This is an excellent write-up and I heartily agree with everything stated.
When I think of a
concert, it does not conjure images of
orchestras and I am never close enough to the front for it to bring forth
crowd surfing. I am one of the millions that think of concerts as places to see and hear my
favorite band perform live, hopefully close enough that I can make out the individuals on stage without
binoculars.
With that in mind, I have a few things to add.
First, I would like to say that all of the above rules are still in effect.
Especially the ones regarding cel phones.
On to the new business:
Do not talk during the performance.
I cannot emphasize this enough. When I buy a ticket to a concert, it is with the express desire to hear the band, and unless it is between sets, between the end of the show and an
encore, or before or after the show, I want to not be able to hear another person's voice unless it is raised in appreciation for a song well-performed. Not only is talking annoying to anyone within several rows, especially to the forward, but it is incredibly boorish and disrespectful towards the artists performing on stage.
Refrain from sloshing your beverage upon other attendees.
In some cases this is a nuissance, in others it is a major downer. One of my worst memories from a concert was during
Pink Floyd's The Wall (the original, not the redux) when some
beery swine spilled the contents of his latest acquisition from the refreshment stand all over the wonderful
program that I had spent the last of my
allowance on. I was nine years old, so allowance was my only cash resource. A few years after, at another concert, my brother had his new autographed t-shirt branded by some idiot waving a
cigarette around.
I have noticed in the last decade an alarming trend of concert crowds to be rude, unpleasant, and in some cases downright hazardous to my health. There are
venues where I will not purchase tickets for the lawn seating as there is a tendancy for others of the lawn section to set fire to sections of it, sometimes with little warning to those sitting nearby. It does not seem to matter whether it is
Metallica,
Iron Maiden,
Yes,
The Moody Blues, or
Lord of the Dance on the stage as the audiences behave no differently. There is actually less of this sort of behavior at
heavy metal concerts, but that is likely mostly due to the fact that trying to talk over the music is a
study in futility anyway.