On Friday we went to see the original line up of Culture Club who are currently on their US tour and were visiting The Electric Factory in Philadelphia. The venue was new to us and we were very pleased with the fact that it was general admission standing only, just like my old student days back in London in the 1980s. With beer in hand we were fairly near the front and the gig was excellent. Boy George interacted really well with the audience and it really felt like an intimate “club gig”.

One thing that really pissed me off though was the huge overuse of cellphones during the gig. Not only did they cast a lot of light back to the audience but some idiots even used their flashed (totally pointless) not only for photos but also when video recording. Quite why anyone would go to a gig, especially one where you are so close to the stage, and then watch the whole show through their 5” phone screen is totally beyond my understanding. I am beginning to think that modern audiences are getting even more mindless. They may as well have stayed at home. Just to my left there were 5 or 6 of these clowns, as you can see. I am pretty sure that a couple of them filmed every song that was song and so therefore didn’t look directly at the stage even once during the performance.

I guess we’re slowly sinking into the abyss of not even wanting to experience reality when we can. How ironic it is that theses guys are missing the whole point of a “live” gig while concentrating on streaming it to Facebook.

~Richard