that the queue for the cubicles was still too long, so they squatted down over the urinals, not a care in the world on them, and were back out and in the crowd minutes later…no complicated “she-wees” for them – they were magnificent.
But the guys who just piss in the venue or in the field amongst the crowd are unbelievable…we saw Noel Gallagher at Clapham in 2015 and some bucket hatted, sunburnt stereotypical Oasis fan, sunglasses, chain, Man City shirt, just got his tiny cock out amongst the crowd and took a piss there and then. My friend was an off-duty police officer and had had a couple of beers, so we made a run for it, before she’d be obliged to arrest him…and frankly, the crowd were going to dish out some natural justice….
These people are just the scum of the earth. It’s why I’ll never see Noel or Liam again…though Noel’s insistence on playing some of Oasis’ worst songs plays a big part in that too. Little By Little? Really? Jesus...
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
Technically, I would give this a much higher score, but again, it doesn’t happen that often, and it’s a low score, because the women at Murrayfield still make me giggle…so it’s a 3 on the Blunt scale…
8. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me…snogging/shagging at gigs
I’ve pulled at a gig. In fact me and Mrs JO’B’s first snog was at a gig (thanks Florence + The Machine). Gigs and a certain romance go hand in hand (or is that glove?). But a quick snog at the end, some nervous hand holding and disappearing to find a cab home are all good.
It’s the couple eating each other’s faces off for the entire show that baffle me. Literally, get a room! I’ve seen one couple at a festival I swear were shagging…fair play if you’re an exhibitionist, but I am not a voyeur, so please…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
It’s a 4…happens more often than you think, and if you are truly unable to wait until you get outside, head to the back, and good luck to you!
7. Sing It Back….actually, don’t…
This is difficult. I can’t sing. I used to be able to – I was in the school choir and had a fab voice…then mother nature kicked in and it was gone…
So, I will yell along to some songs, but only when I am safe in the knowledge that I will be drowned out in the crowd, and not inflicting my tuneless wail on anyone…when we saw Rick Astley and Blossoms belting out a set of Smiths’ classics, I was safely and cheerily able to scream the lyrics to my heart’s content, as the whole crowd sang everything….I was safely lost in the noise and (I hope) didn’t ruin it for anyone…
But…I have been at gigs where people have insisted on drowning out the band with their demented caterwaul…I saw Fish (ex-singer of progressive legends Marillion) playing the whole of his former band’s classic album, Misplaced Childhood, back in 2006. Behind me were two fellas who were enthusiastic singers…but like the album, their confidence was misplaced to say the least. After two songs, I turned around and told them politely but directly that I had paid to hear Fish sing, not them and could they please stop. Bless them they did, and looked crest fallen. I felt terrible afterwards….not my finest moment.
Ironic, as the man on stage was equally out of tune and unable to sing…I would have been better getting on stage and telling him to shut up and let us have a karaoke singalong instead…
Worse was seeing The Stone Roses in 2011 at the V Festival. Ian Brown’s voice, flatter than the Netherlands and seemly unacquainted with the songs he was singing, was truly the worst thing I have ever heard. If John Squire had just violated a cat on stage, its screams would have been preferable to the self-styled King Monkey.
If you can’t sing, enjoy the gigs, but resist inflicting your lack of talent on the rest of us…if you are a singer, and your pension needs topping up, but your voice is shot to pieces, do us all a favour and get a part-time job at Tescos and save our ears and our treasured memories of when you were good…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
High 5 but not in a good way!
And when it comes to Ian Brown, it’s a full on 10! He’s spoilt the Roses for me forever…the people who say he’s still amazing live need to get their hearing tested urgently….
6. Put it on a T-shirt…but don’t wear it to the gig…
The ONLY acceptable gig to wear a band t-shirt to is Morrissey. There is a sort of camaraderie and charm to everyone there wearing a Smiths or Moz top…it’s the only gig I used to religiously wear an eponymous shirt to….he often wore them himself, as did his band. And his live debut in Wolverhampton in 1988 was a one off, free entry, only open to people in Smiths / Morrissey t-shirts…it’s part of the deal of loving the Mozster. Obviously, I give Moz a wide berth, as is detailed on this site in many places, but if reconciled, I would be the first at the door of the venue in my The Queen Is Dead t-shirt, throwing myself at him, like a demented groupie…
The young man on the right, on his way into see Morrissey's live debut in 1988, is my lovely friend Nick...
But this is the exception that proves the rule. Wearing the band t-shirt has become a way of people broadcasting their tastes – wearing one to a gig by that band is just you telling everyone how much more of a fan you are than everyone else. Do you really need to reaffirm to everyone there you like the band?
