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Just to give you a different perspective: in Japan, and before COVID hit of course, I've attended quite a few concerts, and none of them had any person holding

Just to give you a different perspective: in Japan, and before COVID hit of course, I've attended quite a few concerts, and none of them had any person holding up their phones or iPads to record anything, ever. It's completely banned in all the concerts I went to and is illegal: you'll have your phone confiscated and the recorded material deleted by the event staff. Not that I've seen anyone trying to break it. Maybe the ones done by amateurs at small stages don't have that rule, but even then, I've never seen any. But what we did carry were penlights/cyalium lights. And each song has a set of calls people do at specific parts of the song. And for the rest of it? We set our penlights to the color matching the artist on stage, and we wave them, and sing along and make the screaming calls when it's appropriate. I would feel this crazy emptiness in my hands with one penlight so I'd bring two for both hands. The making of magic moment happens when few thousand fans scream "Encore" at the end, and when we do this penlight waving and all the stuff together. Phones don't even come to the picture. They are in vibrate mode. Can't have it ringing when the MC is speaking and everyone else is quiet, that'd be rude as hell. I guess it's totally different elsewhere, but I'd be in for a culture shock if I saw that many people trying to "capture the moment" on a device screen, instead of in their hearts and minds. For me, those are memories I treasure. I do understand that I cannot share the experience with my family/friends, but I get to share the experience with the guy sitting/standing next to me, and maybe the guy I exchanged Twitter details with so we could talk about it afterwards. Met quite a few great people during those concerts, and some I talk with time to time on Twitter even now. :)

crazygringo 5y ago
That's interesting it's different in Japan. But I'm precisely pushing back on the dichotomy you're presenting -- it's not an either/or choice about a screen vs hearts and minds, or sharing with friends vs. with the person next to you. You can have both -- you can have all of it. Record a couple of minutes, share with friends, and make friends next to you as well the entire rest of the concert and have those memories. Plus, you can multitask. Even if I'm filming a quick bit of a song, I'm sure as heck enjoying the music and experience too! It's not like I stop listening or looking. :)
- jlund-molfese 5y ago
  That's not necessarily false, but it is missing the point. The problem artists and other people have isn't that the individuals recording are having less fun, it's that they're ruining the show for everyone else. If I'm seeing a band I love live, I want to see the band. I want to pay attention to the way the frontperson interacts with the audience and the expressions they make as they sing. Those are subtle details, and someone holding a bright shiny rectangle above their head and blocking my view is distracting.
psychomugs 5y ago
OTOH, I spent a night at one of the largest nightclubs in Tokyo with a crowd that was basically standing still, lightly fistpumping while they were recording the whole set on their phones. Really killed the mood.

crazygringo 5y ago

That's interesting it's different in Japan. But I'm precisely pushing back on the dichotomy you're presenting -- it's not an either/or choice about a screen vs hearts and minds, or sharing with friends vs. with the person next to you. You can have both -- you can have all of it. Record a couple of minutes, share with friends, and make friends next to you as well the entire rest of the concert and have those memories. Plus, you can multitask. Even if I'm filming a quick bit of a song, I'm sure as heck enjoying the music and experience too! It's not like I stop listening or looking. :)

jlund-molfese 5y ago
That's not necessarily false, but it is missing the point. The problem artists and other people have isn't that the individuals recording are having less fun, it's that they're ruining the show for everyone else. If I'm seeing a band I love live, I want to see the band. I want to pay attention to the way the frontperson interacts with the audience and the expressions they make as they sing. Those are subtle details, and someone holding a bright shiny rectangle above their head and blocking my view is distracting.

psychomugs 5y ago

OTOH, I spent a night at one of the largest nightclubs in Tokyo with a crowd that was basically standing still, lightly fistpumping while they were recording the whole set on their phones. Really killed the mood.