Kate Bush: Don't make me HAVE CONTACT with your iPHONE Warbling '70s pop sensation Kate Bush has urged fans not to take photos and video footage during her upcoming London gigs, which will be the singer's first live tour in 35 years. The shows at the Hammersmith Apollo kick off next week, but Bush is already fretting about poorly captured images of her concert appearances being …
Good idea - does it work? Aren't there IR filters on the lenses? Either way it won't stop the idiots though. People are so used to being removed from the experience and seeing it through a 4" screen that they stand at the front and ruin the original experience for everyone else. It's a real real problem for artists.
Crappy shaky mobile footage is horrible to watch and sounds dreadful, but worse than that, it beaks the artists connection with the audience. They need that connection in order to give you a good show and put their best out.
Irony is many concerts or tours are filmed for TV/DVD and the quality difference from having a professionally filmed 20 camera, brilliant angles, brilliant audio production vs mobile phone is complete. Yet those mobiles detract from the proper production with the horrid wall of white rectangles (some even in portrait ffs).
@Cliff
I appreciate the argument but the artists are getting paid for this so I'm somewhat less concerned for them. On the other hand, I'm paying for a ticket and those fuckers are a 'real real problem' for me!
I applaud Ms Bush's request and the polite wording of it. I would be even more impressed if she added that it ruins the experience for all the other people, who might just want to watch the show rather than someone's phone.
Waving around those fucking glowing rectangles is the the very definition of selfish - those doing it are inconveniencing and annoying everyone else and detracting from the experience for the sake of their own, individual, wants.
Agreed, silly string is the best weapon. Short bursts so you can't be traced.
Hmm, paintball? Also engages the people nearby as they risk getting splattered.. Having said that, I hate crowd control - it would be so much better if we could rely on people using common sense.
Ah, yes.. OK, I'll get the paintballs.
Yeah, the artist is getting paid, but also they are getting paid to give the audience the best show they can, and they can't do that with an audience that doesn't engage. I completely agree that it is shit for the fans, but it's shit twice over with the white rectangles and less engaged performance.
I saw Ryan Adams (solo) in concert a couple of years ago and there were signs up before the show, and he asked at the start, that people turn off their phones and not film the gig. Even a couple of muppets did so, and IIRC he stopped the show and remonstrated with them.
Good fella!
There are IR (hot) filters in most digital cameras, however in most cases they are fairly weak and designed to block the levels of near visible IR light expected in the environment. Shining an intense IR beam at a camera fitted with a typical filter will still cause enough glare to effectively defeat it. We can expect few people without photo passes to be bringing in full sized SLRs with strong hot filters and the ability to adjust exposure compensation, so bathing the audience in a wash of intense IR light for a couple of hours should work. The lawsuits for retinal burns and corneal ulcers may be unwelcome however.
>>Actually, Kate should record all her own concerts and sell CDs / DVDs / memory sticks / download codes of the concert to the audience as they exit.<<
Probably does already. Doesn't change a thing from the screen staring 'fans'.
Fwiw, those downloads/mp3 players/etc - to be worth having you have to have a second mix of it, you can't use the FoH mix as it's totally different. If you've ever heard your favourite artist recorded directly from the FoH desk, it sounds dreadful as it's mixed for the PA in the venue, and had no audience reaction/crowd noise. To do it properly you need to do an entirely separate mix, and have the infrastructure to burn discs/USB sticks/etc in the time it takes for the gig to end and punters to leave (to catch the impulse buy). Or at least the bit before the encore, with the encore available as a later download.
Video/DVD of the show - same, only with extra angles needed beyond the IMAG mix (wides, reaction shots etc) plus the audio mix plus the extra data sizes making it near impossible at the moment.
Sorry Cliff, but that's nonsense.
If a band/singer/"artist" can't get past someone holding a phone, in the audience, even the entire audience holding a phone, then they seriously need to have a word with themselves.
Fans have been jumping on stage, stage diving, etc etc for generations, throwing things from the crowd, shouting. But "artists" can't deal with someone holding up a 5 inch square, with a bit of light on it? Despite all the other lights in the venue?
Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
"You arsehole. It's not about the artists. It's about the rest of the audience who don't want to look at your fucking mobile phone."
I go to A LOT of gigs. I don't take photos on my phone, usually. I know other people do. D'you know what I do? I watch the gig, not the phones. Know why? Because it's much bigger, than someone's arm, or phone.
