Excuse me this is a bit of a rant, but it has a point to all of it. But at the very least it's an interesting story (I hope). The first two parts were what ruined it for me, the third part is what ruined it for everyone.
I just came back from Marilyn Manson tonight. Now let me just say this, whether you like him or not and this is not a discussion of that by the way, but he is a really dedicated artist and he really tried tonight. He really did. But it seemed the whole world worked against him tonight.
Three things went wrong for me.
The main one was this. When the band came on, the lead singer Marilyn Manson himself seemed somewhat agitated and we all knew why. It was because for most of it we could barely hear him. The vocals were synced in with the volume of the rest of the band and he sounded very faint. And to top it off and this is where the concert really started to go downhill was some asshole in the crowd threw a beer bottle and it landed smack bang on Manson's face. Manson kept his cool for about 10 seconds then got so pissed off that during his performance of Sweet Dreams he threw the mic to the floor and stormed off stage. Eventually he came back and told us he loved the audience, because even when he was gone we kept singing, but he loved the audience except for "the one asshole ruining for the rest of us" he tried to call the guy out and threatened to kick his ass on stage. The whole crowd was screaming for blood, which I admit was awesome because I wanted the guy dead as well. I mean he had to throw it right before they went into a guitar solo (that in my opinion makes it much worse). Of course the guy didn't go on stage since Marilyn was a huge guy (believe me, he stands over 2m tall and has a huge build, I've been within kissing distance of the guy) and if Manson didn't kick his ass the rest of the crowd would've torn him to pieces.
After that you could see him really trying to keep calm because this has happened before in Australia and the bottle impact looked like it hurt. But I think he cracked it, because he cut to his ending song which was Beautiful People after trying to play a few more songs but the venue kept fucking up the sound and he didn't end up playing the only single he released off the new album and about two-three other staple songs. He normally plays about 2 hour sets, but the concert didn't even last an hour and a half.
Was he leaving early justified? I mean I can't really blame him because he really kept trying to play, but the songs weren't up to standard plus the venue was really screwing with their performances with the lighting and audio issues. I blame the guy who threw the bottle, the bar man fucked up because you're only meant to sell plastic cups during a concert. Plus the final song was pretty rocking even if it came prematurely.
But based off the last example and the first two reasons if you read them, my question is - where has common decency run off and hidden? (Yes, Yes I know, you were at a Marilyn Manson concert, what did you expect? It's still a musical event meant for fans, and there is still a code of conduct at these events whether it's Manson, Metallica or the Wiggles) I lived my life based on the assumption that if I'm courteous, polite and considerate it would catch on. I knew this was deluded and a pipe dream at best, but it seems the world is pushing the other way. I consider myself, not to be egotistical, but a really good person, despite how abrasive I am as some people can see from past posts, I can normally win people over with my charm and good nature (I'm probably hitting a skeptic nerve in most people right about now). But it amazes me how resilient, and to the extreme lengths some pricks will go in order continue being a prick. The person in the second reason, the one who had his elbow at my throat for two songs would only respond when I lowered myself to his level. I'm doing a psychology doctorate, and years of personal research and I'm still fathomed at how consistent assholes are. And as for the guy who threw the bottle? At a music festival I can understand, it's still wrong to throw a bottle at the artist, but you're still less likely to like them since you may not bet there for them. But who pays almost $100 AUS and throws shit at the person you're paying to see?
The bottle guy proves, it only takes ONE person to ruin it for everyone. It only take one person to shit in the apple pie to make it inedible. So now I stress to everyone out there, please be on your best behavior. Manson during his fit had said "I'm not advocating that someone should punch the stupid fucking retard in the skull", and of course this meant that the guy has or is probably getting the shit kicked out of him. I ask that everyone please take consideration for others, and while this may seem like common sense, people clearly forget this. We all feel like acting like trolls sometimes, whether it's throw something at the artist, joke around in the cinema loudly or just swearing too much in a restaurant, we sometimes forget there are other people around. So have common courtesy and be aware of others, I know we sometimes forger we're not alone but at least try.
By the way, anyone else have any bad concert experiences? Thought I should ask, since I may be just an isolated case.
I just came back from Marilyn Manson tonight. Now let me just say this, whether you like him or not and this is not a discussion of that by the way, but he is a really dedicated artist and he really tried tonight. He really did. But it seemed the whole world worked against him tonight.
Three things went wrong for me.
First me and my friends got there at 11am and the doors opened at 7pm, but we were standing and we wanted the front at Horden Pavilion in Sydney, Australia and there were four lines into the venue (which I'm now officially boycotting, because it's stupid) and every line has a bag check. Why not have a line dedicated to bag check? But no they don't. Instead the three people in line in front of us brought flammable objects in and kept the whole line waiting. Firstly who in their right mind would bring a bag to concert especially if there's no cloak room at the venue and you're going to be standing? Let alone filled with obscene with make up, and flammable make up and obscene amounts of deodorant at that? (Didn't even know there was such a thing) And while we were delayed about 40 people in the other lines who were in front of moved ahead of us and took up about three lines in the mosh pit. Understandably we were pissed because we've been waiting 8 hours for nothing. Those people showed up about four hours after us. Okay but it's bad luck, what can we do? So we moved on.
