Warning – This is a short rant. If you are easily offended, skip reading this and go and do something else
Phone Video, please just don’t do it… (seriously)
I totally understand people’s enthusiasm for capturing live music events, but video of musical performances taken by phone has to be one of the worst ideas ever in terms of data capture. Its one of my all time pet hates for a number of reasons.
Firstly the picture quality is never that great, so as the old saying goes “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” Secondly the sound capture is also not going to be great. So apart from terrible visual and sound capture I suppose its “ok” (just kidding) I can understand enthusiastic fans pulling out a phone in the heat of the moment (without thought) to capture an artist performance, although I would respectfully suggest perhaps watching the artist might be more fun and respectful to the performer. Just a thought…
To my amazement some artists use a mobile to film their bands and worse still some promoters use phones and then post online. Again full marks for enthusiasm BUT zero for creating a good impression. If I were to award minus marks this would be for not even holding the phone straight during the well intended activity. This has to be the ultimate in not engaging brain. Social media is full of really terrible clips that do the artists no favours at all. For promoters and artists, there are many superb affordable ways to record video AND have great sound. Use the phone for what it was designed for – PHONE CALLS…
Smart artists hate phone video recordings
Prince placed a notice of “Purple Rules” before a surprise show at New York’s City Winery in August 2013, informing the audience that photography, videos and phones would be prohibited. Prince’s security physically removed phones from fans trying to record, ushering them out of the theater if they didn’t comply.
Don Henley, Eagles’ drummer and co-vocalist, took a much more aggressive stance on the matter. During their “History of the Eagles” tour in 2015, the band implemented a policy to reprimand anyone caught recording. “This could be our last time around,” Henley told news.com.au. “We want people to be in the moment with us and experience the concert through their eyeballs and not a tiny square on a phone.”
“The Flight of The Concords probably put it best when when said
“We say the same thing to you as we do to our sexual partners. Please stop filming.”
Rant over
