A few weeks ago, I went to a concert by a K-pop girl group, (G)-IDLE. And I was quite disappointed, to say the least. This week I wanted to share my thoughts on the concert culture and the impact of digital technologies on the experience of the live shows. Honestly, I haven’t been to that many concerts after the pandemic. The viral videos on TikTok are always taken from some great spots, giving you the impression, that this is what going to a concert has to be like. Rarely do people share how much they spent on their Golden Circle + soundcheck tickets, it is therefore way too easy to imagine yourself in their place. What a surprise it was that the reality does not really match.
Film It All
Speaking of videos. One of last week’s posts focused on traveling content, and how we see our experience mostly through our screens. A very similar thing happens at concerts. Everyone around me seemed to be taking videos of the show, for its entire duration. It was ridiculous, as I had a better view of the stage through the phones around me. But seriously, there is a plethora of content on the Internet. The quality of the concert videos on YouTube will probably be way better. I get the need to have some sort of proof, something to remember the event by. But take one video or a few photos. Do not tape the entire show. The issue was addressed by multiple artists, including Mitski and Florence and the Machine. The concert is a point of meeting, that rarely occurs between a musician and a fan. You might as well enjoy it in person. And watch a professionally done recording at home.
The TikTok Concert Culture
There are a lot of viral trends on TikTok. There is one that I found particularly funny while watching the videos online. People were posting their concert videos, with their own voices in the background, shouting the artist’s name, or just in general expressing, quite loudly, their excitement. The title of most of these videos was: “Why I can’t post my concert videos”. And it was funny and wholesome, someone was really excited about seeing their idol. But experiencing the trend in real life was extremely icky. You cannot hear the artist over the screams, and it gets tiring pretty quickly. Other viral behaviors that feel straight-up disrespectful to other people in the audience are, for example, bringing banners, or pushing forward, trying to get closer to the stage. The latter can lead to dangerous situations, and even during the (G)-IDLE concert, the girls had to pause the performance to urge people to stop moving forward.
According to Tiffany Ferguson, the audience feels more entitled than ever. For her the reason is twofold, the difficulty of getting the tickets, and the extremely high prices. The former applies mostly to events such as the Eras Tour to which the demand for (G)-IDLE tickets cannot compare. The pricing, however, was quite insane. The basic standing ticket cost over 100€. Furthermore, one could opt for a VIP ticket, and stock up on merchandise. As I wrote in my last week’s post, K-pop is a pricey hobby. There are so many pieces of merchandise, that are K-pop specific. Every group, for example, has its own lightstick, each priced at around 80€. And one could spot many people unboxing their brand-new lightsticks or wearing VIP passes. If you already spend this much on a concert, you surely can behave however you want, no? (Please no).
A Queue
For me, another aspect of concert culture that got out of control is queueing. A few days before the event I got an email from the venue with some organizational information. The concert was starting at 7.30 pm, and the venue opened at 5.30. There was also a note, urging the fans to start queueing only after 9 am (!). We got to the venue 2 hours before the opening and still stood quite far from the entrance. This practice is far from accessible. One must be very healthy and have a lot of time on their hands to queue. And if you do not come early enough, you might as well not go at all, because you will not see the artist from the back of the room. And after long hours of queueing and competing with other fans (it can get ugly), when the concert finally starts, one does not care about the band anymore. For security reasons, you are often not allowed to bring water inside the venue. Therefore, queueing inside the venue could potentially be even more physically strenuous than outside of it.
A disclaimer for this post is that I do not think the issues I am bringing up apply to every concert. It all depends on various factors, including the artist and their fanbase, and the venue and their ticket-selling system. The behaviors vary from fandom to fandom, and perhaps the younger the demographic, the less likely it is they have a firm grasp of what one should and should not do during a show. However, I do not want to blame the younger audiences for my disappointment. I already feel like a cranky old man complaining about how the youth is evil. Ferguson brings up an interesting point, that perhaps because of the pandemic, we all forgot how to behave in social spaces. And some of us never had the chance to learn.
What do you think about it? Let me know in the comments.
To be honest, I had a similar experience as you when I went to Lana Del Rey’s concert in Amsterdam a few months ago. It made me disappointed because I almost couldn’t hear the singer’s voice but only the screaming from the fans. I got annoyed because I expected to hear my favorite singer’s live singing skills, yet this expectation was interrupted by a group of cult followers.
This terrible experience reminds me of the virtual concert. The Roblox concert of the American singer Lil Nas X received 33 million views within two days. Roblox as a game platform especially created a virtual character of Lil Nas X and a gorgeous setting just like a real concert setting. Fans as well as game participants can interact with each other. There are quite good compliments under the YouTube video Lil Nas X Roblox Concert that a bunch of people even regretted not getting the chance to watch this virtual concert. In my opinion, this innovative space for music caters to the preferences of Gen Z followers and gaming enthusiasts, making it a contemporary phenomenon. I would say the advent of this new space for music has a correlation to a great extent with the metaverse. Also, I believe that there are many more young generations who are paying attention to metaverse productions recently. The latest example would be Apple Vision Pro because it drew much public attention during the new product launch event.