I eventually managed to squeeze up to the front before the supporting act showed up. The supporting act was terrible , but that's normally the case(actually it was okay,t the instrumental was pretty sweet, but the vocals were terrible - They were called "The Art" if you're wondering). While I was up there I met a mother and daughter who were big fans, we were on the left of the mosh pit and they were to the left of me and after talking for a while I asked them to push right in order to get closer to the center, she said that's fine as long as they aren't pushed left because she was worried for her daughter getting banged up against the barricade too badly. I promised I would do my best to keep the crowd going right and we were on the agreement. Meanwhile a girl to the left of me named Chris (if you're reading this for some reason Chris, it was really nice meeting you!) looked a bit frail so I didn't want to push her at all. But she was one tough cookie and a concert veteran.
About the second song in we managed to push about a third of the way down from the left and ended up pretty close to the middle. Then suddenly this man sticks his arm between me and Chris and I swear he kept it there for the whole concert. He looked about 30 but his girlfriend looked 14. He was a huge man, and he had pointy elbows and a burly arms and he kept his arm locked there and his elbow was for about two songs running up against my throat. I kept trying to push his arm off but he wouldn't budge and I asked him to move he shook his head and screamed out "this mosh pit was full of pussies" and kept his arm there. I couldn't throw my whole body into his arm for two reasons
1) I had no room to move my entire body in full force
2) Every time I did manage to move his arm it started to crush Chris between me and the guy's arm and the people next to her.
So basically I was caught in a terrible position, so as a last resort after asking politely, then asking more aggressively to "mate, you're literally fucking killing me here, move your arm!", I punched the elbow several times until he budged somewhat, he didn't move his arm but he lowered it away from my throat and into the side of my ribs where it remained for the entire concert. The worse part was, he could have kept pushing to the right, but he didn't. He just stayed there screaming out how he's been to better mosh pits and being a dick after I kept asking him to budge. Plus I could push left because my elbow was driving into the mother next to me.
Now if you ask everyone I knew, almost everybody would describe me as easy going, docile and every reasonable and also somewhat of a pacifist (of course they would more likely use the word pussy). There were seven of us, I had asked two of my friends to try and push the guy more right but he wouldn't budge. And after asking him (reasonably I might add) to stop ramming his elbow against me on purpose, he laughed at my face. Like actually laughed and told me "this is nothing, other mosh pits I've been to are worse." What that had to do with anything, I don't know. But I'm sure other mosh pits even for the crazier ones like Slipknot, ramming your elbow into my throat is still considered inappropriate. I abhor violence, I personally think violence is bred from ignorance, pride and misunderstanding. But there were seven of us, I honestly considered gathering everyone and dragging the guy out to the street and beating him until he puked out his balls. And you know what? Fair fight or not, that would've been justified. That was the second reason.
I eventually managed to squeeze up to the front before the supporting act showed up. The supporting act was terrible , but that's normally the case(actually it was okay,t the instrumental was pretty sweet, but the vocals were terrible - They were called "The Art" if you're wondering). While I was up there I met a mother and daughter who were big fans, we were on the left of the mosh pit and they were to the left of me and after talking for a while I asked them to push right in order to get closer to the center, she said that's fine as long as they aren't pushed left because she was worried for her daughter getting banged up against the barricade too badly. I promised I would do my best to keep the crowd going right and we were on the agreement. Meanwhile a girl to the left of me named Chris (if you're reading this for some reason Chris, it was really nice meeting you!) looked a bit frail so I didn't want to push her at all. But she was one tough cookie and a concert veteran.
About the second song in we managed to push about a third of the way down from the left and ended up pretty close to the middle. Then suddenly this man sticks his arm between me and Chris and I swear he kept it there for the whole concert. He looked about 30 but his girlfriend looked 14. He was a huge man, and he had pointy elbows and a burly arms and he kept his arm locked there and his elbow was for about two songs running up against my throat. I kept trying to push his arm off but he wouldn't budge and I asked him to move he shook his head and screamed out "this mosh pit was full of pussies" and kept his arm there. I couldn't throw my whole body into his arm for two reasons
1) I had no room to move my entire body in full force
2) Every time I did manage to move his arm it started to crush Chris between me and the guy's arm and the people next to her.