It’s bollocks. I can’t stand the guys wearing that Cure shirt from 1987….they just want you to know how long they have been a fan. These are the people who will tell you about their favourite song and claim it’s an obscure b-side….when really it’s Lovecats…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
It's a 6 - I have no time for snobbery - gig t-shirts are for sleeping in...
5. The World Is Full Of Crashing Beers….spilling beer in the crowd…
As I mentioned earlier, beer and gigs are synonymous…and it’s a huge part of how venues make money, so when you buy a beer at a small venue, you are basically a hero, supporting grassroots music. Thank you, you little legends for buying beers!
Yet some venues do not seem to understand it and make it almost impossible to get a beer (hello O2 Arena, whoever runs your bars should be taken out and spanked with a wet plimsole – they must be costing you a fortune).
When you do eventually get a beer though, there’s that tricky challenge of getting your much needed alcoholic refreshment back to your merry (and getting merrier) band of fellow gig-goers…negotiating your way back, carrying beer is an art. I once carried 8 pints, precariously balanced on two box lids, to form a double decker beer tray. It was at The Who at Hyde Park, 2015, and I got three spontaneous standing ovations on my wobbly trip back to my friends. It’s the most lad I have ever been, and the only person I spilt beer on was me.
Yet others are incapable of carrying two beers through a crowd, slamming into you and covering you with their spills (and I assure you, there are no thrills), shouting lager, lager, lager, lager, like Underworld's Born Slippy made real...
The answer? I think gig-goers should have to undergo some equivalent of the cycling proficiency test – if you can’t carry three beers with no tray, and navigate a series of obstacles, you are not allowed to buy beer at venues. It would cut down queues, save on dry cleaning and washing and teach idiots to learn the basics of balance…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
7 – I don’t mind going home stinking of a brewery because of my own incompetence, I refuse to do so because of yours…
4. Play The Hits! ! Don’t just play the Hits!
When John Legend wrote Ordinary People, Elton John came by to see him to compliment him on such a fabulous song. As they talked more though, the more experienced John told the younger John of the drawback to writing a classic…he’ll be playing live for the rest of his life.
For many artists, playing the big hit must progress from exhilaration to recognition and appreciation to (hopefully) financial reward and eventually to tedium and even loathing. James famously stopped playing Sit Down, their 1990 breakthrough hit, as they were just so bored of it. That said, even when James rested the big one, it still needed to be played at festivals etc – that’s just the deal. It’s back in the set these days, much more regularly, and it's still a classic. James nightly mess with their setlists so there is no guarantee you’ll hear it when they play. And that’s fair enough. And they are brilliant so they can do what they want. And there's always enough of the songs you love in the set, however playful and mischievous they are feeling.
But I have seen bands with huge catalogues playing wildly obscure hits and demurring on playing ANY hits. I am a trainspotter by nature, so this can be fabulous. Seeing James in New York in 2014, they indeed eschewed playing Sit Down, but DID play Johnny Yen from their debut album, plus Hymn From A Village and What’s The World from their first EPs. I was in heaven, but there were a fair few confused Yanks, relieved when Sometimes, Come Home, Tomorrow, Say Something, Waltzing Along and Getting Away With It appeared in a set heavy on the new album.
It's a balance. Gary Numan says he now aims for thirds – one third new tracks, one third from his more recent, pseudo Nine Inch Nails career and one third hits…He too must go through dark moments and the thought of Cars must fill him with cold, existential dread…he must use these moments to inform his more recent albums, given their rather bleak outlook….
Numan is admirable for this, but the balance just isn’t right. His new stuff is, to be honest, not as strong as he thinks. Then again, he can sell out Wembley Arena so what do I know? But if he was playing all of The Pleasure Principle and Telekon, he’d sell it out twice over…
Then again, don’t go the other way…New Order have been playing essentially the same setlist for the last 5 years. After mixing it up with tracks from the magnificent Music Complete and then playing with a 12-piece keyboard orchestra in Manchester in 2017 (my best EVER gig), they slipped back to just rotating the same 20 odd songs. I really don’t care if I never hear Blue Monday, True Faith, Bizarre Love Triangle, Sub-Culture, Perfect Kiss, Temptation, World, Your Silent Face, Atmosphere, Decades, Love Will Tear Us Apart….Mix it up a bit – Everything’s Gone Green, Confusion, All The Way, Guilty Partner, State Of The Nation, Angel Dust, Face Up, Sooner Than You Think, Dream Attack, Here To Stay, Leave Me Alone…play ANY of these songs and I’ll be there like a shot….
New Order at the Manchester International Festival - my favourite ever gig...
Ultimately, two thirds hits, one third new material or less played songs if you are a legacy band, feels like a good balance. Enough to hook you into the new album or please the trainspotters, but also enough to please the hardcore and the casual fans. And surely enough to mix it up for the bands too?
