Recently, during my visit to Seattle in the US, a very important city in regards to modern popular music, I visited two very different venues. One was the Showbox, a well-respected venue which was hosting Scottish electropop outfit Chuvches. The second was called The Vera project, an “all-ages” venue which was featuring three emo-hip hop acts that I’d never heard of.
Back when I was a teenager living in the UK, it was more or less acceptable for teenagers to drink alcohol. Yes, the legal drinking age for bars is 18, or 16 in a restaurant with accompanying adults, but we knew how to get alcohol and would sit in parks down a few cans before going to a gig or music festival.
In the US however things are much stricter, the drinking age is 21, and it’s strictly enforced. While I was as Showbox I decided to go to the bar area (because that was where the seating was, I don’t actually consume alcohol anymore), and I was required to produce ID. The idea that I look under 21 is hilarious, and untrue, but so strict are the laws that I had to show my passport before entrance to a place I could purchase alcohol.
The Vera Project simply doesn’t serve alcohol. It is by design an all-ages venue, supported by the core concept of respect and safety. Sure, many of the people attending the concert had secretly drank or consumed narcotics beforehand, but there was nothing on premises. The youngest member of the audience was 14, I think I was probably the older (at 36).
The differences between the two venues was stark. Chvches were playing two nights sold out a 1,500 capacity venue. The Vera Project would have been uncomfortable with more than 150 people. Showbox is well laid out, with two convenient bars, clean toilets and a modern soundsystem. The Vera project is chaotic and kind of dirty.
But the audiences I saw at the two venues was also different. During the Chvches concert I experienced the same frustrations that anyone who has been to any of the major concert venues in Istanbul would be familiar with. Namely, people arrogantly pushing in front, talking throughout the whole set and just generally being selfish. At one point halfway through the set, one girl started using me a shield behind which to roll a joint, literally grabbing my arm to stop herself from falling down, and constantly chatting with her companion.
The phenomena of poor concert etiquette has been growing exponentially. As a teenager it wasn’t even a concern. If you were going to watch a band, you shut up and watched them, maybe you’d whisper to your friend when your favourite song came on. In the early 2000s, it was common to be told to shut up if you started talking, or god-forbid answered your telephone. Now in the 2010s, over the few years I have lost count of the number of fights and arguments I have got into. The photographer at the Spiritulized gig that repeatedly blinded audience members with his flash, until he caught the wrong end of my violent side. The group of four who pushed right to the front of the stage at Blonde Redhead, only to talk about their plans for the evening, or the guy who joined me at the front of The Wedding Present concert last March to loudly declare “I’ve never heard of this band.” Both parties were inexplicably offended when I asked them to be quiet.
The concert going experience (along with the cinema and the opera) is becoming sullied by those who insist on forgetting that they are the only people there, and it is an international phenomena.
The Vera Project, on the other hand, was an entirely different experience. The audience was engaged with the performance, joining in with the choruses and shouting slogans during the breaks. I was disturbed by no one.
I missed the days of the grungy venues filled with kids are passionate about the music they are going to see, and I missed the times when I would go to watch a show and be able to allow myself to be entirely absorbed by the music. Has the mystique of a live event been eroded by a society that is now plug into the internet 24/7? Or are we as a gig-goes just getting too high and thoughtless to stop chatting for 40 minutes and actually enjoy the music. Or do we need more alcohol-free venues to encourage the kids back to watching live performances…maybe we need reminding of out youthful fascination with the creation of rock’n’roll?
