Hi, I believe we met face to face last year. You know, during the Sam Roberts Band concert at Bluesfest when everyone was having a great time and the band was rocking and we were getting poured on but it was still a good time. Remember that night? Yes, I remember it well.
I remember it because about 20 feet in front of me, there you were, with your acoustic guitar held up high in front of a bunch of us and we couldn’t see a good portion of the stage. Yes, yes, I understand it’s not that wide of an item but depending on how far you are from the stage, it becomes a wall.
I know you remember me because I finally made my way through the crowd to tap you on the shoulder and we had that polite conversation about how the people behind you would appreciate it if you left your guitar down and you proclaimed “Hey man, I’m just here having a great time with my guitar.” and I felt your pain because as a guitarist myself, I like to rock. But I reasoned with you and said “That’s fine and all, but at the same time you are preventing others to rock.” At this point, my reasoning hit home and you lowered your guitar to let us all have a good time. I thank you for that. Let’s also note that because of you, I felt like a God for 7 seconds as the people behind you cheered for my actions. It was a beautiful moment and no one could tell because of the rain on my face, but I shed a tear.
Now…fast forward a year from that point and I’m standing at the Bob Dylan concert last night and lo and behold, 50 meters in front of me I see your acoustic guitar being raised from the crowd in front of the stage. Here I thought this was a random occurrence, but now I realize this is your ‘thing’ at concerts!
The following questions popped into my head while listening to some excellent Dylan tunes:
1) What is the purpose of the guitar being held up? Do you wish for the band to acknowledge that there is a fellow guitarist out there in the crowd? Off-note: To the band who acknowledged this chap at a concert years ago, look what you have created.
2) If you are going to hold up your guitar so that the band can see it, don’t you think it’s a good idea if you’re a little closer to the stage? You’re still at least 200 feet from the stage from what I can see. Considering the Bob Dylan show doesn’t have any pyrotechnics and the lighthing is pretty sparse, the best the boys on the stage can see is about 10 feet from the stage. That’s probably to the security barrier (or the row of lawn chairs forming a security barrier – many of which I stumbled into last night)! Let’s not point out that their eyesight is probably failing also and it’s pretty hard to look at the instruments on their own stage.
3) Perhaps you’re just an avid guitarist who lugs his guitar around with him everywhere which is awesome. But then we get back into the whole ‘You’re blocking my view.” Now, last night you were too far to affect me, but I’m sure the people behind you didn’t appreciate 10 minutes of it being raised in the air right in the line of view of Bob Dylan. This also goes for those people insisting on bringing umbrellas to a concert. My colleague reported that the Nickelback concert last night requested ‘No Umbrellas’ which was amazing. She said there were so many umbrellas in the trash cans that she could have made a fortune. But at Bluesfest last year, the umbrellas were quite the pain. In fact, I remember Mike pulling on an umbrella to piss the guy off so much that he finally left. Or did he? I forget. Nonetheless, if you have something obstructing the view of others, that isn’t cool. This doesn’t apply to tall people in front of short people. You can’t help being tall, you can blame your parents for that. If you’re nice enough, you’ll let the short person in front of you.
Now, if none of these above questions apply, then I’ll have to assume that the only reason that you bring the acoustic guitar to hoist it up in the air, is for the sole reason of being unique. Well good sir, while you are unique and you have me now writing you a letter, you still are upsetting some people directly behind you. Heck, this open letter also goes out to the person(s) holding the sign up at the U2 concert back in November 2005. I’ll let you both know that I think it’s fine to hold up something for a maximum of 5-10 seconds. But holding a large item up for an entire song is uncalled for.
Am I old and cranky? No. But I understand how the crowd needs to be a collective in terms of having a good time. Sometimes you gotta give up something so someone else can have a good time. However, I am also at fault for not really giving a damn and just wishing to rock. I expect an open letter being written about me in someone’s blog around the Net which I will never read because I just don’t know who they are and they don’t know me.
Keep on rocking!
Palmer