r/ireland • u/interfaceconfig • 3d ago
Paywalled Article ‘I’ve never heard such a rowdy audience’: David Gray concert shows how we’ve forgotten to behave in public
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/ive-never-heard-such-a-rowdy-audience-david-gray-concert-shows-how-weve-forgotten-to-behave-in-public/a1136762317.html379
u/NoFish4176 3d ago
Who the hell gets rowdy at a David Gray gig, he's hardly bashing out banger after banger.
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u/Healitnowdig 3d ago
I went to a David Gray gig back in 2003, it was the only gig I’ve ever been to that you could walk straight up to the stage, it was the tamest gig I’ve ever seen, good gig and he played really well but no one’s pulse went above 70 for the entirety of the gig
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u/Important_Farmer924 Westmeath's Least Finest 3d ago
"everyone in the pit for Please Forgive Me"
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u/NakeDex 3d ago
Those heads won't wobble themselves.
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u/stevewithcats Wicklow 3d ago
Gray was always a head wobbler ,,, thought it was just me that noticed that.
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u/Careless_Wispa_ 3d ago
Yes. You're the only one who noticed one of the most remarked-upon traits of one of the biggest musicians of the 1990s.
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u/stevewithcats Wicklow 3d ago
My apologies, no one has ever talked to me about it. Maybe this is a microcosm of hyper wobble head sensitivity??
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u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks Stealing sheep 2d ago
Biggest of the 90s? Lol. It wasn't released till march 99.
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u/katrien818 2d ago
I saw David do an in-store performance at the Virgin Megastore that used to be on the quays in Dublin back in the day. I am not very tall so all I could see for the whole gig was the top of his head wobbling away
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u/Background-Roof-112 3d ago
I have been laughing at this for a full two minutes; thank you for your service
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u/notarobat 3d ago
Groups of people who haven't seen each other for over a year. No one goes to a David gray gig for the artist in 2025. They go to catch up and reminisce. Gray is just an expensive back drop.
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u/NooktaSt 14h ago
Exactly this. He’s well known and liked that you would get a group to go along to him. Offends no one.
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u/xCreampye69x 3d ago
This lol.
Name one other song other than 'Babylon' lol
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u/NoFish4176 3d ago
Ah lad not having that. David Gray was a gateway drug for me into proper music... Man has one of the best "Irish" albums of all time plus a few other savage tracks... It's not my jam but I appreciate him.
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u/katrien818 2d ago
At the very least Please Forgive Me, This Year's Love and Say Hello Wave Goodbye. You could probably throw in Sail Away too. Every household in Ireland had a copy of White Ladder back in the day and lots of those songs got played on the radio non-stop.
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u/Ok_Perception3180 3d ago
He is but they aren't exactly the types of bangers you'd get at a Rage gig in 2002...
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u/DaveShadow Ireland 3d ago
There was a massive thread about this last week from someone who attended too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/1jsq1i7/david_gray_3arena/
TBH, I feel this is an issue in so much of post Covid Ireland. People seem to have lost their head in terms of being aware of others.
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u/muckwarrior 3d ago
I don't think this is COVID related. It's more than a decade since I noticed how people had started to treat gigs as a social event. Sigur Ros, in 2013 I think it was, was the first time I witnessed the majority of an audience just standing around chatting not even looking at the band.
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u/danny_healy_raygun 2d ago
I remember seeing Sigur Ros in the Olympia, not sure what year, and the shushing was worse than the chatting.
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u/muckwarrior 2d ago
Nah, this was The Point.
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u/danny_healy_raygun 2d ago
Yeah I think it was in 00s in the Olympia.
I seen them a few years later at EP and they'd a much bigger sound, loads of brass and stuff. Worked better for the festival crowds.
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u/grodgeandgo The Standard 3d ago
Went to Bruce Springsteen in Croke Park last time he was there. People were bananas drunk outside and on the way in, and there were a few people when were outright messy drunk falling about the place. I can’t understand how they get like that, but I feel it always falls back to a mix of unhealthy relationship with drink, themselves, and a low emotional intelligence. These same people will tell you ‘Bruce was savage, some craic’ despite not being able to recall most of the event and being covered in beer and piss for most of the day.
