My friend Paul once told me that being an indie music fan in Brisbane was to lead a life of constant disappointment. I laughed it off at first, but after a few years of being an indie music fan in Brisbane, I can't help but find myself agreeing with him. Although we have plenty of quality local indie bands, we constantly miss out on tours that the indie-flavours-of-the-month undertake, generally only to Melbourne and Sydney. And when they do come, we only get them in festivals with no sideshows. Brisbane is a black hole for festivals doing sideshows.
That doesn't bother me too much, as we still get some okay bands, even if I am paying through my nose to see them and sit through 10 hours of the same local acts that play the same festivals year in and year out. No, that's not what grind my gears. What does trigger a rant like this is the crowds. Brisbane indie crowds have to be some of the worst music crowds I've ever been in (or as is the case these days, standing on the outside edge of).
Anyone that knows me, or even reads this blog more than a few times, knows that I go to all variety of gigs. I like most genres and will give any band an opportunity at least once to impress me. My favourite crowds have to be hardcore and punk crowds. Sure, they have their really silly fight dancing and if you get in the middle of it when you don't want to be there you'll generally take a hit to a place you don't want to (see Enter Shikari, 2008, fight dancer's fist to my groin). But if something is wrong, they'll stop right away and help you. If you fall down, they'll pick you up. If you lose a shoe, they'll clear an area and help you find it. A lot of them are also straight edge, which takes out a variable which ruins most gigs: substance abuse. In the middle of a hardcore crowd there's only a rare chance that you'll end up covered in booze. Most of the drinkers stand to the outside.
But what I love best about hardcore and punk crowds is that they show their love for the music. Even if it's just one guy who likes the songs, he will be there dancing up a storm. People sing along without even knowing the lyrics. If it's a good show, the crowd has no qualms with showing the band their appreciation. They love the music and they know how to have a good time.
I have no problem with hip-hop crowds. Sure, most of the audience is either high as a kite or drunk as a skunk, but they tend to keep it between themselves and their friends. There may be more curse words and profanities, but they also show their love of the bands. And the beauty of hip-hop is the music encourages you to jump up and down on the spot and shout out along with the bands. You don't interfere with the other punters.
Metal gigs sees an interesting mix. Metal crowds are drunks, without a doubt. They'll be pounding drinks away during the opening acts, sometimes being rude and chanting out the headliner's name so they don't have to put up with this shit act. But when they finally hear the headliner or the band they love, they'll get right into it. They have no qualms with losing their cool in front of good music. There'll be dancing, circle pits and some good old fashioned shirtless-and-sweaty moshing. They are more violent than the hardcore crowds but generally just as friendly and kind if something goes wrong.
My point is, with all of these genres, they love the music and are enjoying being there. The same can also be said about classical, hippy-jam bands, country and even sit-down-in-a-giant-arena pop music shows. I've always seen crowds have a good time, even if it's just for the headlining band they went to see (sidenote: watching an old couple in front of me suffer through Mudvayne and Rob Zombie before an Ozzy Osbourne show was still one of the funniest things I've ever seen).
The same can not be said for last night's crowd at Girls' show at the Zoo. The crowd was lacklustre at best. But the most disgusting thing was that I could hear the mainly hipster crowd talking over the band the entirity of the show. The band they just paid $45 to see! It's not like the band was quiet either, although a majority of Girls' songs are dreamy and contemplative with lots of quiet moments. The din of the crowd kept getting louder and louder and you could visbily see the band's disgust.
Unfortunately that wasn't the only thing the crowd did. Through the course of the night I saw drinks tossed in the air, glasses and bottles thrown around, the flowers from the band's microphones ripped off, the petals torn to shreds and thrown at the performers; I even saw joints being smoked and blown directly into the face of the lead singer. All this time I saw the crowd take constant repeated trips to the bar, text/tweet/Facebook while the band was playing and have their backs to the band taking pictures of themselves over and over again with the flash on (warning: future rant about using flash photography at gigs imminent). But the biggest crime of all: standing around and looking like you didn't care to be there and had better things to do. Come on hipsters! You paid good money to be there, enjoy it!
I wish this was a one-off occurrence, but as long as I care to remember now I've seen shocking crowd behaviour from punters at Brisbane indie gigs. This is especially prominent on any band that is the played-on-the-radio flavour of the month band, which seems to bring out the dregs of concert attendance society. As I type I'm having flash backs to the Cops show at the Zoo when they had their song Call Me Anytime on high rotation. *shudder*
These indie kids and hipsters get absolutely drunk before and during these shows. They show no respect for anyone else in the crowd. They spill drinks on everyone, throwing them in the air and into the bands( I saw someone throw a glass tumbler at Ladytron once. Ladytron! How much more of a non-violent band can you get?!). They don't shut up. They yell at the band to play "that one song we heard on the radio" and then they'll leave (another great example: Gnarls Barkley. They all left after playing Crazy even though he had two songs left. I remember Cee-Lo asking the crowd "where y'all going?"). They'll push into the crowd and force you out of the way but then yell and berate you if you try to do anything similar. They'll jump up and down for the one popular song and yell at you for not joining in, but then they'll shun you if you try and do it for one of the opening bands, or heaven forbid, any other song they play. They'll then take non-stop photos of themselves and the band using flash photography which makes everyone blind.
Heck, even a few weeks ago at the Aus Music Month show I kept getting repeatedly fondled by a girl. Even though I old her to stop, her friends said "she's just having a good time" before spilling drinks over me.
Indie crowds, learn some respect and learn how to enjoy being there to see the music. I know it's not everyone, but that 20% of the crowd that is like this are ruining a great night out for me and everyone else in the crowd.
For those of you interested, Girls last night were very good, even with the shit crowd and their obvious discomfort. When things got tough, they just increased the feedback and played some great noise-rock shows.
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