But don’t pander too much. I saw REM in 1995 and was thrilled when they played Fall On Me from Life’s Rich Pageant. It was joyous, ruined only by some ditzy twat next to me, screaming for Shiny Happy People, their nadir. Just ‘cos people like the same bands as you, doesn’t mean you’ll get on….it’s a song that might considered too lightweight for Sesame Street. Oh wait, Sesame Street is exactly the right place for it...the only place..
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
8 – I love New Order, but mix it up a bit!
3. Money (it’s a gas)….though if you’re Peter Gabriel, you are taking the piss
I saw The Cure in Crystal Palace in 1990, supported by All About Eve, James and Lush. I was there for the headliner and AAE (I was going through a Goth phase…), James and Lush were surprises and brilliant. The whole day cost £15. Using the Bank Of England’s inflation calculator, that should now cost £35.30 in July 2023.
James played the same venue with just two support bands (Happy Mondays and Girlband) exactly 33 years to the day of me seeing them in 1990. Tickets were more like £60. Another comparison might be one of the All Points East gigs – tickets are more like £100.
Gig prices have far exceeded inflation. Why? It’s a combination of better marketing and more exposure to music. People don’t pay for physical music these days (unless they are a sad old fucker like me), so they spend their money on “experiences”. They lack the fetishising of physical media which will probably delay my ability to retire by a good couple of years. But they cherish and value the experience of the show. And the market responds to this by hiking prices.
That’s fine on one level. If artists can’t get paid for their music, then they need to be paid through some route and if live music is the answer, then I am cool with that.
But some are just taking the piss. A Peter Gabriel ticket in 1993 at Earl’s Court was £20. Again, the Bank of England says, allowing for inflation, this should be £40.97. His recent tour was charging £195 a ticket at an equivalent sized venue (O2 Arena). I get that he may have lost income from buying records, and that big shows cost more. But his tickets have effectively increased by £154.03, or 396%. Given his net worth is only estimated at $95 million, he must really need it….I listened recently to the brilliant Word In Your Ear podcast and Mark Ellen said (with regards to people complaining about the cost of seeing Bruce Springsteen), if you don’t want to pay the money, then just don’t go, go and see other artists who are charging much less. He is absolutely right and that is exactly what I have done (Big Joanie for £12 in January – bargain!). But…it is outrageous….
And Taylor Swift, whose lyric I have appropriated for this article's title is a legend. I am an aspiring “Swiftie” – my godson’s sister is a genuine “Swiftie” and one of my team is a full-on obsessive “Swiftie”. I have accepted that the first 3 minutes of any meeting with her will involve some Taylor related tales. That’s cool.
But the amount of money charged for her tickets is ball-bustingly high. I love the fact she has given $55 million dollars to her whole crew for the tour – that’s amazingly generous. But then again, if you are charging something like an average of £400 then you can afford to be that generous. I am still trying to work out if she is ripping fans off or just beating a broken ticketing system to secure her full value. My jury’s out on this. BUT fair play to her for playing 40+ songs and covering every aspect of her career. She has nailed the issues I raised in my previous point and if you don’t like one album, she’ll be playing songs from another you like soon enough. And if you like all her albums, I am sure (as my Swiftie colleague has assured me), it’s like a religious experience. But religions also tend to rip us off for cash…
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
9! – because Peter Gabriel is a MASSIVE James Blunt for inflating gigs by nearly 400% and then lecturing the world about its poor….what an arse.
2. Gigs On Film….
When The The returned and played the Royal Albert Hall in 2018, Matt Johnson (effectively the only member of The The), came on stage and pleaded with the fans not to film the show. The director Tim Pope was making a professional film of the gig and there would be a live album. And wouldn’t it just be amazing to watch a gig and be in the moment for once? Literally everyone complied and I saw no sneaky phones out. And it was an amazing show.
What he said really stuck with me and so I really limit what I do at gigs. It’s just now for this blog I take pictures (and not very good ones).
Whereas, people pay fortunes for gigs, as they are an “experience” – they fetishise the fact they were there. The music is almost secondary. In fact, often it feels like the gig didn’t exist and the whole experience is worthless unless:
They have selfies of themselves there
They take endless pictures
They film piss-poor quality videos of the gig, to the point they don’t actually watch the gig itself, but watch it on the portable TV that is their phone
Although The The really impacted my use of my phone as a record of my attendance at a gig, I should confess now that I take pictures at gigs and occasionally video a song. But my pictures are kept to short bursts, may be 20 seconds at a time and infrequent. I also keep my phone in front of my face, not waving wildly over my head. I very rarely video a song, and limit it to one song a gig and only for about a minute. Again, I hold my phone at my face height, so I am not in other people’s way.
My favourite self-taken gig pics...
