In my nearly thirty years on earth, I’ve gone to just about every possible kind of show, in just about every possible category of venue. I’ve seen Madonna at Madison Square Garden, I’ve seen honky-tonk in Deep Ellum, I’ve seen traditional Irish bands in Queens and blues greats in Jersey and French-nobility gimmick rock in Boston, I’ve gone to tiny rooms in the Knitting Factory so far below the surface of the earth that you get a canary with your wristband, I’ve hiked to seats so high up in the rim of Giants Stadium that I had to train at Everest Base Camp for two weeks before the show, and I’ve squeezed into every small- to mid-sized venue between Morningside Heights and Canarsie, yet the mystery remains unsolved — what the hell is wrong with people?

I would like to clarify here that, by “show,” I do not mean the kind of show that involves evening dress and/or a cello, during which attendees who do not observe the proper protocol for quietly unwrapping a cough lozenge may find themselves blindfolded with their own tuxedo scarves and shot during intermission. I mean, roughly, rock shows, and at rock shows, nobody expects a proxemic bubble six feet in diameter and library silence, not even a misanthropic grouch like myself.

However.

I would like to think — and maybe it’s naïve of me — that rules of etiquette exist for rock shows by which we can all comfortably abide. Rules like, say, NOT BARFING ON MY SHOES. God. I mean, it’s one thing to sneak out to an all-ages show with your tenth-grade friends and do belts of Dad’s bourbon from a shampoo bottle on the train into the city, because in that situation, it’s practically a rule that one of you has to hurl as disgustingly and dramatically as possible, preferably on a stranger or in the presence of an authority figure, otherwise what’s the point of going. But if you showed the bouncer your ID and the bouncer stamped the back of your hand, you should know how to hold your liquor, or at the very least how to get your rookie ass to the BATHROOM or a GARBAGE CAN instead of spackling my footwear with Gordon’s and pot pie, and if you DO send dinner into reruns on my left instep, I expect EITHER a sincere “sorry, man” OR a handful of paper towels from the bar to aid in the de-speeyacking of my brand-new Mary Janes, but do NOT just WALK OFF with a burp that may signal either mild regret or the imminent airing of another classic episode of Stouffer’s Theater, because YOU JUST RALPHED ON MY KICKS, CHIEF.

True story, folks. The guy horked on my Steve Maddens and then just drifted off like a bilious parade float. The fuck? Although I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any better from the kind of dorkwad who spends thirty bucks on the concert t-shirt and proceeds to put it on OVER HIS J.CREW PLAID BUTTONDOWN. Okay, for real, now — never never do that. First of all, never never spend thirty bucks on the tour shirt. LOOK at the tour shirt. ADMIRE the tour shirt. Spend the thirty bucks on beers instead, go home, and buy the tour shirt on eBay for TEN bucks the next day instead. And if you MUST buy the tour shirt, sling it over your shoulder or tuck it into your waistband or stash it in your friend’s messenger bag, but DO NOT wear it that night, and ABSOLUTELY DO NOT put it on OVER your other clothing, because it looks SO, SO DUMB. You can wear a shirt from one the same band’s previous tours if you like, but please, I beg of you — just wear it, okay? Don’t do that thing where you walk around with your chest puffed out so that everyone else at the show can see that it’s a t-shirt from ages ago before the band sold out, and their sound, like, disgusts you now and you only came because your friend made you, and you’d better just pluck the corner of the t-shirt “absentmindedly” in order to draw our attention to it because maybe we didn’t take proper note of your super-cool-osity before, because we get it, High Fidelity guy. We got it when we saw the sixteen pounds of hair product and the ironically pristine purple Creepers. It’s just a t-shirt. Quit it.

And don’t “woo.” Okay, you can “woo” — in moderation. An unrelenting volley of “woo”? No. I avoid Dave Matthews in all his incarnations for a reason. That reason? “WOOOOOOOOO! WOO, WOO, WOOOO HOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOO!” Like he can hear you. Shut UP! One “woo” per song per customer, that’s it, and don’t do that rebel-yell-war-whoop “woo” once the song has started, either, because I paid to hear the Donnas, not you. I mean it, buddy. Don’t drink and “woo,” don’t throw the two-handed rock-and-roll devil’s horns during the “woo,” don’t append a “hoo” to the “woo,” don’t “woo” at folk shows, and don’t even think about yelling out, “FREEBIRD!” It’s gone from dumb through jokey and funny and back around to dumb again. Don’t do it. It’s annoying. Yes, “‘Stairway,’ too.” Duh.

