Tinkergoth's Guide to Concert Etiquette


Music & Audio


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So I went and saw The Tea Party (the Canadian rock band, not the political group) last night at the ANU Bar. I'd been waiting to see these guys for a long time (I think I was given a copy of their second studio album, The Edges of Twilight, around my 7th or 8th birthday), and they didn't disappoint (having The Superjesus as one of the support acts was a nice bonus). All in all a great night, and I can't wait for them to tour this way again next year.

Unfortunately, there was a high concentration of idiots in the crowd. Enough of them causing enough problems that I was actually getting somewhat angry about it. Not enough to ruin the music for me, but enough that when I got home, tired and sore around 12:30 AM, I couldn't sleep without getting it off my chest. So, I present to you the result of that little exercise in ranting:

Tinkergoth's Guide to Concert Etiquette (Warning: Profanity)

There's a little (read: a lot) more swearing in it than I originally intended, but that's what happens when it's the wee hours of the morning and I'm in a ranting mood.

Hopefully it's good for a laugh for some people who've seen this kind of behaviour at gigs.


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Yeah, immaturity, mind-altering substances (including alcohol), and just straight selfishness are three of the major reasons people end up obliterating Wheaton's Law. It's not uncommon to find all three at once at an event like the concert you describe. I'm glad that you (and the woman you describe in your blog) were able to enjoy yourselves despite the idiots.


Oh yeah, with the amount of gigs I go to I see how common it is. That's part of the frustration for me, it seems like something that shouldn't be happening. A failure of basic human decency. I know nothing's going to change it, but last night was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and I needed to get it off my chest.

Then, I also don't get the going to a concert and getting hammered or blitzed on drugs... I want to remember the show. A few drinks is one thing, but the real idiots that I saw there were basically downing drink after drink... One of them would disappear for a little while and come back with cans for everyone, five minutes later another one goes and gets 'em. I mean I'm normally on my bike, so I don't drink anyway when I'm out, but even when I got a lift to see Thousand Needles In Red a few years ago and their tour was sponsored by Jack Daniels (or Jim Bean, can't remember which) and they were handing out free cans of pre-mix, I only had a few (there were only like 20 of us there, due to poor timing meaning there was a better known band in town that night, so it was basically fair game for us to grab whatever we wanted).

But yeah, unfortunately in many cases people are just terrible. Luckily it takes a lot to ruin a show for me, even when I've had to visit my GP the next day due to how much of a beating I took in the crowd, as long as the music is good I still count it as a win.

Sovereign Court

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Thank you. Thank you so much.


Glad you enjoyed it Hama. At least I assume that's what you're saying :P

Sovereign Court

Yes :D


"f++! knuckles", lol! Yep, thats what I'd call em too. Good article, man! The privileged few who think the band are playing for them personally...or have showed up to a bar to get drunk first, then coincidentally happen to attend the music event.

Been to two recent events with little incident. About 2nd-3rd row in the 'pit' at Fitz and the Tantrums at a theater-level crowd which was fun (other than the piercing shriek of a little tweaking high-school girl about 3 people over from me that would go off like a proximity alarm when Fitz or Noelle got close to us). Good show, Noelle is SO energetic and you cant help it, you HAVE to move yr butt when some of tunes get to firing on all cylinders.

Then last night, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Hellyeah, and NothingMore played in a basketball arena. I had an actual seat and not floor access this time, but I watched the circle pit and everyone seemed to have a good time down there. There were a LOT of kids at this show, so it was awkward to have 5FDP singing "Burn M+##%#&*!!$# Burn" while having about 20 kids onstage...and the weirdest thing happened to Volbeat. This is my fifth time seeing them and I guess they have enough tunes in the catalog to skip the Slayer tribute (and Im cool with that) but they also got all the kids onstage for "Pool of Booza Booza Booze" and changed the lyrics to
"Then the fight came
Between the love and me
Kissed the girl
In the pool of choclit choclit choclit"
dafuq?!?!

There was a fight at the last Clutch show I went to, but that was to be sort of expected. That band attracts a rougher crowd.


Nice, I saw Clutch, Volbeat and Five Finger Death Punch at the Soundwave festival this year. All put on amazing shows, though Clutch had to deal with Filters singer being a tool and taking up more time than their slot allowed and talking crap about how their fans are better than Clutch's fans while we were standing there waiting for him to get off the stage so Clutch could come on.

