Off Beat Clapping at Concerts
CousinLarry
4,618 Posts
This shit is an epidemic. If you can't clap on beat just stop. Half of Bill Withers Live record is ruined by mutherfuckers clapping off beat. I have been to so many concerts where people cannot stay on beat even with a drummer to follow. It drives me crazy.
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Hey, Kyle from Campus Pub! I didn't pay to listen to you ruin my favourite songs.
Yes, I saw Allison Krauss last night. Not the kind of show I usually go to, but my mother in law got us tickets and wanted us to go with her and a good family friend. Their more blue grass style stuff was really good, but people kept trying to clap along and it sounded like rain on a tin roof.
Does Jerry Douglass still play in her band? He is pretty damn good.
Yes he was there and he killed it on the dobro. They gave him a 15 minute solo set that was the highlight of the show.
Thatr don't bother me as much, specially since they're usually drowned out by the onstage artist singing through a PA. But the offbeat clapping is a botheration.
Oddest place to find people clapping off-time: that Youtube clip of (of all people) Tai Zonday on Jimmy Kimmel's show. Okay, the beat ain't that pronounced in the song, thus making it a bit of a struggle to find, but even so, why bother to clap in the first place?
i like that adam sandler skit where hes singin the hanukkah song, and he's like, stop clapping, your fuckin me up.
I was going to say this but I feared it would become a race thread.
No such luck at smaller shows and the like - especially if (usually) dude is right next to or behind you.
Singing crowds can make a show really fun and exciting - when they know the words, when it's all in unison and they step up when they're given the mic - but it takes one drunk loudmouth rockstar wannabe to ruin an otherwise good show.
They DO have rhythm - it's just that any kind of syncopation, backbeat, groove or swing confuses them.
White people clapping is like some free jazz shit.
I was once at a club and off in this sideroom, four middle-aged white dudes were having a hoedown of sorts, attempting to clap along to the house music from the other room. One dude would clap at the exact time the other dude wasn't clapping while two other dudes clapped a split second after that. It created the most bizarre time signature that buggles my mind to this day.
I was thinking the same thing at the last few shows I've been to, that shit has GOT TO STOP! I don't understand how the drummers can even stay on beat with that noise going on. I remember when the crowd was leaning behind the beat I tried to bring them back by clapping on time extra loud, didn't work, there's no saving the mob.
I'm willing to stop clapping at concerts if all white people (sorry) follow suit.
I think most of the violators try and clap to the bassline, or the kick drum or some shit.
hahaha
i always imagined that in situations with a bigger crowd, like the bill withers live, that some of the offbeatedness could be attributed to sound travel speeds
keeping this in mind makes it easier to listen to. cause you know soul recognize soul, but i do not want to hear 2's and 4's manifested from arrhythmic mind gardens
no
you know. this would be perfectly fine with me if dudes did it on their own accord. if someone's moving and having a real good time, i'm not mad at what some might perceive as superfluous claps. it's only when you look over at him and you realize he's somehow making eye contact with you along with everybody else in the room that it becomes uncomfortable. and he's trying his best to relay to you the fact he's having a great time, but can only manage a half smile because his ass is too tired from banging his hands together.
That's called polyrhythmics my friend
that sounds like he wants your cockles.
I've heard of such a thing, but not this night. This was more along the lines of: two Fela records playing at the time time, with the fader right in the middle.
FREEBIRD!
That sounds good.
Oh, and she was blonde too.
i dunno man. how do we know it's not you scatterclapping? your dude is probably posting right now in an alternate interverse in that thread "childhood buddies who can't clap correct".
although, i'm sure he's cutting you a little slack on account of those 10 other people with no rhythm influencing your offbeatedness.
some of you sound real
Ha ha. I'm sure it's not just white people, but what is the deal with people clapping on the 1. I think there are a lot of older white people to blame for this. Maybe there is a time to clap on the 1 and 3, but in my head it seems like the proper thing to do is mimic the snare with your clap (since it's a similar sound). Clapping on the 1,2,3,and 4 could be ok, but that's usually not the case.
They get rolling on the 1 and 3 and then the people around them start getting confused and eventually it jumbles into the tin roof scenario and will finally turn into full blown applause as an attempt to cover the lack of rhythm.
Reminds me of this story in Mezz Mezzrow's book Really The Blues, where his jazz band somehow gets booked to play at a country hoedown, and although they go over suprisingly well, the band's sense of swing clashes with the "geometry" (Mezzrow's word) of the local yokels' square-dance style.
[color:blue]Ha ha. I'm sure it's not just white people, but what is the deal with people clapping on the 1.[/color]
Haven't listened to it in a minute, but if I'm not mistaken, isn't the 99% black audience on the Wattstax album clapping off-time to one (or more) of the Staple Singers' songs? Or is it that delayed stadium echo messing with people's heads?