When I see footage of gigs in the 60s, outside of the Beatles or the Stones, it’s noticeable how passive the audience is. If you watch the Monterey Pop Festival, most of the time people sit and watch as though at the theatre. Unsurprising really, the culture of rock gigs was new, and there was no gig culture as such. The only experience most had was going to the cinema or theatre, so that’s how they behaved.
Yet skid forward two years to Woodstock and things are already changing. Apart from the fact most are very skinny, they look more like a modern festival crowd. More peaceful, perhaps, but not too dissimilar.
Fast forward to 1973 and Madison Square Garden for a Zeppelin show and we have an early rock crowd. Crushed down the front, holding up lighters, just like every show I went to three or four years later. There was a routine that always followed. If it was a heavy band, as soon as the band hit the stage, people piled down the front, ignoring security's attempts to stop them, until it was 6 deep of headbangers. We spent the whole show on our feet and there was general mayhem.
When I first started going all of this was new to me, right down to the shouting of ‘wally’ but it was already well established as a culture. Quieter more introspective bands like Barclay James Harvest were less febrile and we sat and listened. The reactions were broadly the same at most gigs though. Where this was learned from in the intervening ten years, I don’t know. It seemed set in some sort of cultural stone and was even just the same in the early 90s in Los Angeles.
However, when we went to see Joe Bonamassa in Newcastle about 10 years ago, it had changed. No one rushed down the front, people sat still in seried ranks, getting up sometimes to buy beer or pizza. Scoffing food while Joe was wringing emotion out of his guitar. I commented at the time that it looked like the 5,000 in the Arena were watching JB on the TV, not in person. Observing but not engaging.
In Japan of course, they’ve always sat quietly during a song only to erupt when it’s over, which many have reported as unnerving.
Part of this changed attitude may have been demographic, we were mostly older people and a night of raging held less attraction than it did at 18. But it was cultural too. This generation was now more stationary and had gone full circle and reverted to 1967 levels of engagement. I must say, I missed the old days, even though I wasn’t exactly a headbanger. It felt more exciting, more like an event. This felt more like a leisure activity.
Maybe it is as mad as ever for a younger audience and I’m just an old man. In our youth 50+ punters simply didn’t go to gigs, did they? So maybe that explains it.
The culture of rock gigs...