We need to crack down on the “woo” because the “woo” is a gateway behavior. The guy who barfs on shoes starts out with the “woo.” After a little “woo,” he moves on to the harder stuff like moshing at a 10,000 Maniacs concert, and excuse me, but what IS that? Who moshes at the Sundays? I don’t get it. And when the lead singer of the Sundays tells you to STOP moshing, why would you keep DOING it? “Gee, I sure showed that Harriet Wheeler”? Harriet Wheeler thinks you ride the short bus! She’s right to think that! Quit it! And what’s with the dweebs who think jumping up and down with a middle finger extended is moshing? That’s not moshing — that’s jumping up and down with a middle finger extended! Did you hurl yourself bodily at other people? Did your feet leave the ground at any point? Do you have a Doc print on your face? Then it ain’t moshing, junior! Kids today, I’ll tell you. Don’t know how to mosh, don’t know how to hold their liquor. And I mean literally holding the liquor — doesn’t anyone born after 1979 get that you have to slurp a half-inch off the top of the cup before you try to get through the crowd? That’s basic, guys! Don’t they teach the three-cup grip anymore? Leaves your other hand free for polite shoulder taps? No? No, I guess not. Oh, and turn your baseball hat around frontways right now or I’ll jam that Bud Light up your nostril.

Not that sloshing is a big deal, really, when it’s that crowded. In fact, I actually try to get in front of the “woo” guys at reggae in Central Park, because it gets super-sweaty out there and the “woo” guys just charge along slopping booze everywhere, and a Coors feels a lot better on the back of my neck than it tastes. But a lot of girls don’t seem to grasp the difference between “a four-band docket at Manitoba’s” and “a wedding.” Okay, nobody loves wearing a Heineken, but don’t get all overdressed with the glitter and the fusion-entrée hair and stand in the corner, grooming your fun fur cuffs obsessively every time someone brushes past you and making bitch-face. Actually, scratch that. Stay in the corner, because despite the fact that it’s neither the opera nor a restaurant, you crammed your feet into a pair of pointy-toed boots with four-inch mondo spikes that you can’t even walk in, so instead of flailing through the crowd windmilling your arms and whomping into the sensibly shod like Stevie Wonder in the wake of a Zamboni all “oops, muh bad, tee hee, BRIIIIIAAN COME HELP ME UH MUH GAWD YEW-UH SUCH AN AY-USS-HOLE,” just stay over there and hold up the wall. Don’t try to walk, don’t stand behind me and lean on your boyfriend’s arm and whine like a buzz saw about your blisters, and for God’s sake don’t go into that bathroom, because the bathroom is for going to the bathroom, not for fifteen minutes of makeup touch-ups and reapplications. Either find a brand that lasts eighteen hours or use the mirror over the bar, but get out of the damn john, Dame Edna, because I need to pee.

Come on, y’all. Show sense. Say “excuse me” and “sorry.” Dress judiciously. Eat dinner first. And shower. Yeah, you. Mass-market antiperspirant does not give you armpit cancer, hippie chick — that’s just an urban legend. Bathe, swab a crystal around under there, and PUT that LANK HAIR up in a BUN. Please. It’s in my beer, and it hasn’t seen the business end of a dollop of Pert Plus since Jerry Garcia died. Cut it or braid it or use it to weave a lanyard, I don’t care, but get it out of my goddamn drink. Now. Today. And tell your boyfriend that he needs to check that giant backpack — it’s awfully clever the way he tied his sneakers to the side there, but said sneakers just whapped me upside the head when he barged past in his nappy Icelandic Spin Doctors sweater, which he hasn’t taken off since 1998 and which just ate a roadie. Also, it’s an Aimee Mann show. We don’t need a cook stove. We don’t need a rappelling demonstration in the balcony. The youth hostel is on 27th Street. Soap comes free with the room. GO THERE NOW.

And speaking of things we do in the privacy of our own homes — PDA. It’s not what’s for breakfast. Certain shows, fine, the music is romantic and a little nuzzling is okay. Hold hands, smooch, I don’t judge you. I don’t really want to see tongue, but I can live with it. I CANNOT, however, live with seeing the ENTIRETY of two tongues, or tongues in EARS, or hands down PANTS, or, for the sweet love of little apples, THRUSTING. The bra-hook fumble is NOT intended for AN AUDIENCE, okay? Get all the way under the stairs, or better yet, GET A ROOM! I think it’s GREAT that a guy who looks exactly like Dennis Franz has a girlfriend that he really digs! It’s neat! It’s swell! I congratulate you! The problem is that THE GIRLFRIEND LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE DENNIS FRANZ ALSO, and while I salute the miracle of conception, I did NOT need to witness its splendor IN THE BAR AT IRVING PLAZA! Put! Little Dennis! AWAY! What kind of a world do we live in where I have to pay $6.50 for a CAN of AMSTEL, and THEN I have to watch Dennis freakin’ Franz GETTING IT ON WITH HIMSELF?

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

February 17, 2003

Share!