Gig Silence

Nobody likes it when people talk over their favourite bands, right?

The situation is all too familiar: you’re swaying on the spot, lost in the ethereal notes of the other-worldly folk that you’ve just spent the bleak winter months nuzzling up to. You’ve forgotten the baggage of your daily existence and for a brief moment are transported to a better place.……

Then a pint of piss-warm lager is tipped down your neck and you’re back in the room. Some bloke is complaining loudly about his in-growing toe-nail, a gaggle of wannabe wags shout about the coke they’ve bought, and what seems like a million other people mumble the mundanities of their life over the top of your perfect moment. What once felt like a special relationship that you’d forged with each note, each breathy vocal, each far-off shimmer of guitar becomes about as special as a danger wank.

Once the moment’s gone, there is no way of getting it back. You stand there twitching with frustration, fantasising about murder or at the very least shouting: “Shut the fuck up!” to the apes that mow and chatter around you. Then it happens. Somewhere in front of you, a reedy voice pierces the hum: “Sshhhhhh! Will you all please be quiet?” You search out this would-be hero, before eventually your eyes stop at a man in his forties, wearing a non-ironic V-neck jumper and glasses that are so thick they fail to refract any light. Is this my hero? Am I in his gang?

Well thankfully, it seems that Brighton’s Shhh! Promotions have come to my rescue. Their gripe, it seems, is mine. Their Myspace page states: “We are sick of going to gigs where people seem to be more interested in talking throughout the show or talking on their phone rather than listening to the music. If you feel the same way we would love to have you attend our shows.”

So this weekend I find myself in Brighton’s Marlborough Theatre about to watch Shhh!’s double-headed gig of Golden Ghost and George Thomas and The Owls. I take my seat in the second row at the beautifully-bedecked intimate theatre and wait, in silence, for the first act.

Woodpecker Wooliams take to the stage to restrained, respectful claps. Within seconds, their delicate wannabe Joanna Newsom noodlings go from a weak but affecting tribute to substandard GCSE guff. When a tape recording of Woodpecker Wooliams whistling like a bird doesn’t receive even a murmur of dissent, I begin to feel the pressure of the quiet. The duo on stage giggle and clear their throats in between and during each miserable song, but from the audience -nothing.

Up next is Manchester’s George Thomas who suffers similarly from the enforced vow of silence. His obscure lo-fi folk tales and minimalist comic laments are given too much space, his carefully pitched ironies falling flat in the hush. I mean, the audience doesn’t even know if they are allowed to laugh about the waterproof, fireproof, deathproof spacesuit lyric.  By the time Golden Ghost come on, I can’t take it any more. I run down to the bar and urge people to shout at me. Just shout.

I’ve changed my mind. Please, please bring back the noise.