NEWS
EVENTS
Live Through a Lens
Indie | Thursday 10th October 2013 | Harry
According to a Guardian article published on Tuesday, ‘capturing those great gig moments just got a whole lot easier thanks to two new smartphones’; The Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Nokia Lumia 925 boast new setting that will make filming at concerts simpler and more effective.
Great news! Even more easy ways to piss people off at gigs!
I’ve always struggled to understand how people can justify filming live performances on their phones. Why would you choose to watch an artist you’ve paid to see through a tiny screen the whole time?
What kind of live experience can you be having if all you’re thinking about is getting home and watching what you’ve filmed? And surely the quality of the audio and the footage always to tinny and shaky fails to justify spending the whole gig waving your phone in the air?
The odd the photo is acceptable. Proof you were there; a little memento is fine. But holding up your phone and filming the whole thing is definitely not cool.
And while I’m baffled as to why people ruin their own gig experience by doing this, I’m much more irritated with the way people consistently ruin people’s views behind them, and spoil other’s experience.
I may be sounding like a grumpy old git with this, but the fact is many artists hate fans filming at gigs just as much as I do.
I’m merely echoing the words of Ian Brown, who at a recent Stone Roses gig said to the crowd, ‘If you put your cameras down you might be able to live in the moment. You have a memory there of something you've never lived.’
Yeah Yeah Yeahs also voiced their annoyance, when they put up notices at a recent show saying ‘please do not watch the show through a screen on your smart device/camera. Put that shit away as a courtesy to the person behind you.’
In the decades before the introduction of smart phones, any unofficial filming was completely banned at gigs. Why haven’t regulations caught up with the new technology?
Not only is it ruining live shows for lots of people, fan filming is affecting the way fans receive new music. The first time a fan hears a band’s new material is often now via a video of a live performance posted on YouTube, taken on a smart phone. People can hear new singles weeks before they are officially released because someone has uploaded a tinny live rendition online which just doesn’t do it justice.
f you’re content watching a gig through your phone, why bother even buying a ticket? Do us a favour, stay in and watch little videos online instead. That way, you save a few quid, and we get live those great gig moments properly.
Check out the original Guardian article here:
http://www.theguardian.com/carphone-warehouse-mobile-living/sound-and-vision?INTCMP=mic_231118