I was responding to Cliff's point about the artist not being able to engage with an audience, if people hold up phones. Which I thought was more interesting, but a bit mental.
If someone's getting in my way at gigs, know what I do? I go have a word with them. I don't whine about it on an IT tech news site, from an anonymous account.
"I think another Irony Detector has just exploded..."
Yes, replying to someone calling you an "arsehole" because they're too chickenshit to talk to someone at a gig is "whining", isn't it?
Granted, i'm also using an anonymous account, but that's for work location reasons, rather than because I imagine the best way to address this issue is to post to an IT forum about it ...
"we don't have a hope in hell of filling anything larger"
She sold the place out for 22 nights in 15 minutes (and tickets were not cheap).
Worse still many feckless ****heads leave the flash switched on despite the fact that the maximum range of most flashes is 20 feet or so. Stupid morons ruin the show for the rest of us.
As for the lighters, nobody smokes any more,... hence no lighters. Besides, if you lit one at a gig undoubtedly some health and safety nazi would command you to extinguish it immediately under rule 47 section C sub-paragraph a14,......
Most people are too thick to know how to turn off the flash....
But then again, taking photos of anything important with a phone is stupid, they are handy for spur of the moment shots, but that is about it... they are terrible in low light... they are terrible without the flash.. they are slow to respond...
"Most people are too thick to know how to turn off the flash...."
Reminds me... back in the 1980's Kodak tried to push disk-format film camera: A cartridge held tiny negatives arranged around a wheel. At some point I bough one at a flea market out of curiosity, and exposed a few disks. The camera was rather stylish (not unlike in appearance to some compact digital cameras decades later, in fact I suspect it would be mistaken for one today), but clearly it was meant for "too thick" people; There was absolutely nothing to adjust. And getting to the point: The camera had a built-in flash that always fired. No way to turn it off! The flash and other functions of the camera (automatic exposure and film transport) were powered by a battery that was not user-replaceable, and did not need any replacing at least during the time I used the camera.
(The image quality was rather grainy, because the negatives are about the size of a Super-8 film frame. Now I'm wondering how to best scan them... My flat-bed scanner does not have enough resolution, and there is no way to crunch the disk into the film scanner.)
"Full frame camera with a macro lens. It won't be cheap."
Yes, something like that. Or just any kind of digital camera that can take macro shots. The disk negatives probably have less than 5mpx worth of image information. The negative is just 11x8 mm. Too bad my current Canon compact camera (SX230HS) cannot focus that close.
As for the lighters, nobody smokes any more,... hence no lighters. Besides, if you lit one at a gig undoubtedly some health and safety nazi would command you to extinguish it immediately under rule 47 section C sub-paragraph a14,......
Problem solved.
At the last few gigs at the O2 in Bristol* that I've been to the bouncers have taken to shining torches at anyone recording with the flash on, and then going to have a word if the punter doesn't notice.
Mind you, they had never managed to catch the guy having a crafty spliff in the middle of the crowd last time I was there.
* not a particularly good venue, but it gets the big bands, so...
Dear Kate,
As much as I have liked your wailing in the past, please be aware that devices powered by the mighty Android outnumber the Apple species and really deserves to be mentioned by your good self.
If you don't I have to wonder if Google will simply delete all of your seach hits in retaliation?
Yours
Grumpy old git who is taking his grandaughter to your gig in the faint hope of introducing her to something better than Lost Direction.
@MacroRodent
The Register was much the same in their recent article about Old Trafford banning 'iPads'.
I can see the economy in labelling a ball point pen a 'biro' or replacing 'search the Internet' with 'Google it' (even if I don't approve) but replacing 'tablet' with 'iPad' seems entirely without point.
"but replacing 'tablet' with 'iPad' seems entirely without point."
But what kind of tablet? Anti-Histamine? Birth Control? Stone? Computer? International Catholic weekly newspaper? Roman writing tablets?