No fights while I was watching them, but security at the festivals is intense, had been ever since that girl got trampled and died in a mosh pit years back at the Big Day Out.

Heh, I'm having trouble imagining an all ages gig for Volbeat and 5FDP. Does sound pretty weird, cool of them to do it though. I took my 14 year old cousin to his first metal gig a few months back, just a few local bands at the youth centre, going to take him to a bigger all ages one next month, Aussie band called Dream On Dreamer.


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Nice post. These people are yet another reason I try to stay away from places with people in them. :/


Eh. Even with how much it was irritating me at the time, I will admit that it wasn't anywhere near a majority of the crowd doing this. Comes back to the idea of the vocal minority.

Generally I manage to not let it ruin the show for me, and that's the important thing. But I can definitely see the appeal to sometimes say "That's it, I'm done" and not go to any other shows. I already kind of do that with the UC Refectory, that venue somehow manages to attract higher than normal numbers of morons and violent bastards, so unless it's a band that I'm dying to see I just won't bother. The other UC venue, Zierholz, is just fine, despite being located within throwing distance of the Refectory.


I stopped going to festivals after seeing a bunch of Southern Cross Tattooed bogans forcing people to kiss the flag at the "Big Day Out" and "Homebake" .

Also excellent use of f$!# knuckle.


Ugh. Yeah those crowds have thankfully died of significantly now. I'm sure there still around but definitely not as in your face. The worst year I remember was when all the bogans were wandering around in Australian flag morph suits. Relative anonymity just made them worse.

Sovereign Court

I like mosh pits though. Never seen anyone get hurt in one.

Scarab Sages

Well, I have been, although not seriously - some idiot with nails for rivets on his shoulder pad (homemade from the looks of it) took part in the pit - at first I thought it was just an unlucky bruise until someone told me that the back of my shirt was pretty bloody - and I found the shirt as well as my Shoulder were punctured by several 1 1/2 inch long nails.

Sovereign Court

Ouch.

I gut punched in the throat once, by accident. But those around me immediately stopped, parted the crowd and carried me to a med station.


It can depend pretty heavily on the crowd, the band and the venue, as well as what security is like. Bar gigs can get pretty bad, since it's far easier to get alcohol when the bar is next to the pit instead of having to leave the area, and so people end up trashed far faster. Festivals can be a problem too, but not as much as they used to be since security got tightened up and they started trying to control the drinking a bit

As for injuries. Well, the big one here in Australia was the girl dying in the pit at the Big Day Out. Fell down in the pit while watching Limp Bizkit, got trampled.

One of my friends had all his ribs broken and bruised his liver in the pit at a Soulfly gig (the people behind him basically rammed him repeatedly into the barrier at the front of the crowd). I've had sprained ankles, hairline fractures, severe soft tissue damage and concussion. On separate occasions and, on one particularly memorable night, all at once. Essentially had a fight break out behind me. I'm not a big guy, and was surrounded by what appeared to be moving mountains of muscle. Next thing I know, one of them has been knocked out and landed on top of me, knocking me over... and the rest of them started dogpiling on. Actually thought I was going to die for a little while there. Couldn't walk properly for a week or two after that.

Scarab Sages

Thankfully that is far beyond what I heard coming from a pit in Germany - death and severe injuries during gigs usually happen due to a panicking crowd (or people trying to stagedive from >10ft. high stage props / speakers).

Sovereign Court

I tend to go to a lot of shows in a wide variety of settings. This may have a lot to do with the acts you are seeing. Unfortunately, some types of bands just draw in folks that get physical or get drugged out and act poorly.

On a side note, how the hell did someone get into the venue with shoulder pads that had nails in them????


The bands would definitely have something to do with it, but I think in a lot of cases it really is just the sort of crowd a venue attracts as well. Most of the gigs I go to are at the ANU or UC, and university bar gigs tend to attract a lot of university students, especially on a Thursday night after they've already been out drinking in the city (Thursdays in Canberra are cheap drinks night, specifically to draw in the student crowd). So you end up with a lot of drunk, potentially high students, many of whom are aggressive at the best of times (I'm basing this on time spent among my younger brother's uni friends, sometimes it seemed like all of them felt like they had something to prove to the whole world, and they were going to punch stuff until they'd proven it, whatever it was).

