I'm getting tired of hearing old musicians and industry bods complaining about people having phones out at gigs, like it isn't a massive privilege to have someone want to share the experience you're creating for them with their friends and family. For many people it's not detracting from 'the moment', but actually being able to almost instantly share that moment with people you care about enhances it. Plus it's the way the world works now, and no amount of hazy-eyed nostalgia is going to change that.
I saw an elderly lady filming me at Thoresby Hall tonight. It happens a lot. I'm not naive enough not to realise that there is a reason I may get filmed and photographed more than the average singer-guitarist, but it did make me wonder what she might do with that video. I'd be surprised if she was the Facebook, or even WhatsApp type, so maybe she's just intending to physically show it to someone at a later date. Or maybe, like many of us, she got swept up in the moment of a song, recorded it, then will either forget about it tomorrow or delete it if she stumbles across it by accident. Either way, it showed me that she enjoyed the performance, and the 'moment' it created, enough to want to capture it.
I wonder how many videos of me playing are just knocking about on people's phones, never to be seen or shared...