PS Google search on the term "tablet" is skewed massively in the direction of "tablet computer" I was expecting all sorts of Canadian "pharmacies" to be listed :-)
Dear Grumpy
I'm well aware of Android. It's just that I keep abreast of things and fully know the iPhone remains, by a long way the most popular single handset and brand. It also has the highest satisfaction ratings. If I choose to make the Health-cliff App I've been planning, statistics show I'm likely to make twice as much from it as if I make the same app and put it in the Google Play store (actually 4 times the revenue when measured per active user). Plus most of the people who come to my concerts are middle class and from the UK, US or Japan and have greater income levels than most buyers in developing economies. Amongst this group the iPhone's iOS is by far the more popular platform. On average they are also better educated and younger. It is my desire to appeal to a new generation so this also informs my choice. Lastly many If not most of the world's Android users aren't even aware they are using Android because they weren't particularly paying attention when they decided to buy a phone.
So please don't assume I made a thoughtless comment.
Yours truly,
Kate
at a Wildhearts gig, Ginger addressed the audience between songs to ask that anyone filming stand to the side away from people, and from now on if anyone's view is blocked to just grab the phone and throw it away. seemed reasonable to me and my short-arsed wife not having to look past outstretched arms and blinding screens
I'm a very old git - probably old enough to be the dad of most commentards here. I remember US band The Grateful Dead who had a novel approach to this sort of problem.
The issue then wasn't fans with smartphones - given that they hadn't been invented - but with fans who were recording the gig on audio tape. The Dead's solution? They set up a roped-off area which had been carefully chosen to give "good sound" and invited fans to set up their recorders there. This wasn't a trick, the recorders were allowed to run and the fans came back and collected them after the gig.
When asked why they positively encouraged taping they argued that since fans would find a way to tape the gig anyway they would prefer that any recordings that were being circulated were of good quality and didn't dtract from their performance.
"This wasn't a trick, the recorders were allowed to run and the fans came back and collected them after the gig."
They also gave public approval to anyone whose personal recording was better than thiers.
The world is flooded with Dead bootlegs, but some of them are superb.
"The world is flooded with Dead bootlegs, but some of them are superb"
Which was partly why the Dead's approach was so clever. Back in the day, *GOOD* bootlegs of any band were usually pricey compared to official recordings and, of course, the bands saw nothing of that money. By making bootlegs ubiquitous, the Dead greatly reduced that premium.
There is an interesting philosophical question here: were these recordings bootlegs? Given that their production had been officially facilitated by the band, and thereby tacitly approved, it could be argued that they're not bootlegs at all but "official" recordings. At the very least they are official unofficial recordings!
Arms, whilst intensely irritating, are relatively small.
Folk who lift their partners on their shoulders should be taken outside and shot through the knees.
If I take photos at gigs (and I do), I take a camera, and go somewhere where I'm not obstructing folk.
I'm told that, now the young like to share every detail of their lives with their 'friends' on certain websites, they feel obliged to record everything that might make their 'friends' think their lives are not dull and pointless. So it's basically penis waving : 'my life is fuller and more interesting that yours, look at this fuzzy pic or vid. Like me! like me!'. Admitedly this is in the context of Kate Bush, so youth really doesn't come into this.
Took my sons out for the day last weekend, went to visit some caves up a mountain in the peak district.....
They had a great time... but what I found crazy was the people using iPads to take photos!
I never see this with other brands, only iPad users..
I had my DSLR with me, so I have loads of lovely photos, taken in the low light of the caves without a flash...
"but what I found crazy was the people using iPads to take photos!"
Yes, I saw the same in York yesterday. Lots of Chinese in particular using tablets of one sort or another, many using folding book-like covers which they open up so looking twice as big while being waved through the air to take said pics.
Well, technically true I suppose but not really the era one associates with Kate Bush. She's long argued against the alienation through technology – there's a pretty cheesy text on The Sensual World to that effect.
Taking the odd picture as a memento at a concert is almost unavoidable but trying to record the whole event really does defeat the purpose. The recording quality of the devices is going up all the time but even the one of the little selfie-tripods you're still not going to get close to the quality of a good bootleg and you will be distracting yourself and others. But when has that ever bothered anyone?
Where's the grumpy old man icon?
The odd picture is one thing, but concert-going has been well and truly spoiled by arms in the air with a fondleslab - and the jPhone owners also holding the darn things portrait mode whilst recording video (splutter, aargh!)
Why not bring back an entire recording ban as part of the ticket purchase BUT with a code for an official picture set from the Artistes website?
(where's the grumpy old git icon)
I've got tickets to see KB and wouldn't even bother taking photos with my phone, let alone get in everyone's way and record a video on it.
