To the People Sitting Next to Me at a Concert: Shut Up!

I went to my first concert in 1989. It was a New Kids on the Block "Merry Merry Christmas" show at the Great Western Forum and I was 12. I stood on my chair, I jumped around, I screamed, I danced and I sang, just like the thousands of other pre-teens and teens in the crowd did that night.

One thing I didn't do, though, was talk all night.

At last night's John Mayer show at the Hollywood Bowl, the couple in front of me talked to each other all night. They laughed, showed each other pictures on their phones, passed food and drinks down to their neighbors, did pretty much everything but watch the show they, and everyone else in our section, paid good money to do.

Though the couple in front of me was the most annoying, they weren't the only people in my section talking throughout the show. When not occasionally stopping to record songs with her phone, the girl next to me talked loudly to her friend about school, work, other friends, whatever. The topper, though, was when she moved down because the talkative couple and other neighbors were disrupting her filming. How dare they!

To that girl and her friend, to the couple in front of me, to the people behind me who also talked all night, I'd like to say one thing―Shut Up!

The first concert where I remember sitting next to loud, rude people was Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper at the Arrowhead Pond in 1997. As Cyndi performed a stunning acoustic version of "True Colors," the group of friends next to me talked and talked. It was so irritating and distracting but, sadly, that's more and more the way people act at concerts.

I like dancing at shows, like singing along, like waving my arms and just going for it, but will rein it in because I don't want to annoy the people sitting around me. Maybe I shouldn't bother, maybe I should keep it up, stand the whole night even if every other person in my section is seated because if they won't shut up so I can hear the music why should I care if they're able to see the musician?

I know I'm slipping a bit into curmudgeon territory, lamenting the loss of civility and common courtesy in contemporary society, but I don't care. If people are behaving rudely, they need to be called out. If you want to have deep conversations with your friends, go to a restaurant, go to a bar, hang out at your house, talk on the phone or consider any of the other myriad options available that are less distracting and intrusive (both for your conversation and your neighbors) than going to a concert. You'll save a lot of money, too.

When I go to a concert, I go to hear my favorite songs played live, I go to sing along, I go to be part of a music-fanatic community, I go to turn to my friends and mouth, "Oh My God!" when a hidden gem or random cover is pulled out, but I don't go to listen to you. Please, take your conversation elsewhere because whatever you have to say isn't a tenth as interesting as whatever the night's performer has to say. Really, just shut up.