Unfortunately for us, we were also immersed in the 'crowd' meaning that we were forced to endure the unpleasant habits of those who share our taste in music. The first was a guy who was standing behind me, so closely behind me in fact that I could feel his breath on the back of my neck (which, due to the methods of my childhood optician gives me the creeps anyway) and almost every part of my body was being touched by his. As if that wasn't creepy enough, he then interrupted a conversation that the Boy Wonder and I were having to begin an annoying chat with the Boy Wonder about his previous experience of seeing Tony Joe White.
He actually apologised before interrupting, which demonstrated some understanding of the social convention of accosting a stranger, but when the Boy Wonder said that he wasn't surprised that he was a little late he started grilling him on every time he had been to see him and how late he was each time. The Boy Wonder gracefully extricated himself from the situation, but I was still left with this guy leaning on me, until after the second or third song the Leaning Man managed to hit me round the head whilst clapping and I asked him to move back.
He seemed strangely put out that I had asked him, despite the fact that it must have been obvious that I couldn't actually move properly with him basically standing where my shadow should have been. But, having removed one source of other people's hideousness, we were still subjected to downright horrific personalities of several hundred other people, from the 'I'm so crazy' guy behind us who couldn't shut up to the group of twats who found themselves completely incapable of just standing and enjoying a gig without constantly rearranging themselves.
Tony Joe White was awesome, but once again we were reminded that UK gigs seem to attract the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel in terms of other attendees. There are quite a few gigs coming up over the summer that I'm really looking forward to except for the fact that I suspect there will be other people at them, ruining them and making me cross, which in turn makes me feel like a fun-hating old crone which makes me even more cross. Is it really so much to ask that people get a drink, find a place to stand and then do so quietly and without moving too much for the whole gig? Or do we really have to go back to New Orleans to find a good crowd?
