And to say that we have been waiting for them for so long. After canceling tours due to the pandemic, after a year of concerts partially overshadowed by seating and distancing rules, after being disappointed with the show’s streaming, 2023 is finally the year of a full return to live events. The first taste, however, we already had last summer, and in fact everything went smoothly: great enthusiasm on stage and beyond, general relief, fun and a little bit of emotion. In short, everything that should be part of one of the best things in life, namely participation in a collective living ritual. A year later, the mood has changed. And one after another, events followed that brought back a less pastel picture than in 2022. Darker colors that are difficult to understand where they came from. Similarly, in this year 2023, it has become more difficult to understand what exactly a concert is for, when viewed from the point of view of those who go there. Someone participates to attend a live performance of their idol, someone, on the contrary, today more than ever wants to become somehow part of the show. For others, this is a great opportunity to create viral content. I wonder if the star of the concert is on stage or in the hall? On the Internet, both interpretations are valid. Partly because the barrier between the stage and the audience is more permeable than ever and goes both ways. Partly because in the last few weeks we’ve seen a new attitude, a kind of new fashion that has nothing to do with loving the artist you decide to go see.
This trend has manifested itself in a wave of objects that we have seen flying in artists., a sign that fans are looking for ways (in this case, sloppy ones) to express themselves and become active participants in the performances they attend. But if some pop stars are smarter than instinctive and have figured out how, in an age of social media-inspired aggressiveness, letting the crowd “touch” you can be a powerful marketing and promotional tool, others will get pissed off. Artists may seem superhuman, but in fact they can be vulnerable people, and most importantly, which is too little thought, they are exposed. Not only in terms of image, but also physically. This is one of them against hundreds or thousands of people who make up a crowd. The barrier between the stage and the public is, let’s say, “philosophical”, it is the general agreement of this particular social practice, but nothing more. It’s not impregnable. And indeed, it so happened that during a performance in Las Vegas, it would seem, dedicated to the partyRapper Cardi B knocked over a (full) cocktail glass thrown by a girl sitting in the front row..
But the list of such facts is long: Harry Styles, who is among the artists most affected by the “throwing an object on stage” phenomenon, has indeed received flowers in the last period, as well as bags of Skittles, tampons, chicken croquettes. , while with the ease (so far), with which he decided to cope with the matter, he replied that he thanked them for the gift, “but I don’t eat meat.” Something far more eerie happened to Pink: a fan threw her mother’s ashes at her.. Another thought he might like a round of brie, so he threw it across the stage again. The absurdity of the situation apparently revived and went viral, giving rise to memes that the devil knows how pleased the two champions of creativity in the specialty “throw objects at singing people.” Things are worse for other artists: Bebe Reksha was hospitalized after a smartphone hit her on the forehead, Ava Max even received a slap in the face. It also happens in Italy, between Elettra Lamborghini getting hit by a water bottle and Maneskin’s Damiano getting intimately touched while, as all band members usually do, he was in very close contact with the fans. . Here, these episodes could have as their first consequence a change in relation to this type of research, the need for contact: if the public, even in a tiny part of it, continues to show a lack of respect, but at the same time potentially dangerous, artists will all have the right to distance themselves. In terms of, again, physical, material.
When I went to the Blur concert, Damon Albarn almost jumped off the stage, because that’s how rock, and now pop, shows its connection with the fans. No one dared to go beyond, perhaps, too long handshake. Instead, when I went to a Lana Del Rey concert in Helsinki, the singer found a lunatic on stage who grabbed her and hugged her for a few seconds before being dragged away. She just smiled, Cardi B going back to the first episode of this long list, no. It took Cardi B a millisecond to grab the microphone and throw it at the glass girl.. (Fun fact: This mic was sold on eBay for nearly $100,000 and donated to Friendship Circle Las Vegas and the Wounded Warrior Project charity.) To the cruelty of this gesture, the rapper reacted with another cruel gesture. It’s clear? Yes, but the fact is that a microphone can do much more harm than vodka and tonic. Cardi B’s reaction was impulsive, the videos confirm this, but she took responsibility for her act, did not repent, and this, as they say, can become a dangerous precedent, including from the point of view of the “etiquette” of artists.
As for going back instead to what the deeply misguided public is doing more and more, said David Thomas, a professor of forensic sciences at Florida’s Gulf Coast University. NBC News What “and concert venues like social media provide more anonymity, giving people the power to act on their worst impulses.. Add to the competition other intoxicants vying for the best video to post on social media and the crowd becomes a bomb waiting to explode. The large crowd offers impunity. So things that you don’t normally do and that go against your normal social values become completely opposite in a crowd,” said Thomas, a former police officer and expert in crowd psychology.It feels like you can dissolve into this crowd, and it’s hard to point a finger at one person among tens of thousands.”
But if this is what we saw happening under the stage, then in the last few days we were amazed by what those who were on the stage were doing. Case Morgan is now known to half the world, but let’s still summarize: during a performance in the Archaeological Park of Selinunte (where he staged his concert Signs of life and art, dedicated to Franco Battiato during the Festival of Beauty), Morgan, who also returned as a judge on the X Factor, lost his temper and began to curse the crowd, who asked him to sing some Battiato songs. Here are the musician’s words: “I don’t sing for such people, mind you. You’ve rubbed too much, pearls are called pigs before. If these crazy people don’t leave, I won’t sing. Are you laughing? But go home, you don’t deserve an art exhibition, you don’t you know it’s none of your business you’re annoying you’re coming to piss me off for giving you something make you laugh you’re really stupid society people like you is but shut up stop you fucked up. I have feelings, assholes. I’m not a character: go see Marrakash, go see Fedez.”
Here he is, an intellectual, who, when he is in the mood, makes us listen to him talk about philosophy, art and music, and then does not accept it and ultimately makes us feel, perhaps, more pity than anger. Commenting on these facts, Salmo said something that can be divided between capslocks and profanity: “From time to time,” he wrote in his post, “gossip about concerts comes out, X hit the bottle on the head, Y pissing on drawers, Morgan insults the public, Gigi fell off the stage, etc. We are all fucking distracted by what we should really be interested in: MUSIC. Nobody cares about the music (unless it’s a diss track). You just want to be entertained by this show of gossip, clickbait, meme pages, Instagram opinions, and serial haters. Ordinary people think artists are NORMAL. Sorted and stacked on shelves, responsible for setting a good example for a generation born of dishonest parents. No one separates a person from character. They enjoy the artist’s discomfort, they are bored with art, they hope to see famous artists fall into an abyss that success will never forgive.This last part, together with the feeling that now the lust of enjoying music is of greater importance, seems reasonable. But then it would be reasonable that first the artist, especially, as already mentioned, the one who gets up (because he does) and for some reason he also has it) as an intellectual he left the game. Morgan was cruel, for no reason. Morgan, who is not a teenager, is apparently not able to control himself, restrain himself, he causes damage, kindles a fire, awakens the worst instincts, especially at a time when the beauty of attending live performances is superimposed on the tension.