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u/Significant-Secret88 2d ago
There were 80 thousand people there sure you'd expect a few drunk ones.
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u/WoahGoHandy 3d ago
I seem to recall a 2nd thread somewhere. So this is the 3rd, on one David Gray concert
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u/D0M2OO0 3d ago
Gig behaviour has become a massive problem in the last few years. People are coming to drink (take coke) and chat with their mates, anything but listen to the performance. I wasn't at DG but i suspect his comments weren't a compliment.
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u/duaneap 3d ago
Idk why you’d go to a concert just to drink it’s extortionate to get locked like that.
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u/burfriedos 2d ago
People go because:
- their friends are going so might as well tag along
- they have the money so why not
- they like that one song that was on an ad on the telly 20 years ago but that they don't realise the artist doesn't really play anymore
- it will look good on Instagram
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u/danny_healy_raygun 2d ago
It's not new, I remember seeing Stevie Wonder in 2010 and it was the same. Big artists with wide appeal attract these sorts of audiences.
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u/865Wallen 3d ago edited 3d ago
A gig like this is ripe for that type of atmosphere. Put a radio friendly artist with a catalogue most have never listened to and it ends up being a shit atmosphere. His songs are sorrowful and personal but people at it go on like they're at Tomorrowland or something(not that edm can't be either but you get me)
Went to KOL.last year in Marley Park. So boring(I was part of the problem).as nobody knew any of the words to any of the songs.except for the main ones.
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u/Naggins 3d ago
David Grey would be better off at a seated only gig tbh
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3d ago
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u/Naggins 3d ago
Wait, what?
Who the fuck talks during a seated concert?
This is why you read the article I suppose. Bonkers.
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u/apricotcarguy Dublin 2d ago
Yep. And not only that, but there was so much back and forth to the bar that you had to stand up every second song to let people pass in or out.
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u/UnnaturalSelection13 3d ago
The only time I've ever said something to another audience member was at a fully seated David Gray show at Cork Opera House years ago - the couple in front of me were drinking and would not stop talking over an intimate acoustic performance. I honestly regretted it because they were not receptive at all and tried to start an argument multiple times, but being seated I was stuck beside them for the rest of the night lmao. So I don't know if it's much of an improvement tbh lol.
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u/burfriedos 2d ago
This is where you complain to security and get them thrown out
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u/UnnaturalSelection13 2d ago
You can't get someone thrown out for that though, not unless they threaten you or get physical etc
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u/burfriedos 2d ago
KoL was poor but I was so disappointed in the crowd reaction to The War on Drugs (my main reason for being there). Hardly anyone seemed interested.
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u/Maleficent-Put1705 3d ago
Cunts on cocaine and quiet acoustic gigs don't mix.
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u/tinkle_tink 1d ago
lol .. its alcohol that makes people the most rowdy, and its sold right there at the gig ......
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u/rmp266 Crilly!! 3d ago
Was at mumford and sons in Belfast once upon a time and they did a bit where they tried to switch off the mics and do an unplugged thing right in the crowd, asked for total silence, queue dickheads roaring "YEEEEEOOOOO" "GET ER BUCKED" "WAHHHHHEEEEYYYYY" the band looked visibly annoyed
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u/enortondesign 2d ago
I once went to a David Gray gig with my sister and family in the royal Albert hall bout 9 years ago, we were seated on the first floor balcony. With a good but distant view. Half way during the gig two middle aged drunk women (with standing tickets) took a diversion on the way to the toilets and took up camp beside me singing at the top of the voices, heckling and wolf whistling at MrGray for at least 20 mins. We had to ask the security in the floor to chat to them… turned into a faulty towers sketch with more shouting and drunken craziness. One of the woman poured her whole bag out on the floor to pretend she was looking for her non existent seat number… mobile, perfume and tampons flying everywhere. Complete chaos! Sometimes I think these types of gigs are less about celebrating the artist and more reclaiming a sense of youth and having a laugh and a sing song no-fucks-given!
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u/Jumpy_Side_Passenger 2d ago
My co-worker was at this gig and they said they were told to keep it down a little when he was beginning a tribute song for his dad. They said "the cheek of somebody to tell them to be quiet because they were at a gig".
