Oldest trick in the book, always irks me. What gigs have you been told to do this at by the band?
Mine are
Tinie Tempah at Hop Farm Festival, supporting Prince
The Hives at the Roundhouse and Glastonbury
Songhoy Blues at Kentish Town Forum last week
Didn’t ruin any of the gigs or anything, just seems to take me out of enjoying the music and into feeling awkward while it’s happening
The Decemberists do this for The Chimbley Sweep. It’s all well and good until you take your dad along and his poor all knees won’t allow him jump up as quickly as the rest of the crowd when the time arises.
It’s a classic tactic, band tells everyone get down, get down, get down
Then the music gets louder or something drops and everyone gets UPPPP, jumps around, goes crazy.
Communal moment maker
I always thought “get down” meant “get on the dance floor” for a dance number, or more generally to get in the groove of the music. I never encountered this crouching thing.
In general I’m pretty cold on the concept of “audience participation”, unless it’s initiated by the audience. I’ve been at a couple of concerts where the artist(s) directed the audience to chime in at certain well-known bits of the song, sometimes dividing the audience into two or more groups to do different bits. When they get a muted response, indicating that people are only singing because they have been asked to and because the artist will look stupid if they don’t, it’s positively cringeworthy. Honestly, if it’s a much-loved chorus and the crowd want to join in, they will do so without being told to.
So are Limp Bizkit.
Did it during Take A Look Around when I saw them in Glasgow a few years back.
It’s good fun.
I forget what band at a festival forced me to do this, lest I leave myself vulnerable to the ire of the band and my fellow concertgoers, but I was really pissed off about it. I’m pretty sure I did some loud complaining when we were all uncomfortably down in the squatting position.
I was thinking this. I think if a band I was watching “ordered” the audience the crouch down, I’d either give them the finger, or stage a walk-out, depending on my mood.
Confidence Man at Great Escape most recently. It was great fun. T
It works well when a gig warrants it and fortunately never been a part of one that just fell flat on it’s arse.
Just remembered going to a Belle and Sebastian gig where they got all the guys to crouch down so the band could see all the girls. Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy
there’s a live DVD my pal showed me where they’re trying to get the crowd to sit down but a few guys stay standing so the slipknot bloke with the long nose goes out into the crowd to forcibly try and sit people down, it’s hilarious
They did this at Reading around 2000/2001. Me and a few friends seem to be the only people who remained upright and ended up getting a load of stick from the 18 year old metallers around us. Ironically they didnt appreciate our non-conformist attitude.