‘I’ve never heard such a rowdy audience’: David Gray concert shows how we’ve forgotten to behave in public

by interfaceconfig

40 comments

  1. He said it in a positive way in the video and noted that it was people enjoying themselves

  2. Who the hell gets rowdy at a David Gray gig, he’s hardly bashing out banger after banger.

  4. Gig behaviour has become a massive problem in the last few years. People are coming to drink (take coke) and chat with their mates, anything but listen to the performance. I wasn’t at DG but i suspect his comments weren’t a compliment.

  5. Drunk people are annoying. Put loads of people who can’t handle their drink,sprinkle a little cocaine into the mix and hey presto. You have the craic. This is hardly news. The Sean Paul gig was reportedly the same but that was blamed on travellers being present . Bob Dylan in Slane,most Oxygens

  6. I was there. Have been going to his gigs since the 90’s, have been to lots of gigs at the 3Arena and other locations. I’m not particularly sensitive, I didnt say anything (to be honest those chatting around me were pretty shit faced so I wasnt going to start anything), but I was happy enough to leave early cause the crowd killed it.

    This crowd was more interested in drink and chat than the actual music. He’d play one of his hits and everyone would engage again, but the slightest hint of a lesser known song and they’d all be off to the bar or jsut start chatting again. It kinda reminded me of Slaine. Everyone had been out drinking in the sun, and this was the result.

  8. A gig like this is ripe for that type of atmosphere. Put a radio friendly artist with a catalogue most have never listened to and it ends up being a shit atmosphere.  His songs are sorrowful and personal but people at it go on like they’re at Tomorrowland or something(not that edm can’t be either but you get me)

    Went to KOL.last year in Marley Park. So boring(I was part of the problem).as nobody knew any of the words to any of the songs.except for the main ones.

  9. any excuse for this joke of a newspaper to shit further on the Irish

  10. I go to a lot of gigs, large and small and haven’t found any particular change in behaviour. Other than now phones being used to record, which I don’t have any strong feelings on.

    Then again, I don’t go to a lot of gigs where the artist expects 13,000 people all to be quiet at the same time for a story. They came for a good time. The article just seems very perl clutching and high horse.

  13. I saw him 20+ years ago in the Marquee in Cork. To this day it’s THE most boring concert I’ve ever been to. Not to say that the white ladder album isn’t a very good album, but talk about a live let-down…

  14. I saw him in limerick a while back, and he was giving out to the crowd that they weren’t rowdy enough

  15. He’s a pissy fucker when all the attention isn’t on him. I’ve seen him tell a crowd to “Shit the fuck up and listen.”

  17. People are fucking tramps. Im happier going out less and less now and this is why.

  18. I’m going to see the Nin in June at the three and I hope to f*ck the crowds arn’t like this

  19. Irish gigs have always been shit. People have no respect for the artist and are more interested in getting blind drunk. Even in smaller venues I have to tell people to shut the fuck up while artists were talking or performing slower stuff. 

  20. I went to a James Blunt gig where a guy at the very front was going wild at the end of the concert and started punching the steel gate/guard thing. It was really fucking weird. Coke makes people weird.

  21. I saw a lot of drinks get thrown at the 3Arena when we were at Pantera a while back, I’ve see that a bit over the years but not at that scale. Maybe just the fact I was seated I was in a position to see more of it happen.

  22. But I thought David Gray wanted us to let go of our hearts and our heads?

  23. 3Arena isn’t exactly an intimate singer songwriter venue though.

  24. Is it a post COVID issues… Maybe/maybe not.. I think if you go to any gig and see the queues for the men’s toilet cubicle s you will see the more likely reason.. Far more obvious in the Olympia

  26. Think of when he was huge. Think how old people were then and now. They were coked off their balls.

  27. Cunts on cocaine and quiet acoustic gigs don’t mix.

  28. Was at mumford and sons in Belfast once upon a time and they did a bit where they tried to switch off the mics and do an unplugged thing right in the crowd, asked for total silence, queue dickheads roaring “YEEEEEOOOOO” “GET ER BUCKED” “WAHHHHHEEEEYYYYY” the band looked visibly annoyed

  29. Is this standard now? Went to see James Vincent McMorrow in City Hall in Cork a couple of months ago and some people in the crowd were chatting so loudly as he played. He was amazing but the noise off the ignorant people in the crowd was shocking.

  31. “I’ve never heard such a rowdy audience. All they did was babble on”

  32. The choice is this or have it in a way smaller venues. Artists can have passionate engaged crowds anytime they want but they want to make more money and the cost of that is you end up with more casual fans.

  33. I was there with my partner, most of the crowd around us were in their 40s, 50s and seemed to be making a night of it since it was a Saturday. I’d say majority only knew the white ladder songs and spoke through the rest. We also went to his gig 2 years ago in the 3 arena that had standing tickets and I think it was a much more engaged audience, maybe the fully seated made people talk more?

  34. Back in like 05 or 06 I saw David Grey at the Point supported by Rodrigo y Gabriela. Was a great gig and I was at the front. I say it was great except for 4 absolute binned out of their three women who bashed their way up past people and in front of us and then kept screaming and shouting including at David Gray. They kept screaming “Play Pink Flamingo” which only years later I realised they wanted Say Hello Wave Goodbye which honestly didn’t seem to fit their vibe. Anyway Dave was a champ about it.

  35. Ah Jaysus. I remember him being annoyed that all he could see were accountant types at his concerts after he got famous. Like he was too good for his fans.
    Serves him right.

  36. Rowdy at a David Gray gig? What’s next , lines of speed at mass and an eightball at the camogie county final? Perhaps. Bottle of  buckfast before visiting granny in the hospital . Seems like the country is out of its collective mind

  37. I once went to a David Gray gig with my sister and family in the royal Albert hall bout 9 years ago, we were seated on the first floor balcony. With a good but distant view. Half way during the gig two middle aged drunk women (with standing tickets) took a diversion on the way to the toilets and took up camp beside me singing at the top of the voices, heckling and wolf whistling at MrGray for at least 20 mins. We had to ask the security in the floor to chat to them… turned into a faulty towers sketch with more shouting and drunken craziness. One of the woman poured her whole bag out on the floor to pretend she was looking for her non existent seat number… mobile, perfume and tampons flying everywhere. Complete chaos! Sometimes I think these types of gigs are less about celebrating the artist and more reclaiming a sense of youth and having a laugh and a sing song no-fucks-given!

  38. My co-worker was at this gig and they said they were told to keep it down a little when he was beginning a tribute song for his dad.
    They said “the cheek of somebody to tell them to be quiet because they were at a gig”.

    I then realised the sort of co-worker I’m alongside.

  39. Right,
    I don’t want any comeback or agents ringing me for exclusive deals. But I was at this concert,OMFG

    The screams,the blind panic,the utter fulity of a sad sad sad existence that is ultimately life,you live,you die.
    Anyway,shite concert.

  40. I’ve been reading about this story for a while now and the whole time I’ve been imagining Craig David

Comments are closed.