It’s the gig you’ve been waiting all year for. The band (not that one) haven’t been on tour for over 20 years. And suddenly, the lead singer has singled you out. Why? Because that friend of yours who has been going through a rough patch has finally responded to your text and the band has noticed that your attention has slipped to your phone.

Mortified does not go far enough to explain how I felt when this happened to me at a Gene gig last year. But it caused me to reflect on our relationship with phones at concerts more generally.

Over the years, I have seen a spectrum of reactions from bands to phones. On the whole, younger bands tend to embrace the presence of technology much more readily. The first time that I went to see the Lottery Winners, Thom Rylance paused the gig part way through and refused to begin again until their Twitter account reached 100,000 followers. In that case, the fact that the phones were there allowed the band to push engagement and promote their face. It is tactics like this that have allowed the Lottery Winners to enjoy an astronomic rise to prominence over the last two years.

“By the end of the gig, I had remembered the joys of theatre as a child”

And it is not just the new bands who can accept that phones have become a staple of the experience. Billy Bragg chooses to expect that when the youths in his audience pull out their phones; they are not just doomscrolling, but exploring the issues that he raises in his music. His cover of Leon Rosselson’s ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ pushed me to research the Diggers, and eventually resulted in an English Tripos Paper 5 essay on the topic. Phones at gigs therefore can (sometimes) have educational purposes.

There are then artists on the other end of the scale, however. When James insisted upon a blanket ban on phones during their orchestral tour in 2022, I was at first sceptical. What about my photos? What about my videos? Never mind the fact that I will have to be offline for a good two hours. But by the end of the gig, I had remembered the joys of theatre as a child. The magic of a play is the shared, uninterrupted experience between all the members of the audience and the cast. I never realised that I could have the same spellbinding experience at a gig as at a show.

For many of the older Britpop and indie era bands, phones have become an omnipresent enemy. Martin Rossitter (Gene) is not the first lead singer that I have seen turn on the audience for their use of phones at a gig. When I saw Travis in Newcastle, Fran Healey turned on one very young audience member for using her phone, before recanting and feeling rather guilty. I fully sympathise with the musicians who find it rude when audience members begin scrolling through their messages, but, at least for me, the taking of photographs and videos is actually worse than anything else. Even informal, social bans on phones are hypocritical if they do not forbid the camera app as well.

If we are honest, after all, who actually looks back at their photographs from gigs? Only once have I ever actually gone back to a photo I have taken at a gig, and that was for my Varsity review of Peter Hook and the Light. When someone else flashes their phone in front of your face – even if they are not directly in front of you – it immediately pulls you out of the moment and often has you experiencing the gig through their screen rather than with your own eyes. When Paul Heaton and his band begin singing ‘Caravan of Love’, it is meant to be a moment of perfect interpersonal harmony, not something to be packaged up in a snippet video and turned into a glory post on your socials.

“Live music is a transient experience. Like theatre, it is not meant to be repeatable or replayable”

Live music is a transient experience. Like theatre, it is not meant to be repeatable or replayable. It is vital that we live in the moment. I was lucky enough to see The Chase before they split up, The Shambolics before one of their lead singers was forced to leave, and Mani before he passed away at the end of last year. Other people have filmed these figures using far better cameras than the one on my phone. I am just grateful for my memories unadulterated by technology.

We have to accept that phones are essential to the experience now. The days of paper tickets are (alas) long since vanished, and for the simple matter of safety, we have to accept that phones will always be there. But there is no reason to be pulling your phone out (as one couple beside me once did) to check local housing prices when Shed Seven begin playing tracks off their absolute banger of a forgotten album, Instant Pleasures. If we could only resist the temptation for a couple of hours, we might remember the joy of the days before our phones ruled our lives: the connection and respect between the band and the audience, and the sheer beauty of the world around us.