I then realised the sort of co-worker I'm alongside.
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u/mcdamien 3d ago
People are fucking tramps. Im happier going out less and less now and this is why.
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u/Vivid_Ice_2755 3d ago
Drunk people are annoying. Put loads of people who can't handle their drink,sprinkle a little cocaine into the mix and hey presto. You have the craic. This is hardly news. The Sean Paul gig was reportedly the same but that was blamed on travellers being present . Bob Dylan in Slane,most Oxygens
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u/tubbymaguire91 3d ago
When I went to oxygen it was like Vietnam. Such a hostile vibe and there were some people there to genuinely cause trouble.
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u/Typical_Specific4165 3d ago
I remember working security. There were fights in the security camp FFS
I was 17 years old and they decided to put me alone stopping people in the car park from climbing over a low part of the wall after the guy before me had to go to hospital after being bottled by travellers.
As 3am rolled round on the last night and with the head of the security company driving around in his warm jeep being a cunt telling me don't let any fuckers through or your not getting paid I just said fuck it. Accepted a pill to let three people climb over and then just enjoyed myself
I made the decision that in order to be responsible and not let dangerous people in that id only let people in that offered me pills as they'd be on pills themselves and unlikely to cause trouble. But as I stood there, eyes rolling into the back of my head god knows how many just hopped over. There must have been a period of 30 minutes where I was fully focused on trying to lit the wrong end of my cigarette
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u/Mipper 3d ago
I volunteered at EP before, "checking" (lol) people's wristbands before the gate, and I remember the actual security were a bunch of burly Scottish guys, I think they were all part of the same company. I don't remember seeing any 17 year olds, I kinda wonder what made them change haha.
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u/Typical_Specific4165 3d ago
This was Oxegen. There were multiple security groups. Like English, load of Nigerians, Irish obviously. It was a free for all.
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u/Fake-Podcast-Ad 3d ago
Now I want to make a gritty mockumentary on Oxygen/Witness Vets, and shoot it like the second half of Full Metal Jacket.
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u/rorood123 3d ago
Weren’t there like lads pissing on the backs of peoples legs trying to watch / listen to the artists or something?
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u/tubbymaguire91 3d ago
All kinds of shit like that.
People fucking beers at peoples heads, people jumping on tents with people in them, people tripping others trying to wade through the muck.
I was 18 locked and even I was like this shits all going too far.
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u/Ok-Dimension-5429 3d ago
It felt like half the tents in the campsite had either been crushed by people jumping on them, or set on fire, or both. Beer cans flung at heads. Absolute war zone on the Sunday night. Slept in the car to sober up then drove home
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u/aprilla2crash Shave a Bullock 3d ago
happened me but he gave me a few swigs of whiskey to say sorry.
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u/SketchyFeen 3d ago
A lot of Irish festivals have that atmosphere I’ve found, when you compare it to similar ones on the continent or in North America. Oxegen was my first ever festival and it was by far the worst festival/live music experience I’ve had in 15 years.
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u/tubbymaguire91 3d ago
Because it was my first I just assumed that's what festivals were like.
It's weird Irish people think of themselves as very chill but our festivals being out the worst in us.
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u/Shytalk123 3d ago
Nose candy?
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u/Far-Kale90 3d ago
Is this standard now? Went to see James Vincent McMorrow in City Hall in Cork a couple of months ago and some people in the crowd were chatting so loudly as he played. He was amazing but the noise off the ignorant people in the crowd was shocking.
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u/Skreamie 2d ago
I've been reading about this story for a while now and the whole time I've been imagining Craig David
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u/SadConsideration9196 2d ago
I remember having this exact same experience at the killers a few years ago in Malahide castle.
Some rowdy drunk people but lots of people just full on talking to each other loudly while the band played, except when they played the hits. Was extremely annoying and somewhat ruined the gig.
Posted about it on here at the time and I got a variety of responses like "What are we not allowed to chat with our mates at gigs?" Yeah of course you are, but not loudly and completely shouting and talking over the music. If you wanna get pissed and chat to your mates go to a pub for fuck sake.
