Politeness is the flower of humanity.

I’ve only had a handful of “not cool, dude…” moments at shows. I can easily think of a few because they have stuck with me. When people are just selfish jerks at shows, I try to chalk it up to inexperience, youth, inebriation, or just ignorance… I don’t like to think that people who are just rude and lame like the same kinds of music and shows as me. I don’t want to be associated with assholes.

One of the more prominent memories of a “not cool, dude” show-moment was at Hopscotch 2011 right before Flaming Lips came out on stage. I was with a friend, had been greatly anticipating the possibility of Wayne Coyne going over my head in the big space bubble. My friend at the time had seen them previously and knew when and where to be to make this happen. The plan was to get in the right spot, let it happen and then back away. Yes, there were a lot of people, yes it was very crowded, but I think any seasoned show-goer knows, regardless of how bad you want to see a band, there is a) probably someone who wants to see them more and b) in standing room only shows, the crowd will shift. You will most likely not end a show in the same place you started. 

My friend and I, in an attempt to position ourselves in a generally decent path of the bubble trajectory, moved across the crowd. So traditionally, one would think, Flaming Lips fans would be pretty cool and chill. The crowd was dense, yes, but many people were shuffling. My friend and I were moving stage left and were met by an immobile steel wall of a 5’6” 20-something year old kid and his girlfriend (I am closer to 6’ than not, my friend was well over 6’2” – we were not intimidated). When we tried to squeeze past he literally leaned back and put his legs in front of me and spat something vile like “don’t be a fucking asshole, asshole!” and I was like …”bro. dude. Chill.”…and tried to move a little more behind him. he pushed back further and said something like “people like you ruin shows by rushing the stage!!!” and I sighed and said something like, “do you not see me moving across stage not pushing forward? My sister is over there, I need to get to her, please.” I, obviously, do not have a sister, but who cares. Kid spits back something like “fuck you!” and my taller than thou hippie friend, bound and determined to get me in position didn’t even respond at that point and simply leaned in full force and pushed dude a foot to the right and let us squeeze past. We moved away, a good 20 feet away from where this guy was, because that’s where we were headed … Just… not cool. I knew that guy wanted to see the show, too. good for him, but we were, at that point, not anywhere close to the stage, not anywhere close to the bubble-trajectory and still several moments from the show even starting. Fuck that kid, I got my video anyway. 

officially crossed this one off my Bucket List

Another similar situation happened at the Cat’s Cradle when I took Jess to see Drive By Truckers earlier this year. The show was not, by my standards, too overly crowded, so I thought it would be good for Jess to be front-ish and see his heroes live for the first time. There was really trashy, middle-aged, redneck chick down front that had claimed several foot of space not only for her person but for dancin’ room. When I tried to guide Jess towards the front she raised holy hell and practically attacked us for ruining her show experience. I grabbed her by the upper arm and spoke right in her ear and told her to chill out, let my boyfriend be up close for one song because he’d never seen them before and not to be so rude. This was, apparently, redneck-ian for “I want to fight you” because she kinda came at me. I held my hands up at her and said as best as I could “not cool, dude.” We stepped around her and moved away. You can’t reason with crazy. Especially drunk redneck crazy.

One time when I saw Future Islands at King’s, I had a girl scream at me and about 5 other people that we were being “disrespectful” to the band for dancing up front. Really? Had she ever even see Future Islands before?

Add to the list of total unabashed douchery pretty much any “hardcore” or “punk” show I have ever seen in Chapel Hill. Because traditionally dudes at like, say the 506, for hardcore shows are totally disrespectful towards women.

The inspiration for this post comes from a show I saw at King’s Saturday night, which I plan on making a separate post for entirely, because I don’t want any negativity to pop up in a review of a show that was 99.999% amazing and was only tainted momentarily by rudeness. At the very end of El Ten Eleven’s set I was practically shoved to the ground by a kid attempting to grab the set list out of my reaching hands. When I pleaded with him to let me have it, as I had been hoping for months and weeks to add it to my collection (I collect set lists, as many of you know) I was met with utter rudeness and it pissed me off. But the anger didn’t linger, as I later got to meet and speak with both Kristian and Tim and that is probably better anyway. I’ll post pics when I post about that show.

TL;DR:

If someone is very much, obviously, a superfan let them be. Give them their few minutes down front or let them act a fool. Unless, for some reason, you feel that your superfandom trumps theirs, in which case you should make friends with this person anyway and make plans for a “front and center” timeshare plan for the next time you see this band, because obviously you have something in common.

There is never any reason to get angry at someone because they want to see a band really bad. Especially at a smaller venue like King’s or Cat’s Cradle. I paid my $12 just like you, let’s be reasonable here. It’s not like these incidents I have experienced were all at mosh-tastic skinheads shows, for god’s sake.

Getting pissy at a show? Not cool, dude. Take a breather, let the drunk girl “woo!” and dance in front of you for a song or two and then wait for her to wander off. It’s gonna be okay.