Mobile Phones At Gigs?! Yay or Nay?!
I go to a lot of gigs, I love live music. I also love watching videos on the likes of Youtube of some of my favourite songs played live. Especially if I’m soon to see that particular band, I’ll watch gig videos of them, it gets me more excited. I’ve even been to gigs and recorded my favourite song so that I can go home and watch it back. And I do, it’s reliving the moment. And we all know how great we feel when we hear our favourite band play our favourite song….
Some artists take a different view, they don’t approve at all. Bob Dylan has a strict ‘no photo’ rule at all his shows, but some take a more extreme approach. Chrissie Hynde cursed her happy snappy concert goers, Tom Morello recently threw a fans phone into the crowd as he attempted to take a selfie with the performer, but the icing on the cake is Judas Priest frontman, Rob Halford.
I am a huge Judas Priest fan, I have been to many of their concerts, I have lots of pictures of the band on stage that I took on my mobile. The band even posed when they saw me taking them… Rob staying in that ‘Metal God’ position for just a second more, whilst I got the perfect shot of him. They seemed to like posing for me, my own little momento of a fantastic evening. I’ve also got a few videos…. The opening of the Epitaph tour, just as the curtain dropped to the stage floor…. I was with my cousin, on the video you hear me shouting to him ‘here we go!’ I was so excited. It was my first metal gig! I was buzzing! The monumental moment of Rob coming on stage on his Harley, ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Coming’, I recorded the whole song… And yes, I still watch it back now! That gig is by far, one of my top gigs.
Now then, to the incident in question. There was a fan, taking photo’s, recording songs, thats fine. Rob Halford even said in a statement afterwards
“The facts are we love our fans and you can film us all you like and watch our show on your phone rather than in the flesh…”, what the mainstream media didn’t tell us, is that this guy was not only recording the show, he had his flash on. Now, imagine how distracting that is for the performers onstage having that horrible light shining directly into your eyes, from a mere few feet away.
I know what some of you are thinking, ‘he’s on stage… there’s hundreds of lights’ but a camera flash light is different. Stage lights are a general wash, whereas this is a direct light. Rob goes on to say in his statement, “if you physically interfere with The Metal God’s performance, you now know what will happen.”
Perhaps Rob Halford went a tad overboard, but if you are going to film, consider the other people attending the gig. You don’t want to interfere with their experience and you don’t want to distract the band. Have a bit of courtesy.
Another point to highlight is that artists spend years and years harnessing their craft. Weeks and weeks working in the rehearsal studio to prepare for their live shows, which should be experienced live. Not through a screen. Even I don’t take constant photo’s… I’m there to enjoy the gig. But, we need a few highlights, right?
What do you think? Should there be a blanket ban on all mobile phones at gigs, or should bands accept that we live in an ever more technology dependant world?
Judas Priest are currently on tour with Uriah Heap in the USA and will be returning to the UK in 2020 as special guests on the rescheduled Ozzy Osbourne ‘No More Tours’ tour.
They play the following shows together:
JANUARY 2020
Nottingham Motorpoint Arena – Fri 31st
FEBRUARY 2020
Dublin 3Arena – Sun 2nd
Manchester Arena – Wed 5th
Newcastle Utilita Arena – Fri 7th
London The O2 – Mon 10th
Glasgow SSE Hydro – Wed 12th
Birmingham Resorts World Arena – Fri 14th