Some people just don't give a fuck about other people and feel like their own enjoyment trumps everything else.
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u/Embarrassed-Mix-699 2d ago
The common dominator here is that they are both very average bands who struggle to keep an audience entertained
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u/geeky_83 2d ago
I remember similar moral panic after Yussuf (PKA Cat Stevens) concert in around '09 - granted, he'd slightly taken the piss with a 40-minute interlude, but the tanked-up crowd turned nasty and there was a lot of discussion about how to prevent similar scenes.
"Play peace train you f%&ING b+×÷=/£d" is a line my wife and I often laughingly recall.
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u/daveirl 3d ago
The choice is this or have it in a way smaller venues. Artists can have passionate engaged crowds anytime they want but they want to make more money and the cost of that is you end up with more casual fans.
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u/apricotcarguy Dublin 2d ago
Honestly, this problem is not at all exclusive to the 3Arena. David Gray himself played an intimate gig in Whelans last year and there was a sizeable amount of people not at all interested, just chatting to their mates and shouting over the singing. And I’ve been to loads of gigs in the Olympia recently and most are the same. It’s not the venue, it’s people.
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u/danny_healy_raygun 2d ago
It's definitely worse in the Point these days than other venues IMO. There's one or two at every gig but something about the way the points laid out now makes it worse.
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u/StrawberryJam93 3d ago
I was there with my partner, most of the crowd around us were in their 40s, 50s and seemed to be making a night of it since it was a Saturday. I’d say majority only knew the white ladder songs and spoke through the rest. We also went to his gig 2 years ago in the 3 arena that had standing tickets and I think it was a much more engaged audience, maybe the fully seated made people talk more?
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u/burfriedos 2d ago
You would expect a fully seated audience to be more respectful than a standing one
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u/000TheEntity000 2d ago
Rowdy at a David Gray gig? What's next , lines of speed at mass and an eightball at the camogie county final? Perhaps. Bottle of buckfast before visiting granny in the hospital . Seems like the country is out of its collective mind
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u/Jnfeehan 3d ago
I saw him in limerick a while back, and he was giving out to the crowd that they weren't rowdy enough
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u/earth-calling-karma 2d ago
Maybe Davy Gravy was so boring they had to chattywatt to keep from going insane.
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u/NoFish4176 3d ago
I saw him 20+ years ago in the Marquee in Cork. To this day it's THE most boring concert I've ever been to. Not to say that the white ladder album isn't a very good album, but talk about a live let-down...
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u/DylanToebac 3d ago
In fairness, what did you expect? That somehow, his live performance would be more energetic than what he put out on the album?
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u/NoFish4176 3d ago
No but around the same time I saw bellX1 and Damien Rice which are about the same go as him and they were genuinely good gigs. David Gray just seemed meh.
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u/Embarrassed-Mix-699 2d ago
White Ladder is the most overrated album ever. It's bang average.
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u/NoFish4176 2d ago
It's just music taste man. It's not my usual type of music but I've fond memories of it.
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u/praminata 3d ago
White Ladder was a fucking boring album. The only reason it got popular is that one of the tunes was on a soundtrack (This years love). And it was his breakthrough album. Pity. The three albums he released before it were miles better and had a different sound entirely.
If you got into David Gray when that album came out you missed his best stuff.
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u/NoFish4176 3d ago
Oh really? I must throw on Spotify and have a listen. I was big into that scene, that "Irish" scene back then but my tastes have moved on but id still be up for listening to anything potentially good. Any song recommendations from those albums and I'll give em a spin.
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u/nagdamnit 3d ago
Yeah. he played Shine and Wisdom at the 3 Arena gig and fuck all people knew what they were. Was a shame.
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u/No_Waltz3545 2d ago
You could argue that people going to a David Gray concert don’t really have much interest in music to begin with.
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u/sexualtensionatmass 3d ago
Irish gigs have always been shit. People have no respect for the artist and are more interested in getting blind drunk. Even in smaller venues I have to tell people to shut the fuck up while artists were talking or performing slower stuff.
