Michael Christopher’s Rock Music Menu

There’s little denying that a distinct absence of concert etiquette has skyrocketed in recent years.

From incessant talking during a performance to a total lack of spatial awareness, both in general admission and seated settings, it’s made the live environment untenable at some shows.

Then, of course, there is the fact that everyone in the audience has a camera in their pocket, and all too often doesn’t know how to use it with even the slightest sense of decorum.

Many blame the pandemic, as teens and tweens who spent a good deal of their formative years in isolation weren’t provided social cues by the so-called adults in the room for their first time at shows.

The only thing they knew from the concert experience was that you had to record video and post it to socialmedia.

TikTok, Instagram, and the like are filled with snippets of live shows with quality ranging from average to unwatchable.

But the message is clear: if you go to a show, you have to let the world know.

When these COVID kids actually got into the venue to see an act, it became a sense of entitleddesperation to get a great picture or video capture to prove a good time was being had, often at the costof the experience of others in attendance.

Take any concert — singer/songwriter to the heaviest of metal — and you’ll see the worst of the worst in action.

Perhaps you’ve found a great view of the artist, enjoying the setlist immensely, only to find that someonehas suddenly planted themselves directly in front of you.

Maybe it’s a person who’s suddenly been struck with the impetus to interpretive dance to a song, arms flailing, disregarding that they’re bumping into everyone around them.

Or it’s the chatter next to you, a low muffle quickly rising in volume with the music, as if the band dared to play over their conversation.

The smartphone remains the most obscene offender, though.

Whether it’s the fan trying to increase their followers by livestreaming the gig with their phone held high, or the concertgoer who doesn’t know, or care, that their blinding flash is on, disrupting others, including the artist onstage.

“Please put it away. You’re good. You’ve got enough. Now be present,” The Cult frontman Ian Astburytold me last year. “Because you’re messing with the flow. You’re messing with the frequency. We can’tconnect. You’re breaking the spell. That’s a personal choice.”

To be clear, we’re not talking about people who are taking a quick snap or recording a minute or two oftheir favorite songs.

“I’ve been at a show and just whipped out — if I saw something real quick — I’m like, bang. Hit it, done. Back in my pocket,” Astbury said. “I love the fact that Tobias [Forge] and Ghost, they just got everyone to put their phones [away]. No phones in the building.”

The singer is referring to one way of dealing with phones that has worked to great success: Lock them up.

Rock Music Menu attended two concerts by the theatrical hard rock outfit Ghost over the past year,including a couple of weeks ago at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.

Led by Forge, who wears a mask and face paint as the character Papa V Perpetua while performing, the band requires every ticketholder put their phone into a locking neoprene pouch, which they keep on their person, and have it removed on the way out of the venue.

If, for whatever reason, someone needs to access their phone — let’s say they need to check on the sitter,the score of the game, etc. — there are stations set up throughout the arena to have the pouch temporarilyunlocked.

“Obviously, the part of our crowd that are older and more aware, maybe this becomes a little bit nostalgicthen,” Forge told Planet Rock last year of the phone ban. “But I really believe that the younger portion ofour crowd will, as they did in LA, come out saying, like, ‘That was not only a great concert; that was alsoan overwhelming experience.’ ”

As someone whose early show-going days were in the pre-smartphone era, it was wild seeing not one bitof rectangular light for two hours during the performance again.

And Forge is correct that it was nostalgic to a degree. It was inarguably a better time. No one texting, recording, or using their flash. It was darkness save for the light show provided by the band. Everyone’s focus was on the performance.

Ghost isn’t alone. Jack White, Haim, and Alicia Keys have all instituted phone-free concerts in recentyears.

The lines are a bit longer to get in, but the payoff is worth it. Whether it’s cost-effective for the artist is another issue.

Typically, it averages out to $2-$5 per ticket for usage of the pouches, which cost around $30 each to own.

Sadly, it’s come to this, and it would be better if a balance could be struck.

For instance, when the media photographs a concert, it’s industry standard to be for the first three songs with no flash, either from the photo pit directly in front of the stage or at the soundboard.

Swedish punk rockers The Hives gently remind the audience of this fact and encourage them to follow suit.

And if they don’t?

Frontman Pelle Almqvist, who routinely wanders into the crowd during the show, often takes phones outof fans’ hands and puts them on the drum riser until after the show.

Remember that if you’re at The Fillmore a month from Monday when The Hives come to town.

Vinyl of the week

Keep an eye on this spot as each week we’ll be looking at new or soon-to-be-released vinyl from a varietyof artists. It might be a repressing of a landmark recording, special edition, or new collection from alegendary act. This week, it’s the 50 th anniversary of a classic from David Bowie’s mid-’70s period.

• David Bowie: “Station to Station [50th Anniversary]”

This year marks five decades since David Bowie’s 10th studio album, “Station to Station,” and, on theexact day of its Golden Jubilee, Jan. 23, it was issued as a limited edition 50th anniversary half-speedmastered LP.

Coming on the heels of Bowie’s foray into Philly soul on “Young Americans,” the new album’s recordingsaw the singer relocate to Cherokee Studio in Los Angeles and incorporate the foundations of that period,along with much more experimental elements.

The sound of “Station to Station” was partly influenced by Bowie’s growing interest in the electronic music and driving rhythms of bands coming out of Germany, such as NEU! and Kraftwerk, most notably on the 10-minute title track, while still embracing dancefloor-friendly grooves in songs such as “Stay” and “Golden Years.”

Harry Maslin, who had worked with Bowie on “Young Americans,” served as Bowie’s co-producer.

They entered the studio in September 1975 with a tight stripped-down band featuring Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick on guitars, George Murray on bass, Dennis Davis on drums, Bowie’s childhood friend GeoffeMacCormack going by the moniker “Warren Peace” on backing vocals, and on loan from BruceSpringsteen’s E Street Band, Roy Bittan on piano and organ.

Maslin has since said that the vocals on the standout tracks “Wild Is the Wind” and “Golden Years” were both Bowie’s first takes.

“Golden Years” came out in November 1975 as the lead single and would give Bowie a Top 10 hit onboth sides of the Atlantic, while the follow-up, “TVC 15,” would be heard and seen by almost 2 billionpeople when Bowie chose it to open his set at Live Aid a decade later.

Less than a week and a half after the album’s release, Bowie started the Isolar Tour, which visited 11countries with 65 dates and is widely regarded as being influential for its use of banks of fluorescent whitelight set against black backdrops.

At the end of the tour, Bowie started work on Iggy Pop’s debut solo album, “The Idiot,” when the pair and producer Tony Visconti moved to Berlin to mix the record. Bowie settled there, ready to begin his next groundbreaking musical adventure.

The new pressing of “Station to Station” was cut on a customized late Neumann VMS80 lathe with fullyrecapped electronics from 192kHz restored masters of the original Record Plant master tapes, with noadditional processing on transfer.

The half-speed was cut by John Webber at AIR Studios. In addition to the half-speed master, it’s available as a picture disc LP pressed from the same master with a reproduction of a poster used to advertise the album 50 years ago.

The 50th anniversary of “Station to Station” can be found online and from all respectable retailers whocarry vinyl.

To contact music columnist Michael Christopher, send an email to rockmusicmenu@gmail.com. Also, check out his website at thechroniclesofmc.com.