Disconcerted

Macon has a well-earned reputation for not showing up for music, and while little more than half the seats at Thursday night’s Ray LaMontagne concert at the Macon City Auditorium were filled, I am not going to add to the considerable choir that has driven home that point over the years.

Besides, LaMontagne (and openers The Belle Brigade) played as though it was a full house, and gave a bravura performance. But to be honest, many in attendance didn’t deserve it.

I expect a certain amount of heckling and song requests at any concert, and the more sparsely attended, the easier it is to pick out what is said. People say some really boneheaded things at concerts.

Usually the stories you hear about stupid things people say at a concert occur on stage, such as Robert Plant ad-libbing “Does anybody remember laughter?” during the “Song Remains The Same” performance of “Stairway to Heaven;” or Kanye West, during … well, anything.

In Macon Thursday night, the stupid was entirely situated among the audience. Behind us: “I don’t know these songs.” Overheard in the lobby: “Oh my God, if he doesn’t play ____ we should just leave.” Next to me … well, you get the idea.

And some of those who weren’t complaining were boredly scrolling through their Facebook or swiping through their Tinder feed.

Clearly this was an audience made up – at least in part – of people who have never experienced what it’s like to hear a song performed live before you hear the studio recording. They’ve never experienced the crackling energy of a new favorite song, performed in person just for you. I had not heard

Ever the pro, only mid-set did LaMontagne let on that he realizes audiences on this tour were less interested in his new material than they were in his standards like “Trouble” and “You Are The Best Thing.” This is not uncommon for an established artist touring in support of a new album that diverges from the style and textures of music that made his reputation, and he defended his art, declaring he would be “miserable” if he put out the same record every time.

I’m sure this went over quite well with the fans who moved into empty seats nearer the stage to be closer to LaMontagne and his band. But the farther back you went in the room, the more likely you were to encounter large groups of boozy, hairsprayed twentysomethings, laughing and chattering as loudly as they could, just as they probably do the moment the guy in the cover band at a local watering hole announces that he and the boys have worked out an original tune “and we’re gonna play it for you right now.”

I’ve heard audience-recorded bootlegs in which there fewer conversations going on within earshot.

Not to mention the guy who, as soon as the first song begins, leaps to his feet and hoists what must have been an iPad above his head and proceeds to video the entire song. Of course, he’s the only one standing, and dozens of concertgoers struggle to see the actual band around his massive screen.

Not to single him out: There were countless others who felt the need to try to take pictures or video of LaMontagne’s performances, never realizing until they got home, perhaps, that a photo taken from row BB with a camera phone is going to look like just that. And how about the morons with the flash on? I wonder how many people now have immortalized my bald spot in their vain attempts to document the moment? Don’t they realize that the magic happens on stage, and not in your Samsung Note?

There’s a whole group of people – perhaps it’s a generational thing, I couldn’t say for sure – who don’t go to a concert to listen to the music. Rather, they go to the concert so that they can say they went to the concert. That’s why they shoot the video and take the pictures. They’re never going to look at that stuff again. It’s just to prove that they were there, to document their attendance.

Going to a concert so that you can say that you attended the concert, is like going to vote and not casting a ballot.

Then again, there are folks who seem to have bought their ticket with the expectation that the artist is going to stand on stage, play their greatest hits album, and nothing more – and especially nothing new. It’s like they want the musician to be some variation of See ’n Say The Farmer Says, only in this one you pull the string and Jimmy Buffett plays “Margaritaville” for the umpteenth time.

The whole scene makes me sad. It’s an exercise in adding mass insult to the mass injury imposed on musicians whose output, once bought and treasured, is now stolen and shared. To an entire generation of people, music has been devalued to zero. And people don’t respect things that don’t cost them money.

They take it for granted.

They use it as auditory background for whatever “clever” asides they can make to their friends, or as literal background for their selfies.

They leave, and forget about it – but not before complaining that LaMontagne didn’t play a certain song in the second encore, the encore he probably didn’t even want to do.

I have been to concerts where people actually watched what was happening on stage, and listened to the music being created. I miss that.