Behaviour at Concerts

It is at least six years since I attended a classical concert in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Behaviour was how you would expect in a classical concert..very good. Similar amount of time since going to musical theatre in the Blackpool Opera House. Audience behaviour was good but the show was ruined by unduly high amplification. It has rather put us off from going to another Andrew Lloyd Webber production.

I don't go to many live things that are not some form of classical music where the audiences do indeed tend to be "mature" and very well behaved. I go to occasional live jazz events and audiences there tend to be more mixed - one group (also often on the mature side) are there for the music and tend to be quiet, and another group is there more for the experience of being in a jazz bar and they are not so quiet. Usually, not always, the former outnumber the latter and are nearer the stage so the noise is just a bit of background rumble. Ronnie Scott's is the most obvious exception as lots of people go solely for the experience but have no interest whatsoever in jazz. I was there once when the band stopped playing and asked a group of noisy business men to STFU.

I recently went to a chamber music concert in a venue that usually does traditional Irish music or plays. The government sponsors a programme of touring chamber groups, usually very high quality, that visit small towns that would otherwise not experience any live classical music, so they are mostly at venues generally used for something else. The audience was tiny - so few people had booked seats that rather than having us dotted around an almost entirely empty theatre, they put two rows of seats up on the stage and that was enough for the lot of us. It was nice actually, almost like being in the band, so to speak. The strange part was that there was an old (even by my standards!) man there who had presumably ended up there by accident, having generally expected the usual, and he kept asking questions - not just after a piece, but between movements, and once he even tried to pipe up while they were playing but the leader very politely shushed him. It was ok, he really wanted to understand what was going on, and after an initial burst of irritation I think most people thought it was all quite sweet. It wasn't bad behaviour as such, but it was extremely unusual.