Wednesday 10 June 2009

Classical Mistake.

I made a terrible error yesterday. They say that you should do something every day that scares you and this did scare me. It also bored the arse of me. Yesterday I agreed to go to the Royal Festival Hall to watch a piano recital. Christ Almighty.

I loathe classical music, it does NOTHING for me. I have tried and tried to get into it since I was a child but I have failed every time. In my early 20's I even joined a classical CD club which meant that every month I got a new CD that I would never listen to. It was pointless. The main reason I don't like classical music is the same reason that I don't like football; it's the people who love it put me off it. Why the fuck would you go to a concert and sit in miserable silence while "enjoying" music? I'm a bit more celebratory when it comes to music and classical music fans seem to think of their gigs as museum pieces. They sit there with their dripping-candle faces pretending that that they don't wish they were somewhere else while listening to the silence between movements. Everyone looks so serious and miserable because the musician has demanded no smiling during his 7 hour performance. Some punters even close their eyes while the music is being played and I can only assume that means they are asleep because surely closing your eyes to listen to music at a gig makes you even more of a cunt that the other silent dead in the room.

It was shit from the moment I arrived. I love the Royal Festival Hall. I've seen some great gigs here; Robyn Hitchcock, Brian Wilson. It's a beautiful venue but they act differently when classical music is being performed there. Apparently I wasn't allowed to bring a drink into the venue. I HAD TO WATCH THIS SHIT WITHOUT BOOZE. That makes no sense. I saw Gang of Four at this venue and you were allowed booze but you can't have a glass of wine while slipping into a coma during Andre Preview? Fuck off.

Then, after I'd sat down, the rules were shouted at us. No photography, no leaving the auditorium until the end of the performance, no mobile phones, no Irish, no Blacks, no dogs. Now, some of that was fair enough but then came this ridiculous rule: "The artist will perform both movements in succession and has requested that the audience keep all applause until then end of the third Cornetto". FUCK OFF. The reason I hate classical music is that I consider it to be like listening to maths, there is no emotion there to me but fans of this type of music have always told me that it's all about emotion. THEN SHOW THE FUCKING EMOTION. Cry during the piece, smile during the piece, cheer during the piece, drink during the piece, hug the person next to you during the piece, APPLAUD DURING THE PIECE. Don't just sit there silently praying for it to end.

Plus the music itself was just shit. That cunt could play the piano, I could see that, but did he know a full song? I don't think so. It just seemed to be little tiny bits of a million songs some of which he so obviously forgot because he kept going all quiet. Prick. No wonder people drifted off. The only thing that was keeping me from going postal was the architecture of the building. Where I was sitting, when I looked up the private boxes of the Royal Festival Hall looked like a bunch of nosey robots looking over a fence. That made me smile. I was obviously asked to leave.

I went home and listened to My Perfect Cousin by The Undertones. THAT is music.

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Nosey Robots Looking Over A Fence, Yesterday.

1 comment:

SapnaB said...

Brilliant: I too hate Jazz for the same self-aggrandizing, self-important, usually-ugly-and-beardy 'serious' 'fans' who insist on turning up at the venue and ruining what could have been a perfectly good, sociable evening for the rest of us.

I remember back in the days when you could smoke indoors, going to the Jazz Cafe (under duress) and all I did (between tunes!) was gently whisper to the next table "s'cuse me, could you pass me the ashtray, please?" only to be drowned out violently by no less than THREE 'fans' who whipped round to the source of the noise (me) and SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH'd me at a level of noise far greater than I had created in the first place. Big fat hairy old ARSE-CUNTS.