Please Stop Reading Setlist.fm in the Middle of Gigs

This article is a rant about selist.fm. But before I start ranting I should make one thing clear: I bliming love setlist.fm. I can happily spend hours skimming through it to see what what favourite artists were performing at long forgotten shows from decades ago. But it’s the quirky facts that you can uncover from its detailed collection of setlists that really appeal to the side of me that adores all things stats and trivia based.

I love being able to check that when I witnessed Suede play Stay Together in Leeds last year it was the only time they’ve performed it in their previous one hundred and forty concerts. I like being able to find out that the last time the Manic Street Preachers didn’t play You Stole the Sun from me Heart at a full length concert I was there. And there was a ridiculous thrill sitting on the walls of Lucca, listening to Blur sound checking Clover Over Dover ahead of their show later in the evening, knowing that they’d never performed it live as a full band before. Just a shame they saved it’s concert debut for their next show three days later.

So what’s the problem then? Unfortunately there seems to be a growing trend at gigs of people checking setlist.fm whilst at the show. And by that I don’t mean reading it to kill time between acts, but looking at it whilst a band is on stage, presumably to check what song will be coming next. Mobile phone use at concerts is an on going sore point for me – do people really have to whatsapp all your friends mid show with their latest photos? But there’s something completely contrary to the ethos of letting yourself go and enjoying the moment if your focus is on what is coming up in two minutes time rather than appreciating the current song being performed.

Asides from that, I’m sure I’m not the only person who finds it hugely distracting when people near me are using their phones during a show and I’ve got a terrible habit of my eyes being drawn to screens and reading what is displayed on them. I won’t pretend that I haven’t used setlist.fm to evaluate whether a band is likely to be playing the bits of their back catalogue that I enjoy (call me a fair weather fan if you like, but some artist’s big hits are of different class to their deeper cuts), but generally I try my best to go to gigs trying to be as spoiler free as possible – which depending on the act can be significantly challenging. So it’s always frustrating when I accidentally catch a glimpse of what the big rarity in the set is thanks to someone else being unable to hold on to see what is coming up next.

In summary, please try to live in the moment and enjoy the act you’re seeing – the start of your favourite song or the big surprise in the setlist is going to be even more enjoyable if you don’t know it’s coming! And as always, respect the band by keeping your phone away (let’s keep the taking photos at gigs debate until another day) and try not to to spoil things for your fellow concert goers!

Has there been any awful gig behaviour you’d like to see highlighted in a blog post? Stick it in the comments section below.