So basically I was caught in a terrible position, so as a last resort after asking politely, then asking more aggressively to "mate, you're literally fucking killing me here, move your arm!", I punched the elbow several times until he budged somewhat, he didn't move his arm but he lowered it away from my throat and into the side of my ribs where it remained for the entire concert. The worse part was, he could have kept pushing to the right, but he didn't. He just stayed there screaming out how he's been to better mosh pits and being a dick after I kept asking him to budge. Plus I could push left because my elbow was driving into the mother next to me.
Now if you ask everyone I knew, almost everybody would describe me as easy going, docile and every reasonable and also somewhat of a pacifist (of course they would more likely use the word pussy). There were seven of us, I had asked two of my friends to try and push the guy more right but he wouldn't budge. And after asking him (reasonably I might add) to stop ramming his elbow against me on purpose, he laughed at my face. Like actually laughed and told me "this is nothing, other mosh pits I've been to are worse." What that had to do with anything, I don't know. But I'm sure other mosh pits even for the crazier ones like Slipknot, ramming your elbow into my throat is still considered inappropriate. I abhor violence, I personally think violence is bred from ignorance, pride and misunderstanding. But there were seven of us, I honestly considered gathering everyone and dragging the guy out to the street and beating him until he puked out his balls. And you know what? Fair fight or not, that would've been justified. That was the second reason.
The main one was this. When the band came on, the lead singer Marilyn Manson himself seemed somewhat agitated and we all knew why. It was because for most of it we could barely hear him. The vocals were synced in with the volume of the rest of the band and he sounded very faint. And to top it off and this is where the concert really started to go downhill was some asshole in the crowd threw a beer bottle and it landed smack bang on Manson's face. Manson kept his cool for about 10 seconds then got so pissed off that during his performance of Sweet Dreams he threw the mic to the floor and stormed off stage. Eventually he came back and told us he loved the audience, because even when he was gone we kept singing, but he loved the audience except for "the one asshole ruining for the rest of us" he tried to call the guy out and threatened to kick his ass on stage. The whole crowd was screaming for blood, which I admit was awesome because I wanted the guy dead as well. I mean he had to throw it right before they went into a guitar solo (that in my opinion makes it much worse). Of course the guy didn't go on stage since Marilyn was a huge guy (believe me, he stands over 2m tall and has a huge build, I've been within kissing distance of the guy) and if Manson didn't kick his ass the rest of the crowd would've torn him to pieces.
After that you could see him really trying to keep calm because this has happened before in Australia and the bottle impact looked like it hurt. But I think he cracked it, because he cut to his ending song which was Beautiful People after trying to play a few more songs but the venue kept fucking up the sound and he didn't end up playing the only single he released off the new album and about two-three other staple songs. He normally plays about 2 hour sets, but the concert didn't even last an hour and a half.
Was he leaving early justified? I mean I can't really blame him because he really kept trying to play, but the songs weren't up to standard plus the venue was really screwing with their performances with the lighting and audio issues. I blame the guy who threw the bottle, the bar man fucked up because you're only meant to sell plastic cups during a concert. Plus the final song was pretty rocking even if it came prematurely.
But based off the last example and the first two reasons if you read them, my question is - where has common decency run off and hidden? (Yes, Yes I know, you were at a Marilyn Manson concert, what did you expect? It's still a musical event meant for fans, and there is still a code of conduct at these events whether it's Manson, Metallica or the Wiggles) I lived my life based on the assumption that if I'm courteous, polite and considerate it would catch on. I knew this was deluded and a pipe dream at best, but it seems the world is pushing the other way. I consider myself, not to be egotistical, but a really good person, despite how abrasive I am as some people can see from past posts, I can normally win people over with my charm and good nature (I'm probably hitting a skeptic nerve in most people right about now). But it amazes me how resilient, and to the extreme lengths some pricks will go in order continue being a prick. The person in the second reason, the one who had his elbow at my throat for two songs would only respond when I lowered myself to his level. I'm doing a psychology doctorate, and years of personal research and I'm still fathomed at how consistent assholes are. And as for the guy who threw the bottle? At a music festival I can understand, it's still wrong to throw a bottle at the artist, but you're still less likely to like them since you may not bet there for them. But who pays almost $100 AUS and throws shit at the person you're paying to see?
The bottle guy proves, it only takes ONE person to ruin it for everyone. It only take one person to shit in the apple pie to make it inedible. So now I stress to everyone out there, please be on your best behavior. Manson during his fit had said "I'm not advocating that someone should punch the stupid fucking retard in the skull", and of course this meant that the guy has or is probably getting the shit kicked out of him. I ask that everyone please take consideration for others, and while this may seem like common sense, people clearly forget this. We all feel like acting like trolls sometimes, whether it's throw something at the artist, joke around in the cinema loudly or just swearing too much in a restaurant, we sometimes forget there are other people around. So have common courtesy and be aware of others, I know we sometimes forger we're not alone but at least try.
By the way, anyone else have any bad concert experiences? Thought I should ask, since I may be just an isolated case.
