successful people, stop complaining

You people are pathetic. If someone is snapping pictures with their camera phone at one of your shows, you should be honored.

Shame on you, Carrie Brownstein!!!! To think I've been following your own goddamn blog.

Excerpts from "Are cellphones ruining the concert experience?" (Dallas Morning News)

What if you gave a concert and the crowd refused to watch?

"It's extraordinarily irritating," says Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame. "All these people holding up these horrid little squares of bright light."

"It's like they're not even there," says jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. "It's like, 'Why don't you put that away and listen to the music?' "

"It drives me crazy," says singer Steve Earle. "They have their use, but there's definitely a price to pay."

As a performer, it's frustrating to look out and see a sea of cellphones instead of faces," says Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein. "There's definitely a problem where people are so busy documenting the moment that they forget to just live in the moment."

"Everyone has this strange archiving addiction now. It's like they're trying to pin a butterfly to a corkboard," says Canadian singer Feist. "To me, a gig isn't supposed to be for posterity," she says. "It's supposed to be a bunch of people tossed together in a room, making a mood, and then it's over. You can't see the world through a viewfinder."

"I see people calling their friends and saying, 'Hey! Guess where I am? I'm at the Roger Waters show,' just so somebody somewhere can be impressed by them," says Mr. Waters. "It's about them showing off." [Is he not showing off right now, by using himself as an example?]

"It's a personal choice. We shouldn't say 'you can't have a cellphone,'" says Ms. Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. "But it's frustrating," she says. "There's a generational gap where people no longer know how to experience life without technology."

Thank god some musicians are intelligent:

"My bottom line is communication," says English rocker Billy Bragg. "If they want to capture a photo of me and send it to a friend who can't be at the gig, I don't have a problem with that."

"Do you want people to be strapped to their seats, with their eyes pinned open and a jolt of electricity if their mind should stray?" says Police drummer Stewart Copeland.
"Cellphones don't bother me," he says. "An audience that's so excited it's shooting the band with its cellphones is an audience that's throbbing with the pulse of the band."