Abba Zabba

I swear, every time I go to a concert or other big event, I'm in the section with all the jerks. (And no, I don't want any witty remarks about why I might be in that section.) A few months ago a group of extremely drunk and extremely fat guys sat behind me at a Springsteen show. They had very loud slurred conversations, yelled out song requests, lay in the aisle because they were too drunk to move, etc. And this wasn't a rock show with a full band; it was an acoustic solo show. So drunken yelling was really out of place. Eventually security had to come and throw them out. (Not literally, of course. They wouldn't have been able to physically move these guys without a forklift.)

Then, last night I went to a Franz Ferdinand concert. Death Cab For Cutie was the opener, so the crowd was full of obnoxiously-dressed emo kids. There were cardigans, faux-aged T-shirts, and ironically-worn thick black glasses everywhere. I had a seat on the end of the row, next to the stairs. Throughout the whole concert people were moving up and down the stairs, right in front of me. They were going to get snacks, or going down to the floor seats, or coming back from the floor seats because there wasn't enough room. Throughout the concert, about half the time my view was obstructed. I looked at other sets of stairs around the arena, and they were usually empty. Mine was the only one that was always crowded.

The worst part was when Franz Ferdinand finished a song and walked off-stage. It obviously wasn't the end of the concert; they hadn't said goodnight and the lights were still dark. So you're supposed to stay where you are, applaud, and call for an encore. But instead, a lot of people got up and started to leave. I figured they were suckers who didn't know what an encore was. But that wasn't it. After a few minutes, the band came back on and did an excellent 3-song set. And during that time, people kept leaving. Who the hell goes to a concert and then leaves in the middle of the final set to beat the traffic? And could they possibly find a way of leaving that doesn't involve standing right in front of me? The only possible explanation is that the emo kids couldn't handle how hard the show was rocking, and they had to flee the scene so they could go home to cry.