On the first night of the Chimes’s trip to New York City for the 2026 College Media Association Spring Convention, six Chimes reporters watched indie rock powerhouse Mitski sing to a crowd of limbs with smartphones welded to them.
That concert was the third night of Mitski’s six-night concert engagement at NYC visual arts center The Shed as she supported her eighth studio album “Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.”
The Shed is a shoebox for those who paid for general admission, so like most other concerts where you’re in the “standing room only” section, the crowd shifted at least 10 different times throughout the night; therefore, people’s view of the stage constantly changed.
And if the stage somehow came into someone’s view, there was a good chance that a phone would ruin that.
Mitski’s most famous songs have become popular mostly due to TikTok. According to a New York Times article, “Mitski’s music has provided a soundtrack for more than 2.5 million user-generated videos on the platform.” At a Mitski concert, this means that every time she plays one of her TikTok-famed songs, almost everyone’s phone goes up to record the entire song.
Ever since cell phones have had the ability to record video, people have been recording live performances – but the videos were usually brief. Recently, people have been recording entire concerts and uploading them to the internet.
The entirety of Nine Inch Nails’ return to Cleveland for their 2025 Peel It Back tour was recorded and uploaded to YouTube multiple times as well as multiple nights of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. Both of which are performances that lasted over three hours.
Stella Cherwinski, university alumna and Bexley Public Library public service associate is a frequent concertgoer. Cherwinski said her ideal venue is Newport Music Hall – a standing-room-only space.
“I record less than five videos,” she said. “I don’t record much … probably a minute or two [per song].”
Although Cherwinski records a few videos at the concerts she attends, she sometimes finds it distracting when other crowd members are recording an excessive amount of footage. “It’s kind of annoying when you’re trying to watch the concert through somebody else’s phone,” she said.
A video of Charli xcx performing “Sympathy is a knife” at the 2024 Open’er Festival in Poland captures this perfectly. The camera’s view is obscured by an array of phones, so the person who uploaded the video films the screen of someone else’s iPhone to get a good view of the performer.
Shannon O’Donnell, a senior English literature major at the university, said that she used to record a similar amount of footage at concerts to Cherwinski; instead of five one-minute videos, O’Donnell used to record around 10 30-second videos.
“I prefer to be in the moment and enjoy the music,” O’Donnell said. “I didn’t start going to concerts regularly until I was a senior in high school. I would record videos, but I never really watched them back … I also feel like I would do it so I’d have something to post [and] be like, ‘Oh, I’m at this concert.’”
Posting videos of a concert to prove you were there can ruin the benefits of seeing live music. “I go to concerts because I love live music,” Cherwinski said, “and I think it’s really fun to be in a space with people sharing that experience, singing along and seeing the performer in person.”
O’Donnell shared a similar thought: “I really like the sense of community that you have being in a group of people who will like the same thing,” she said. “If you’re on your phone the whole [concert], you’re not really cognizant of the people around you … You’re also kind of ruining the view of the people behind you.”
“I don’t really know why somebody would go to a concert to just record the whole thing — maybe because concerts are so expensive these days. They want to be able to remember it and look back on it,” Cherwinski said. “Or maybe because they’re not living in the moment as much, and [recording] is to … post it and be ‘online’ about it.”
“I think that as the internet has become so widespread that people live in the moment less,” Cherwinski continued. “It’s less about experiencing something and remembering it and more about taking a picture or taking a video and then posting it.”
Sometimes, taking videos can be the entire reason people are at a concert. O’Donnell recalled a concert she attended this past summer at a Pride event at KEMBA Live! where R&B singer Tinashe headlined the evening. “No one knew the music, and that was really weird,” she said. “I [felt] like I was the only one enjoying it because everyone else was just there to stand around, take videos, and drink [alcohol].”
According to O’Donnell, the only song by Tinashe that other people knew was “Nasty,” which was a hit song on TikTok in 2024 .
While some artists have strict regulations when it comes to taking video, most artists adhere to the venue’s rules about recording. These rules usually being “no flash photography and no cameras with detachable lenses.” In this case, everything comes down to concert etiquette and using your best judgement. If you don’t want to live in the moment, then don’t be obnoxious about your phone usage.
If you do want to live in the moment, then maybe forget about your phone for a little bit. It will be OK.
