Annoying things at gigs: Complaining Indie Girls
- Apr 14, 2009
I apologise straight away to any of the lovely female readers who are viewing this or accidentally got redirected here after clicking something by mistake. Now, I know I'm probably going to be alienating half the readership and the inner feminist in some of you may fizzle over in to some burning rage. But before you set fire to your bra and undies, at least let me make some points if that's okay.
Now, I don't know whether to call it a privilege or not, but I am blessed with being over six foot tall. If we're being precise, it's six foot two inches. At a gig it's not really much of a problem for me to be able to get a decent view of what is happening on stage. Is the front man badly trying to smash up a guitar? Or has someone fell on their arse after slipping when attempting to dance around on stage? All I can say is, I roughly know what is going on if the crowd isn't overly rowdy and hasn't turned in to a general moshpit.
Some people who aren't as fortunate to be blessed in the height division are a group of people I like to call "Complaining Indie Girls". You can identify this group of people using your eyes and looking out for the following characteristics:
1) Whatever band is playing, they will have the official piece of merchandise on. Even if its a white logo on a black background, they will pay £25 for it.
2) They talk loudly through the support band. Because they haven't heard of the artist in question, the assumption is made that they are rubbish. However, once they appear on mainstream TV channels and magazine covers, they are so totally kewl!
3) Any under eighteens' egos will automatically inflate if they manage to acquire a beer from the overpriced bar.
4)Despite wearing stupidly high heels, they will still only come to the average person's shoulders.
Like many a time I've been somewhere, got there nice and early, purchased a pint, plonked myself in a decent position where I can see everything. Only then I got an all too familiar tap on the shoulders. The conversation goes something like this:
Complaining Indie Girl: Excuse me, can you move please? You're quite tall and I can't see.
Me: No.
Complaining Indie Girl: Why not?
Me: I was here first and really can't bothered to move. Go hassle someone else.
Depending how tanked up the Complaining Indie Girl is, she will reply with a bit of swearing in order to try and scare me off. The worst thing that can happen is for her to spike my relatively defenceless feet with her high heels. Let me tell you, it's not a pleasant experience. But you have to stand your ground. The end result is a pleasing one when the Complaining Indie Girl sulks off and moves further forward to bother someone else.
Subsequently, I think nothing more of these chats. However, it is amusing to see what happens when the lights go down and the main act waltzes on to the stage. If a particularly lively band like Kasabian are playing, the crowd will push, shove and generally become quite active from the static drab mob they were before. It's only then that we see hoardes of Complaining Indie Girls running in terror from the front of the gig as they can't deal with an overweight businessman smashing in to them and realising their glittery makeup is running in the sweaty atmosphere.
So a tip to any of you Complaining Indie Girls out there. Stay at the back where it's safer and save yourself the bother of annoying multiple people by pushing to the front. We all know that you'll be pushing your way back to stand next to the sound desk before the main riff in the second song is played.
Ladies, feel free to put your lighters away and put on your bras. I think I won that argument.
Photo: Dan's Photos Flickr photostream