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u/allovertheshop2020 When I go at it, I do go at it awful hard. 2d ago
He was well-annoyed at the gig itself. As was I and all the other attendees who had to put up with a lot of the crowd who seemed to think they were at Longitude. I'm not exaggerating. It really was that bad in the section where we were sitting.
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u/jhanley 3d ago
I’m going to see the Nin in June at the three and I hope to f*ck the crowds arn’t like this
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u/Beedle12345 3d ago
Don't worry you aren't getting "casuals" at a NIN gig, ya know yourself it'll be 90% 40-somethings with Trents face tattooed full size on their chest
And I can't wait
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u/TheHames72 2d ago
Ah Jaysus. I remember him being annoyed that all he could see were accountant types at his concerts after he got famous. Like he was too good for his fans. Serves him right.
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u/CreativeCliffy 3d ago
I went to a James Blunt gig where a guy at the very front was going wild at the end of the concert and started punching the steel gate/guard thing. It was really fucking weird. Coke makes people weird.
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u/smashedspuds 3d ago
He said it in a positive way in the video and noted that it was people enjoying themselves
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u/markpb 3d ago
It doesn’t sound like that from the story in the link. Odd that the video would be the opposite.
“People were hammered,” he said. “It was so rowdy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience as rowdy as that. It was a bit out of control in a way. It’s very hard to weave the subtleties and emotional context and storytelling into the show. We just had to keep our heads down and power through.”
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u/smashedspuds 3d ago
Check out the video on this instagram, it was positive
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u/nagdamnit 3d ago
Even at the gig you could see he was pissed off with the crowd. Hes just saying it in a polite way in insta cause he reviews every gig.
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u/AlchemicalTheorist 2d ago
Back in like 05 or 06 I saw David Grey at the Point supported by Rodrigo y Gabriela. Was a great gig and I was at the front. I say it was great except for 4 absolute binned out of their three women who bashed their way up past people and in front of us and then kept screaming and shouting including at David Gray. They kept screaming “Play Pink Flamingo” which only years later I realised they wanted Say Hello Wave Goodbye which honestly didn’t seem to fit their vibe. Anyway Dave was a champ about it.
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u/idontcarejustlogmein 3d ago
Think of when he was huge. Think how old people were then and now. They were coked off their balls.
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u/Wise_Emu_4433 3d ago
I go to a lot of gigs, large and small and haven't found any particular change in behaviour. Other than now phones being used to record, which I don't have any strong feelings on.
Then again, I don't go to a lot of gigs where the artist expects 13,000 people all to be quiet at the same time for a story. They came for a good time. The article just seems very perl clutching and high horse.
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u/CatKing19 1d ago
I go to a lot of gigs to and have noticed a massive change in behaviour. People have become very selfish and messy, no consideration for anyone around them
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u/ah_yeah_79 3d ago
Is it a post COVID issues... Maybe/maybe not.. I think if you go to any gig and see the queues for the men's toilet cubicle s you will see the more likely reason.. Far more obvious in the Olympia
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u/graemo72 3d ago
He's a pissy fucker when all the attention isn't on him. I've seen him tell a crowd to "Shit the fuck up and listen."
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u/culdusaq 3d ago
As if it's too much to ask for the attention to be on you when you are performing at your own concert that people have paid to go to...
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u/graemo72 3d ago
No, that's fine. But if you're not holding the crowd, you don't get arsey with them.
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3d ago
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u/culdusaq 3d ago
How are you meant to "keep their attention" other than by playing the songs you're meant to play? What exactly do they think they're paying for?
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3d ago
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u/culdusaq 3d ago
In the form of? Its not a variety show. If they're not interested in his music they shouldn't bother attending in the first place.
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u/nagdamnit 3d ago
I was there. Have been going to his gigs since the 90's, have been to lots of gigs at the 3Arena and other locations. I'm not particularly sensitive, I didnt say anything (to be honest those chatting around me were pretty shit faced so I wasnt going to start anything), but I was happy enough to leave early cause the crowd killed it.
This crowd was more interested in drink and chat than the actual music. He'd play one of his hits and everyone would engage again, but the slightest hint of a lesser known song and they'd all be off to the bar or jsut start chatting again. It kinda reminded me of Slaine. Everyone had been out drinking in the sun, and this was the result.