Now that everyone has a smartphone it takes no effort to capture a moment with a picture or a video. But there are some situations where there is no need to take a picture and even more so a video. It now seems to be standard for people to go to a music event such as a festival or a gig and film the whole thing. Most recently I saw this at Wilderness Festival, where although it is a middle class festival full of the middle aged, the use of mobile phones to ‘capture a moment’ was still abundant. I guess the idea is to have the recording as a memory of the good times that you had seeing a particular band. However, if you spent the entire evening looking at the band through a tiny, blurred screen, then there is little chance that you had any fun at all. Instead, your focus was on making sure you had zoomed in just the right amount to make it look as if you were at the front and making sure you danced as minimalist as possible to avoid a shaky video.
After a two hour set, your arms hurt from holding them above your head and you have your recording. So what to do with it? You could watch it back in a few months in case you forgot that you actually saw the band, but as you watch it back you’ll realise that the tinny noise that comes out of the phone speakers sounds nothing like the real thing. So you’ll give up and put on their album instead. I can also tell you with certainty that no one else wants to see it. If I wanted to see what a band were like live I would go to see them myself, or watch a professional video online if I really wanted to.
Taking pictures is also completely pointless. I literally can’t think of one point. Maybe to prove you were there? Because again, no one wants to see a photo of a stage with what you can just make out are people on it; all stages basically look the same and are normally not very interesting. However, I do need to admit something. After all this ranting I have a confession… I took a photo whilst I was in the crowd seeing Sam Smith at Wilderness (see photo below). BUT in my strong defence, the photo was not of Sam Smith to show how much fun I was having seeing him, but of the rainbow going over the stage, something which people may actually want to see.
An acceptable photo, which just happens to have a band in it
As a final note I want to say that videoing bands ruins it for everyone else at the event. I already have the issue of trying to see over people’s heads in a crowd without the added phone screens everywhere blocking my view. Because of video takers, everyone else has to watch hundreds of little Sam Smiths or Radioheads, every way they turn rather than the real thing on stage. So, stop being boring and the next time you go to see an act, use your unmediated eyeballs to have fun. You’ll find more enjoyment and have a better memory of it, even if you have no evidence of it ever happening.
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