[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is no better feeling than going to a concert, belting out your favourite songs until you lose your voice whilst being surrounded by complete strangers but sharing the same moment. There isn’t anything that really quite compares. So why are there those people who decide that instead of enjoying the concert through their own eyes, the screen of their phone would work much better?
Years ago, at concerts not one person had a phone out, everybody there just enjoyed the concert and stayed in that moment. Years ago, at a McFly concert in what was then The Point, the only time a phone was taken out was when the band asked anyone with a light to wave it around. There were still more cigarette lighters than LCD screens.
Why is it now people feel the need to have their phone glued to their hand at all times? Concerts are places where you go to forget about everything happening around you, embrace that moment because it’s one you’ll never experience again, no one concert will ever be the same as another.
It is understandable that people take pictures and videos at concerts. We all want to capture that moment, so we can look back and see it for exactly what it was. That’s only human and it’s no strange phenomenon. We have all been guilty of this, but the majority of people will take enough footage to have a whole Instagram page dedicated to it.
People these days, especially very young people, have a tendency to want to put everything they do online, have others watch their lives through snapchat stories. You spend so much money, sometimes hundreds, on a ticket to a concert only to stand in the crowd filming it. If that’s what you wanted, most artists make concert movies now for about €18. You can’t possibly have the same concert experience when all you’ve done at the concert is video it. All you’ll remember is the phone’s footage and not what you saw or heard.
At a Justin Bieber concert, there was a girl who easily paid €500 or more for a ticket to see Justin Bieber from a pit within the stage. During one stripped back songs, he sat on stage with his legs dangling into this pit. He then held hands with a few fans, including this one girl and what was her reaction to this once in a lifetime experience? She whipped out the phone and filmed it. She didn’t save that moment for herself, she wanted to share it to everyone she knew online.
Concerts are places to let loose and have fun, a night to remember for the rest of your life. Not something to post on the internet once after spending all that money only for it to be gone from your mind a week later.
Ellen Fitzpatrick
Image Credit: Pixabay