Last night was the concert for the 4th and 5th grade girls' honors choir. They performed right after the high school choir concert. My girls were dressed to the nines, hair done up just so, looking pretty, and sounding (I thought) better than the high school choir which preceded them. So the concert would have been lovely, save for one thing: audience members behaving badly.
First, there was the mom sitting behind me who stood up and danced...yup, that's right danced during the concert. And we're not talking a little swaying, arms at your side kind of dancing. We're talking raise the roof, arm flinging, get your groove on dancing. Which she felt the need to explain to me. "I'm not crazy, I'm just tryin to embarrass my kid. Ya only get so many chances to do that, gotta take 'em all!"
Then there were the uncontrolled children. Don't get me wrong, I know three and four year olds can't be expected to sit through an hour long concert. But the kid on the bleachers next to me stomping up and down the stairs and jumping down a few rows, then doing it all again. He wasn't the only one. I counted at least 15 of them; yelling, jumping, running around.
Yet worse than the little children were the big children who should have known better. The high school choir, once dismissed from the stage, filtered slowly into the back of the gym and had a little party. Friends who had come to watch them sing got up out of the audience and went back to join them.
I was floored. Where I grew up, concerts weren't like that. Or at least I don't remember them being like that. If you had kids who were noisy, or needed to burn off some energy, they were taken out in the hallway where they could run and be as noisy as they wanted without disrupting anyone. When I was in choir and another group was singing during a concert, we either went back to the music room to wait, or we had seats in the audience which we had to stay in. Maybe I grew up in an exceptional community, but it makes me sad to think that these types of events are not highly regarded in my present community. They are treated like your average sporting event, rather than an expression of art and culture. Both events are important, but the behavior at each one should reflect the nature of the event. I endure them for the sake of my kids who are invovled in them, but it is most definitely not an enjoyable experience.
2 comments:
WOW! I remember some concerts that my mom put on down in Grand Rapids. It was similar. People are just plain stupid.
I had a similar experience at my concert when I gave it. I think it's because people don't know how to behave except for church ane rock concerts where you roll around in the aisles and sing along with the songs and cheer before the end. You can also talk to your friends because it's amplified so loud. Oh, and smoke weed--was anybody high or drunk?
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