Cherry bar wants to ban punters filming concerts on their phones
SHOULD you be able to film whole songs at concerts on your mobile phone? One Melbourne rock venue wants to outlaw the anti-social behaviour and hopes others will follow their lead.
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MELBOURNE rock bar Cherry will ban mobile phones at gigs.
Co-owner James Young said the trend of punters filming live bands on their phones is highly anti-social and hopes other venues follow his lead.
“It’s arrogant,” Young said.“You’re not thinking about the people behind you and their interests in also watching the band. I always take a quick snap at a show but I’m always self conscious when I do it.
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“I’d never ever film an entire song. People aren’t filming discreetly with their phone. They’re holding up both arms, waving their phone or iPad around like a windmill and holding it as high as they can, blocking everyone’s view. It’s not uncommon to be at a gig and see hundreds of phone screens blocking the view. It’s about time someone brought attention to it. It’s not on. Filming entire songs has to stop.”
Young posted his proposal on Cherry’s Facebook page and has been inundated with people agreeing with the ban.
“I want to start the backlash. I feel like I’ve tapped into this great unspoken groundswell of people who share the same opinion. It’s mildly annoying, but it’s like manspreading on a train. Once you draw attention to it and the fact it’s inconsiderate and not very rock and roll people say ‘Hey, you’re right, let’s do something about it.”
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Young said if the ban comes in, it will rely on people power, not security to be enforced.
“I’m not talking about doing it in a military way and employing security to confiscate peoples’ phones. That will never happen.
“I’m talking about creating a self-regulated gig environment where people say ‘Hey mate, you’re at a Cherry gig, there’s no filming of songs here’ and they put their phone down. Name and shame.
“You put your phone up at a Cherry gig and people tell you it’s not on. Hopefully it builds a bit of momentum and it starts happening at other venues and artists start bringing it in as a policy.”
Artists including The Eagles and Jack White post signs at their shows saying mobile phone use will be outlawed by security. Tina Arena, The 1975 and Nick Murphy/Chet Faker also ask fans to put their phones down and enjoy the moment.
However many artists see fan footage as useful promotion in the social media era.
“An artist can make the call,’’ Young says. “If they want to say to a room ‘Hey, we want some stuff for our Facebook page, we encourage you to film the gig and share it’ obviously that’s fine. A band can determine how their audience is allowed to behave, but at Cherry I don’t think a punter should.
“And I reckon 99 per cent of people filming entire songs for their own Facebook page go home and never look at the footage again. And it usually sounds woeful.
“I’ve heard bands request strangers to take footage down because it does them an injustice in terms of it not being properly mixed.”
Young insisted the filming of shows isn’t just happening with younger music fans — he recalls a Rolling Stones show where he was the only person in the mosh pit not capturing the moment.
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“As a result, Mick Jagger clocks me eyeball to eyeball and sings the entire first verse to me because everyone else was looking at their phone and he wanted to look at a human being. It’s all about living in the moment.
“The phone has taken the human interaction out of most social activities these days, whether it’s eating at restaurants or meeting friends at a bar. I refuse to let it take the human side out of rock and roll and live music.
“Live music is one of the last bastions of emotional connection with human beings, we don’t need a phone screen in between an audience and the band.”
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