And honestly, usually the metal gigs are actually the less rough ones for me. When I saw Soulfly and City of Fire at the ANU, it was a surprisingly tame night, same with Kylesa. The Butterfly Effect though, who are nowhere near as heavy, I got the crap kicked out of me. The night that I mentioned above, where I got absolutely destroyed, that was a band called Gyroscope. Alt rock band, not exactly what I'd call mosh material. Actually come to think of it though, I suspect I've just figured out the link, as much as I love the Butterfly Effect and Gyroscope, they do have a lot of bogan fans, and there's nothing a drunk bogan loves more than a fight.

As for the shoulder pads with nails on them... depending on where the show is, for some reason security can let some strange stuff slide. I was at a show once where a guy showed up wearing a collar with massive (at least 3 inch) spikes all over it, a spiked jacket and spiked boots, with spiked knee and elbow pads just to finish it off... no one batted an eyelid. Thankfully it was a pretty low key show, so there was plenty of room to stay away from him while he was flailing around... was a disaster waiting to happen.

Scarab Sages

Metal - absolutely the tamer crowd - punk, hardcore punk, not so much. Worst crowd I encountered (apart fro a few d***** nazis that tried to crash a BoltThrower gig) was at a softrock/pop gig.

Scarab Sages

Pan wrote:

I tend to go to a lot of shows in a wide variety of settings. This may have a lot to do with the acts you are seeing. Unfortunately, some types of bands just draw in folks that get physical or get drugged out and act poorly.

On a side note, how the hell did someone get into the venue with shoulder pads that had nails in them????

Small(ish) punk band, no security (apart from a few rather imposing guys who more or less sorted out people who looked like they were there to start trouble - not people with dangerous fashion statements. On the plus side, they kept him in the back of the club for the rest of the gig.


feytharn wrote:
Metal - absolutely the tamer crowd - punk, hardcore punk, not so much. Worst crowd I encountered (apart fro a few d***** nazis that tried to crash a BoltThrower gig) was at a softrock/pop gig.

Yeah, I think metalheads just get a bad rap for the way they look most of the time. The hardcore/punk shows I've seen have definitely been a more aggressive crowd, metal fans tend to just be content to have their space and headbang away for the most part.

Sovereign Court

I haven't been to a ton of metal shows, not really my bag, but the metal fans I've met have all been really courteous and great people to chill with. Punk on the other hand, has it built in you need to act like a A-hole all the time so I can see where y'all are coming from. Also, college kids often make asses of themselves as they work their way into the person they will eventually become.


yup, we're a peace loving bunch for the most part. Just let us be sad and dark in the corner and we're happy... well... you know what I mean :P

I think the injuries I've seen at the real metal shows are more related to the crowd just getting over excited. Soulfly hadn't been here in a long time when my friend saw them, and he happened to just be surrounded a bunch of gigantic men he could only describe as "vikings", who in their zeal managed to break his ribs against the barrier. Wasn't an intentional thing, and they did get him out of there as soon as they realised he was hurt.


Tinkergoth wrote:
...bogan...

I've seen this term a few times while reading the thread. Is this an Aussie term or am I just an ignoramus, and what does it mean?


Australian and New Zealand. Turns out Wikipedia actually has a page for it, so I'm stealing their explanation:

"The term bogan (/ˈboʊɡən/) is Australian and New Zealand slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for a person with an unsophisticated background, or whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplify a lack of manners and education. Localised names exist that describe the same or very similar groups of people."

Bogan - Wikipedia

Honestly, a lot of people use it as a bit of a jokey term these days. Some people take pride in it. The town I'm from originally would probably be at least 50% comprised of people most would consider bogans... particularly my parent's neighbours, who fall under the term "Cashed Up Bogan" and have basically devoted their new found wealth to showing off their complete lack of decorum and taste in the most expensive ways possible. Around the point where they built a deck with a pool higher than the fence around the backyard and started hosting nude pool parties while blasting AC/DC, Cold Chisel and Jimmy Barnes at all times, I was thankfully old enough to leave home.


The bogans with the Southern Cross tattooed on them tend to be racist f#*@-knuckles.

They have a massive problem with anybody that is not of European descent.

The majority of bogans are good people with a style and class deficiency.

Nobody likes a Bogan. By Area 7.


