There were concerts where you were actually in conversation with the band, thanks to stacked friends who towered above the crowd and who waved an answer.
Or a message from the artists reached you in the crowd, a drumstick, a bottle of water to cool off.
At the Southside Festival 2018, someone who pretended to be Jesus was allowed to shout along on the stage.
At a doctors concert years ago, rows of teenagers collapsed because they had pressed against the breakwater at thirty degrees (so close to the band) and danced ecstatically for hours.
What was not expected at any of these concerts: sprinkling.
Now they are back, the first major concerts.
They start from the premise that on the one hand artists perform and on the other fans listen, i.e. consume.
Since people are easier to control when they are seated, concerts with seats are now popular, a mutation of the great live act that artists infiltrated earlier by gently inviting them to clap their hands while standing.
And everyone who has ever stood behind a glass wall in the higher ranks knows: the band doesn't speak to the VIP lounge, but to the people in the stalls.
Hostile to communication
Concerts with beach chairs, the anti-communication seating from the north, are now also very popular. For visitors, it's a bit like being at home on the sofa. The curtains are drawn so far that nobody looks away, your feet up. You can hardly blame the concert goers for sitting there like in front of the television at home. Nevertheless, a little pity for the artists is allowed in memory of one's own amateurish attempts to establish a kind of connection to a distant handful of listeners on a stage (“like to step forward”).
The fact that pop stars and artists now stand out with stubborn behavior, that concerts have been canceled because the connection was and should not be, is not the audience's fault, it is the fault of the circumstances. There is no question that Nena behaves irresponsibly when she asks her audience to move closer together without a mask, not to mention the position she takes on the necessary pandemic rules. But a concert in which the fans are rooted within an area delimited by crates of drinks is not a pop concert. And someone like Helge Schneider, who broke off his concert himself because the distant restaurant atmosphere bothered him, cannot perform if it feels like being on the church pulpit up there.
Why those who have been tested and vaccinated should not be able to move freely again at an open-air concert like tourists on one of these days well-filled promenade like in St. Peter-Ording or in the football stadium, is a legitimate question. There will be no getting around the discussion about double standards in the coming weeks and months. In any case, night club operators nationwide have decided not to reopen until their visitors can behave as they used to. Because a DJ is only a solo entertainer without the dancers.