Stars interrupt concerts. After the pandemic, people hit them with cellphones and chicken nuggets

Last week, the twenty-nine-year-old American country star Kelsea Ballerini at a concert in the state of Idaho hit a bracelet thrown by someone in the audience. The singer stopped, put down her guitar and left for a moment before returning to address the audience. “Someone threw a bracelet at me and hit me in the eye. I’m fine, it scared me more than it really hurt,” she later wrote on Instagram, explaining that she needed to calm down backstage.

On the same day, American rapper Sexyy Red she interrupted performance when people did not stop throwing plastic bottles on stage even after repeated calls. For the same reason, he canceled his show at the Miami festival early last year finished rapper Kid Cudi when he was hit by a bottle.

Last month, singer Ava Max was approached by a fan in the middle of a dance choreography in Los Angeles. vlepil he slapped her and ran away. “He gave me such a blow that I felt it on the inside of my eye,” she wrote artist on Twitter. The British singer Harry Styles then repeatedly became a target. Once he fans they intervened in the eye with a Skittles candy, recently on stage they threw chicken nuggets. When he interrupted the performance, the audience still shouted at him to eat the nuggets. The singer apologized for not eating meat.

“Concerts are supposed to be a safe place where music brings people together. Not that artists start to worry if a nugget hits them,” says researcher Morgan Milard from the Institute for Popular Music at Berklee College of Music. He reminds that some organizers are already banning crowdsurfingwhen a musician or a listener jumps into the crowd and people send him on their hands above their heads, or the so-called mosh pity, when dancing fans bump into each other wildly in a circle. “Perhaps throwing objects on the stage will be added to the bans. Everyone who comes to a concert bears part of the responsibility for making the people around them feel safe,” the scientist thinks.

People often throw their mobile phones on the stage in the hope that the performer will pick them up and shoot a video on it, for which the owner will get likes on social networks and become a star himself. The trend started to spread after this to several fans they met young stars like Olivia Rodrigo.

Last month, on the other hand, a 27-year-old American was arrested after hitting a singer performing under the pseudonym Bebe Rexha with his mobile phone in New York. That later she shared video with a visible bruise and three stitches across her eyebrow where the machine hit her. Striker according to music magazine Rolling Stone he admitted to the police that he thought it was “funny to try and see if I could hit her”. He tried to defend his actions by saying that this is a trend on the social network TikTok.

At the end of June in London’s Hyde Park for a change, someone threw a plastic bag of powder onto the stage and shouted that it was his mother’s ashes. Pink was stunned. “What is it, your mother’s ashes? I don’t know what to think of this.” she responded. She immediately put the bag down and continued singing.

Pop culture expert David Schmid from the University of Buffalo in the US reminds us of the etymology of the word fan, which has its roots in the designation of a fanatic, i.e. a blindly or passionately committed religious zealot. “Similarly, many fans today consider music celebrities to be demigods. In this regard, we can perceive the stage as an imaginary altar on which the audience places objects intended for adoration,” compares the expert.

Rolling Stone magazine offers more prosaic explanation. According to him, people have forgotten how to behave at concerts during the pandemic. At the same time, a new generation of listeners is coming of age who, precisely because of the hygiene measures against the spread of the coronavirus, had no place to acquire habits, and instead spent time on networks such as TikTok. There, among other things, challenges related to border crossing or dangerous acts spread.

To a similar conclusion in an article by the British BBC is running out Lucy Bennett from Cardiff University, who researches the relationship between performers and fans. “Something is changing. We are witnessing more individual incidents when visitors physically disrupt the course of the concert. It may be related to the pandemic, when people could not be physically present at the performances,” admits the teacher.

According to her, however, listeners are also trying to attract their favorite performers, which is increasingly difficult in the age of social networks. “If you’re in the same place with them and you throw something at them, you force their attention,” he says.

In the past, fans of stars like the singer Pink used to gather in fan clubs. Today, thanks to the Internet, it’s easier for them, the most famous performers from Taylor Swift to Beyoncé maintain large communities of supporters around them who follow their every move.

It is social networks, where musicians communicate with people directly and not necessarily through the media as before, but create a situation where listeners can start to think that they are really friends with them thanks to their daily contact with the stars. And that contributes to the blurring of boundaries, points out expert Laurel Williams, who teaches behavioral sciences at Texas’ Baylor College of Medicine.

Failure to observe the boundaries between performer and listener has already led to tragic events. In 1971, a fan in a London theater jumped on stage and dropped singer Frank Zappa. He lost consciousness during the fall, almost broke his neck and temporarily ended up in a wheelchair. The fan argued in court that he became jealous when his girlfriend said she loved Zappa.

One of the saddest chapters in pop music remains the murder of English musician John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, who was murdered in 1980 shot dead fan in front of his residence in downtown New York.

In the early days of punk, the audience spat on the performers, for example at the Sex Pistols’ last concert in 1978, people pelted the musicians with “ice cubes, cups, shoes, coins, pins and maybe stones”. described journalist Greil Marcus.

In 2004, singer David Bowie in Norway trefoil lollipop right in the eye. And the objects flew in the opposite direction as well. Last year, singer Axl Rose announced he would stop throwing microphones at Guns N’ Roses concertgoers after decades after a female audience member left with bruises under her eyes.

But now the situation is starting to escalate. Pop star Miley Cyrus in the last issue of Vogue magazine she recognized, that he no longer wants to perform in stadiums or large halls. “I don’t feel connected to people. And I don’t feel safe doing that,” she said.

Rapper Tyler the Creator also objected to the practice. “Stop throwing your stuff on stage, I don’t care about it” he wrote on Twitter.

Some fan communities are trying to calm themselves down, like Taylor Swift fans on Reddit they establish own rules of conduct. “Please don’t throw anything on stage. Not bras, not toys, not gifts or flowers, just nothing,” they appeal, among other things.

According to the AP agency, however, the current wave may well result in musicians enforcing stricter security measures in their contracts with organizers. I challenge the readers already imprinted Rolling Stone magazine. “It’s strange that we even have to write this, but please be nice and don’t throw anything at the artists. We don’t want concerts to become the same hell as security checks at airports,” warns the magazine.

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