The Best Music Book of the Week: “Shit People at Gigs”
Shit People at Gigs, an illustrated guide to–well, you know–by Oliva Grbac of Australia is only sixteen pages long, but it covers most of the sorts of assholes bent on ruining your night out seeing a band. Read more about the project at Noisey. (Thanks to Rupinder for the link.)
I’ve had my fair share of idiots at my shows over the years, from drunks falling onto your gear, to people who suddenly decide it’s karaoke night and grab your microphone mid-song and begin their caterwauling, to clueless and rude bar owners. The worst thing at live shows, as part of the audience, is the people who just won’t shut up! Talk, talk, talk, through the entire show, and you wonder why they even bothered paying to go to it in the first place? One of the best shows I ever saw, David Bowie doing his “Serious Moonlight” show at the CNE stadium, will forever be marred by the group of four or five jock types who stood there yakking through the entire show, a few seats away at the end of our aisle. They weren’t even watching the show. It was just background music for their beer drinking and buddy talk. I later got this show on DVD and can at least watch it in peace!