But I wouldn't mind taking a few snaps with my decent camera. The ticket conditions (as pretty much standard) forbid photography and I don't want to risk getting it confiscated on entry so I won't bother.
But it pisses me off that photography is generally forbidden (even if largely unenforceable now that just about everyone carries a camera with them) but crowds of numpties gather at the front to hold their phones aloft without being challenged by venue staff.
I'm not sure if I'm a grumpy old man yet (not yet 30..) but it annoys the shit out of me when I see live footage of shows now. You see the performer and rows of white rectangles in some sort of auto stabilisation mode (via human arm) trying to film it. It's not a show any more but a mass recording session. If all you want is a film of the performance why not stay at home and order the DVD when it comes out?
I think people spend so much effort trying to capture their wicked cool life in film and photo to impress their facebook pals that they've not had time to notice that all they ever do now is record other people doing cool(tm) stuff. I'm pretty sure my wife spends more time taking photos of our kids and browsing through them to find facebookable ones than she spends actually interacting with them.
Your top of the range phones are actually very good at recording these things, in Full HD. In fact with their noise cancelling microphones they can actually pick up the sound very well too - and this wasn't the case 5 years ago.
Not that I agree with their use for such things. In fact the best gig I recently went to had a band that said "right. Everyone, record our next song. it's the one we're best known for, we'll be doing it again at the end, but after we've let you get it out of your system - put your phones/tablets/cameras and screens away and enjoy the gig. Anyone recording afterwards has my permission to get their head kicked in by fellow fans annoyed by your screen. There will be a professional recording on the website tomorrow that you can download free of charge, no catch, no restrictions, which will be much better quality than you guys can capture. Here we go"
Surprisingly, it had the desired effect, and we all agreed afterwards it was a very good way of doing it.
Agree with you on the definition of 'tour'
Another gripe of mine is that tickets went on sale at 10am on a Monday morning and sold out in 15 minutes. It's a good thing that none of her fans are key-workers and so no one was disappointed that they weren't even able to try to buy tickets. </sarcasm>
If David Cameron were truly populist, he'd make it law that all tickets sales to popular events be by ballot. After all, Wimbledon tennis manages to do so perfectly well every year.
I go to a lot of gigs, mainly metal / rock and I pay a lot for the privillege of seeing my favourite bands perform. I like to take some photos to help me remember the gig, especially in years to come. In a way good photos that capture the atmosphere and performance posted on social media can be a great form of free publicity for the bands. However, I am mindful of those around me and when I do take photos, I try to be as quick and unobtusive as possible.
If someone who has paid a lot see see the show wants to experience it through a 4-inch screen, well that's their choice. However, they should stand at the back out of everyones way.
Some bands have the right idea as well - it's now becoming more common to be able to download the audio of the gig (sometimes free, sometimes for a small fee) soon after - Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers do this.
Many years ago.
A single tripod mounted decent video camera near the back can do a surprisingly good job.
Well over one hour single shot, some panning and zooming, but it is watchable, now the only material existing of that band. I shot over the top of the audience.
I am so glad there was no such thing as phone cameras then, that would have ruined the gig..
People who had portable video recorders generally knew how to use them.
Wobbles and stupid aspect ratios should not be tolerated.
As to watching, I would not remember it half as well as if I had not videoed it, even if most of the time I was watching directly and just glancing at the view finder.
Of all the concerts I remember well, they are the ones I videoed, the one I did the lighting, the one I photoed for them. Two bands both seen too many times.
Even the low fi linear mono sound track is liked, it was not THAT bad, but was useable.
wasn't there a court case a while back where Hoover effectively lost their exclusivity of branding, as it was judged that "Hoover" was synonymous with "vacuum cleaner" ?
Similar to "Blu-Tak" and "Sellotape" ?
Maybe the same is happening to "iPhone" becoming a generic term, rather than a brand.
And although I know it will attract a slew of downvotes, I do find it interesting this phenomenon seems to apply to things which suck or stick.
Is she asking for 'crowd engagement' reasons or because someone somewhere has told she will lose billions to piracy if people record little clips here and there? That and the time the label wanting to get a fat wallet from selling the dvd/blu-rays will have to spend searching youtube so they can send DMCA takedown notices of 8 second clips.
People are usually happy to comply unless there is a profit reason behind such a request.
I work a lot with public-facing entertainers outside of the music industry and they too went through a phase of "please don't put it on youtube". They didn't want everyone to be completely familiar with their act when they do it again next time somewhere else.
