Silence isn't (always) golden: the pitfalls of demanding "quiet gigs".

Important disclaimer: This article and blog piece is thinly-disguised promo for our new Neurodivergent Cabaret Night “Organised Fun”, which takes place on 1 November at Jamboree. You could save the time of reading it and just buy a ticket here: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/594477/

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Earlier this month, a poster by the musician Lucy May Walker created some discussion on social media. For those who have not seen it, it is a set of rules for attending her gigs. Her requests include not talking, not leaving during songs, “reading the room” before singing along and not using your mobile phone. Her level of prescriptivism provoked a strong backlash. Her detractors accused her of being entitled and arrogant and dictating to audiences who had paid to her. Rowetta from the Happy Mondays compared her to a “teacher or a prison officer” whilst Twitter user Ana replied “you’re out of your goddam mind if you think I’m paying to watch a show where I’m being treated like a damn toddler”.

The media coverage of Lucy May Walker’s “Rules” focused on an alleged rise in a trend for “bad behaviour” at gigs. The NME’s article on the matter discussed a recent incident where an audience member thew a mobile phone at the US Artist Bebe Rexha, who then needed stitches even though it feels a bit of a stretch to compare someone talking at a gig to someone violently assaulting the artist.

It also feels sensible to put the “audience behaviour at gigs is getting worse” narrative into context. Twenty years ago, it was not uncommon for audiences at Reading and Leeds to throw urine at the stage and fire-bomb the toilets. Twenty years before that, punk audiences – much like Mods and Rockers ten years before that-and Teddy Boys ten years earlier again - were not particularly noted for their restraint and etiquette at gigs. And, if you go back to Shakespearean times, audiences throwing rotten fruit and vegetables at the stage was a common experience. Maybe every generation of audiences feels worse than that came before.

That said, what might be significant is that – in the years before COVID – there was a run of stories about how “young people” were becoming much more sensible, and shunning gig venues for coffee shops. The “worse” behaviour of audiences may be cyclical rather than an actual new trend. Or it may also be that rose-tinted spectacles during two years of COVID shutdowns made us all forget that gig audiences have always included a small number of very loud people.

There are also points in the “gig etiquette” where Lucy May Walker may not be aware of the different access requirements of some of her audience members. Her request for the audience to “read the room” before singing a long may suggest a lack of understanding that, for a large number of neurodivergent people, "reading a room” is a near-impossible task

That may be where the etiquette poster has a value. In setting out what Lucy May Walker expects from her gigs, it gives the audience clear information on what to expect from the event and, as such, enables people to decide for themselves whether they want to attend. Obviously this only works if you provide the information before people have bought a ticket – or enable people to access a refund if the rules you’ve imposed mean they can longer enjoy the night – but that way you can frame the night in a way that means people can decide for themselves if it is right for them. I’m very much in the camp of those who feel like the expectations Lucy May Walker sets feel like a recipe for a peculiar form of torture rather than a fun night out but at least now I know it’s not the right gig for me.

However the real problem for me for me was the way that some enthusiasts for silent gigs quickly tried to turn Lucy May Walker’s “rules” into a universal demand. To quote Allan on Twitter, “PLEASE follow this etiquette at every single gig folks…Everyone deserves to enjoy the show and the artist deserves to have an audience who are there with them, helping to generate that loop of connection & energy only gigs create”. Allan’s definition of energy clearly differs from mine. And a performer, nothing horrifies me more than the idea of an audience secretly hating my music but feeling compelled to sit in silence regardless. Given the choice, I’d take the rotten fruit and vegetables.

As David Lance Callahan from the Wolfhounds defiantly stated “As my audience you can talk, heckle, hell, even fight if you want to. It’s down to my strength as a performer and artist to make sure you don’t”. And it is important to note that Lucy May Walker is an acoustic artist playing tiny intimate venues and is very specific that she is talking about what she wants from her own shows and seems to be very clear that she is not suggesting her rules are for “all” gigs.

The reason I take a particular interest in all this is because it underpins the reason that Gary Paradiso and I started Organised Fun, our Neurodivergent Cabaret night. We aslo set out what audience should expect but, in our case, we make it clear that ours is a night where audiences are free to enjoy it however they want. Whether audiences want to talk, move around, make noise or just sit quietly, we want audiences to feel comfortable without being judged. We think this is really important precisely because of the ways that gigs can become uncomfortable and inaccessible experiences for neurodivergent people when there are rules of behaviour that are expected but never spoken about. Ultimately, if an artist wants to play in complete silence and an audience want to sit in complete silence then that’s absolutely fine but we need to move away from the idea that someone talking, moving around or – horror of horrors – singing along somehow equates to not enjoying the gig or not “behaving properly”. If live performance is to be for everyone then we need to allow people to enjoy it in the ways that they wish to do so.

The Organised Fun Halloween Special takes place on 1 November at Jamboree. For access information please visit https://theawkwardsilences.com/organised-fun-access-information and for tickets please visit https://www.wegottickets.com/event/594477/.