Not all metal shows are the same either. Rocklahoma is held on a BLISTERING HOT weekend and that tends to make a crowd mean...even if Queensryche or Stryper are the headliners. I have seen injuries at Testament and Slayer shows...but the biggest blood spatter was on a kid at an Unearth show. Took an unexpected elbow to the face, he was all happy too...bloodied at a metal show! Danzig can whip a crowd into a frenzy as well as Manson (a friend of mine broke her tooth at the Manson/NIN show back in the day). I stepped on another guy's arm at a Volbeat show, but he shook it off and we parted as friends. At the Cannibal Corpse show, actually I was sort of afraid of the crowd at the beginning, but everyone just windmilled in their own areas and didn't really mosh it up until the last few songs.

I agree about the 'bad rap', but that actually opens a few doors for me and the look does scare enough people away while walking down the street.

The pit is fun, even for a 45-yr-old like me. I can't hang in it for long or at the epicenter anymore, but the pit still works to rile up a crowd and make a good rockshow even better.

Here's a pit that is just about out of control :)

Machine Head at Wacken

Scarab Sages

drunken_nomad wrote:

Not all metal shows are the same either. Rocklahoma is held on a BLISTERING HOT weekend and that tends to make a crowd mean...even if Queensryche or Stryper are the headliners. I have seen injuries at Testament and Slayer shows...but the biggest blood spatter was on a kid at an Unearth show. Took an unexpected elbow to the face, he was all happy too...bloodied at a metal show! Danzig can whip a crowd into a frenzy as well as Manson (a friend of mine broke her tooth at the Manson/NIN show back in the day). I stepped on another guy's arm at a Volbeat show, but he shook it off and we parted as friends. At the Cannibal Corpse show, actually I was sort of afraid of the crowd at the beginning, but everyone just windmilled in their own areas and didn't really mosh it up until the last few songs.

I agree about the 'bad rap', but that actually opens a few doors for me and the look does scare enough people away while walking down the street.

The pit is fun, even for a 45-yr-old like me. I can't hang in it for long or at the epicenter anymore, but the pit still works to rile up a crowd and make a good rockshow even better.

Here's a pit that is just about out of control :)

Machine Head at Wacken

Pretty much on spot - but the blood a a metal show usually stems from accidents (at least I never seen otherwise at the 40+ shows I have seen), not from people trying to rough you up ;-)


drunken_nomad wrote:

Not all metal shows are the same either. Rocklahoma is held on a BLISTERING HOT weekend and that tends to make a crowd mean...even if Queensryche or Stryper are the headliners. I have seen injuries at Testament and Slayer shows...but the biggest blood spatter was on a kid at an Unearth show. Took an unexpected elbow to the face, he was all happy too...bloodied at a metal show! Danzig can whip a crowd into a frenzy as well as Manson (a friend of mine broke her tooth at the Manson/NIN show back in the day). I stepped on another guy's arm at a Volbeat show, but he shook it off and we parted as friends. At the Cannibal Corpse show, actually I was sort of afraid of the crowd at the beginning, but everyone just windmilled in their own areas and didn't really mosh it up until the last few songs.

I agree about the 'bad rap', but that actually opens a few doors for me and the look does scare enough people away while walking down the street.

The pit is fun, even for a 45-yr-old like me. I can't hang in it for long or at the epicenter anymore, but the pit still works to rile up a crowd and make a good rockshow even better.

Here's a pit that is just about out of control :)

Machine Head at Wacken

Heh, I hear that about the heat turning a crowd mean. Soundwave, while generally having an awesome lineup, is often really poorly managed... the last time they had it out at their old venue in Sydney, it was one of the hottest days that summer, they'd screwed up the entrances again so people were stuck trying to get in, and they ran out of bottled water, leaving only a few places you could get tap water... among an entire festival. Plus, that venue has literally no shade available.

Things turned ugly fast. I'm pretty sure that's a large part of why they shifted it to Olympic Park the following year, plenty of water stations, lots of space for indoor stages out of the sun (still gets hot, but you're not going to roast at least), and a much better layout in general.


Tinkergoth wrote:

Turns out Wikipedia actually has a page for it, so I'm stealing their explanation:

"The term bogan (/ˈboʊɡən/) is Australian and New Zealand slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for a person with an unsophisticated background, or whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplify a lack of manners and education. Localised names exist that describe the same or very similar groups of people."

Bogan - Wikipedia

OK, so sounds very much like the term "redneck" in the US. Thanks for the info!


Yeah, redneck would be the closest comparison I'd say.

And like The 8th Dwarf said, most of them are actually good folks. It's the ones who get involved in stuff like the Cronulla riots and go around using their "national pride" and "patriotism" as justification for giving non-European descended people a hard time that are the real problem.

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