As I say it was a phase and has now largely gone away - firstly they know it is a lost cause and secondly they found the exposure was beneficial and didn't impact future audiences.
Not disagreeing that people with cameras during the actual performance are very annoying.
Oddly enough, the music hall entertainers said the same thing about radio and tv. It stops them from doing the same act every time. They have to come up with new material.
TV and Radio didn't kill entertainment acts.
Video didn't kill the radio star (c) Buggles or whoever wrote it :-)
Home taping didn't kill music.
YouTube won't kill live concerts.
I prefer larger, standing only venues, because if some cunt is waving their phone or slab in front of me, I will give them five minutes, five precious minutes of my time whilst they ruin the show for me, and then that fucking thing is getting very violently flung from their hands and I vanish into the crowd like a ninja.
I have done it at numerous concerts now and the reaction is great. They don't even look to see who's done it, they just dive to the ground after the device and get trampled.
>I will give them five minutes, five precious minutes of my time whilst they ruin the show for me, and then that fucking thing is getting very violently flung from their hands and I vanish into the crowd like a ninja.
Wow, you're amazing. So hard & cool. Just like a proper ninja I expect
As the people here grow colder
I turn to my computer
And spend my evenings with it
Like a friend.
I was loading a new program
I had ordered from a magazine
"Are you lonely, are you lost?
This voice console is a must"
I press Execute.
Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired.
I bring you love and deeper understanding.
Hello, I know that you're unhappy.
I bring you love and deeper understanding.
Well I've never felt such pleasure
Nothing seemed to matter
I neglected my bodily needs
I did not eat, I did not sleep
The intensity increasing
'Til my family found me and intervened.
But I was lonely, I was lost
Without my little black box
I pick up the phone and go Execute.
Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired.
I bring you love and deeper understanding.
Hello, I know that you're unhappy.
I bring you love and deeper understanding.
I turn to my computer like a friend.
I need deeper understanding.
Give me deeper understanding.
"As the people here grow colder, I turn to my computer
And spend my evenings with it like a friend
I was loading a new programme
I had ordered from a magazine
Are you lonely, are you lost?
This voice console is a must
I press execute"
What was that, like 1989? She should have called the song "Siri". IIRC it had some Bulgarian throat singers or something on it.
Warbling '70s pop sensation Kate Bush
'70s? Yes, The Kick Inside was released in 1978, and had Kate's first two number-1 hits ("Wuthering Heights" and "The Man with the Child in His Eyes". But she had three number-1s in the '80s, and her last one was in 2005. The '80s were her most productive decade, with four albums. Her only previous tour was in '79, but that's on the cusp of the '80s. If she's associated with a decade, I think the 1980s would have to be it.
That said, I'm glad to see she's still out there and clearly still has a big fan base. I don't pay much attention to music these days, but I remember celebrating Katemas (30 July), in a small way, with a couple of co-workers circa 1990.
gig tickets are ludicrously expensive these days, which can give a bit 'i've paid for my right to record' attitude, so why not add a recording of the show + pics to the product.
so for your ticket you get -
- - live show
-- pro pics of show sent (weblink/email/text/app) to you at end of show
-- pro vid recording of 'best bits' a while later (after mix)
of course these would quickly get shared outwith paying customers but this approach may give more control for the artist and more entertainment for the fans while reducing 'phone in the air' nippiness.
and on the candles/lighters theme it would be good to see an artist creative enough to use fans' smartphones to somehow add to crowd participation rather than detract from it.
Everyone wants something different from a gig, even more so with the diversity of age groups going to same gig nowadays. Going mental at a Paul Weller gig, which I've been doing since 1982 Jam days, you now get scowled at or bopped by the boneheads who used to go mad but now can"t move their beer bellies and only want to sway with the missus during You Do Something To Me.
Maybe a bit of pogoing at Ms Bush's do will stop the frenzied video directing! Reclaim the space
I had the not entirely unpleasing experience of going to Hammersmith a couple of days ago to watch Kate Bush. It was rather good to not be viewing a thousand screens between me and the stage. I've not been to anything quite like this before (missus is the fan) but it was a thoroughly enjoyable event by a clearly very talented vocalist and talented musicians. Trying to prevent phone use at all gigs is probably unneccesary, but for this it proved worthwhile.
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