I’m not sure if there’s something in the water or the air, but people need to chill when they go to concerts.
In case you haven’t heard, there’s been a trend lately of pop singers getting objects thrown at them in the middle of shows, as well as fans gifting artists with obnoxious and strange items. Let’s break it down.
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A few weeks ago, singer Bebe Rexha was hit in the face with a cell phone when someone in the crowd threw their phone at her. The video of it is honestly shocking, and the man who threw the phone later told authorities he “thought it would be funny.”
The phone hit her forehead and split her eyebrow, requiring her to have stitches. Thankfully, the man was arrested and charged with assault, but still, how is throwing a cell phone at anyone, let along a singer on stage, even remotely funny?
Since this incident, singer Ava Max was literally slapped on stage by a fan, and just last week, country singer Kelsea Ballerini was hit in the eye when someone threw a bracelet onto the stage.
Ballerini posted on her Instagram story the day after the incident saying, “Hi. I’m fine. Someone threw a bracelet, it hit me in the eye, and it more so just scared me than hurt me. We all have triggers and layers of fears way deeper than what is shown, and that’s why I walked offstage to calm down and make sure myself, band and crew and the crowd all felt safe to continue.”
It’s absolutely insane that people feel like they can attack a singer while they’re on stage, and it’s even more insane that I feel like I have to write an article saying this. It’s like, how is this not common sense?
Oh, and a fan threw a cellphone at Drake Thursday night at the opening night of his new tour.
Over the holiday weekend, Adele addressed the crowd at her Las Vegas residency and told them how crazy this whole situation is.
“I f**king dare you, dare you to throw something at me,” she joked. “Stop throwing things at the artist!”
She then playfully took a T-shirt launcher you’d see at a sporting event and blasted out free shirts into the audience. It was hilarious and glorious all at the same time.
It’s not only throwing things at artists that is getting weird. Fans who are close to the stage have also been giving singers weird and uncomfortable gifts.
Singers are used to having flowers, notes or little gifts thrown up on the stage by adorning fans, and that’s normally very sweet and cute. This, however, is awkward and strange.
Recently, a fan at a Pink concert tossed a bag filled with their mother’s ashes on to the stage. Pink looked at the fan in disbelief and said “I don’t know how I feel about this.” Same, Pink! Same! Who in their right mind thinks it’s OK to throw a bag of a dead person’s ashes onto the stage of a concert? It’s not only disrespectful to the performer, but also the deceased.
My biggest grievance with recent fan etiquette at concerts has to be when fans get a little too excited while singing their favorite songs at the show. I’m not talking just singing loudly, I’m talking about screaming the lyrics, especially during songs that are slower and more intimate.
This obviously isn’t as big of a deal as hurling objects at a singer, but it still goes back to basic concert etiquette. We are all obviously going to be singing along to our favorite songs, but if I can hear you singing louder than the artist themselves, we have a problem.
You can see this happening at a lot of Taylor Swift’s latest shows. Fans are basically screaming the lyrics to her songs, and you can’t even hear Swift sing in their videos. The same can be said from videos at supergroup boygenius concerts.
On the band’s slower songs, fans are screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs and are completely drowning out any chance of hearing Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus or Julien Baker sing. I’m all for being enthusiastic at a concert, but you also have to respect the people around you.
So in conclusion, maybe we can just chill for a second at concerts? I know that we all didn’t get to go to any shows for a very long time, but we can’t be acting like animals when we get the chance to see an artist we love in person.
So yeah, let’s all just take a breather and relax. Stop screaming songs at the top of your lungs, stop gifting uncomfortable gifts and stop throwing stuff at singers. If we can all do that, we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.