I get the need for a memento, but this is beyond the pale. I have leant forward and asked people to put the phones down as I want to see the band, not their phones. It would be less traumatic for them if I told them I planned to murder them later with an axe. Indignant looks follow, but rarely does anyone keep going – because, in reality, they know it’s annoying, and they know they might, just might, enjoy the gig more if they actually watched it!
Matt Johnson was right - go to a gig and be in the moment. Though his phone ban meant I could not send endless pictures to my friend Rich in New Zealand, tormenting him that I was there, and he, the mahoosive The The fan, was not....sometimes a quick picture is ok!
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
I have to admit, I am a bit of a James Blunt myself so there's no pulling punches here....it's a full-on 10 – tormenting Rich is not justification enough. It's a hugely selfish thing to do, and disrespectful to artists. I will try harder...
1. Everybody’s talkin’…
I love to talk. I like nothing more than to catch up with friend, open a bottle of wine (rarely “a” bottle) and chat away. My friend Paul, who passed away 4 years ago, told me before he died that he realised the thing he loved most wasn’t flash holidays, concerts, plays…it was sitting with friends, getting pissed and talking rubbish for hours. A wise man. I miss him.
But Paul would be the first to agree that there is a place for yabbering and it ain’t in the middle of a gig.
It would be no exaggeration to say that every gig I go to now is impacted to some degree by some utter James Blunt yelling loudly in the ear of a fellow Bluntonian…they are not even talking about the band they are seeing. It’s usually some banal rubbish. I have told people to stop talking, but it’s risky business.
At a Suede gig, my friend Simon and I had had enough of two woman gabbling on and on, with not a jot of interest in the gig. A polite version of “shut the fuck up” was despatched. However, rather than be met with the usual indignant look, we were informed that her fella would sort us out when he came back from the bar. We clocked a huge lummox of a man lumbering towards us and decided that cowardice was the better part of valour (or at least would save us from some unwelcome violence), so we moved as quickly as our legs would carry us to the safe anonymity of the crowd….
At a Midlake gig, back in 2007 at Shepherd's Bush Empire, I also challenged a couple of guys, this time more aggressively. Whilst I can be very gobby, I am cautious and prudent enough to avoid starting a fight. Not just because violence is never the answer (I'm talking to you Will Smith...), but it's also because I will inevitably lose...I am no fighter. See my recent piece on dentists and the consequences of me starting fights…long lasting, unpleasant and expensive!
Yet that evening back in February 2007, I got cross. Really cross. Two men were chatting loudly during the band's set. Their talking wasn't drowned out by the squalling heavy rock guitars because there were none. It irritated the f*** out of me, because this was a band who played intricate, delicate, great, acoustic chilled music.
So, I confronted them, shouted I think. They looked hacked off and I had a sudden Spidey-sense that I may have f***ed up. I told them that we needed to settle this with a dance off. I think I even pulled a couple of moves. This made them laugh, the moment was diffused and we settled back into watching the gig, even chatting with the guys between songs and having a drink. Phew!
Mrs JO’B has also told off people at gigs, but she is more charming than I am, so gets away with it. And she is absolutely right - people need to be told.
But again it’s just more evidence that of the people coming to gigs now, there is a growing cabal that are just interested in telling people they were there and having evidence of this - the t-shirt, the selfie, the brag about how much they paid…and then they pay no heed at all to the music or what’s happening on stage. The experience is more important than the music.
There are two exceptions I have been to where the audience have shown college and utter respect. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and PJ Harvey are the two gigs I have seen where people chat between songs, but as soon as the music starts, they all collectively shut their mouths and stay silent, mesmerised by the artists in stage and the songs they play. They command respect that other artists of equal merit just don't. No idea why, though frankly, would you want to get into an argument with either of them? No. Me neither.
Christy Moore has the answer. At a 2021 show in Dublin, he stopped the intro to a song and called the talkers out - "I’d like to apologise to anybody sitting near those w****** up on the balcony there. I don’t know if you can hear me but f*** I can hear you," he said to the crowd.
He went on to tell them to leave the gig, saying: "All night, a load of gab gab gab. Get your money back and f*** off". Legend.
So, if I am at the same gig as you and you are talking at a gig, it's safe to say I have fantasised about your death....
Where do they sit on the James Blunt scale?
It's a whopping 11 on the James Blunt scale – because talking at gigs really is the worst thing in the world. These people are scum. They are not just a 10 on the JB spectrum - they are one louder (literally).
And that's it, 11 (I've Spinal Tapped it again) truly shit things gig-goers and bands do at gigs. If you are coming to a gig with me soon, I'd love to talk to you. Before the gig. After the gig. And between songs. Just not during. It's not much to ask. And here's the last selfie I took at a gig...
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