My Nana had this funny habit when she travelled that we used to tease her about - she’d sometimes spend more time in the gift shop searching for the perfect post card than actually looking at the sights.
She wasn’t just searching for an experience, she wanted a perfect way to remember it. But at least she actually had the experience. The other night I watched a whole load of people, who’d spent a whole load of money for an experience, let it completely pass them by while they went in search of a low-resolution, tinny-sounding memory.
It was at the Spandau Ballet concert in Sydney, where laid out in front of me was a sea of well-dressed professionals so busy videoing on their Blackberries and iPhones they forgot to have any fun.
I don’t know if you’ve ever watched video of a rock concert shot on a mobile phone, but generally the vision consists of a small square of bright light in the middle of the screen, and if you’re lucky a couple of vaguely human-shaped forms make the odd appearance.
The sound is terrible, mostly dominated by the screaming and clapping of the people in the crowd closest to the person filming.
Now you can buy a good quality DVD of Spandau Ballet’s recent concert tour for about $25. What these people were doing was paying many hundreds of dollars for the chance to stand stock still and quiet amid a whole lot of other people who were actually enjoying themselves.
There was one couple in front of us who were both filming, on their matching Blackberries. And it wasn’t just a couple of songs. It was the whole show.
Maybe they were planning on splicing it into a his and hers version, or thought recording the same thing at the same time would render it in stereo.
It’s a very strange impulse. It’s like people need proof their lives are actually happening.
Talking about it yesterday with Colgo, he told me he’d seen Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan on the weekend, who’d singled out a guy in the audience who was filming the show on his phone.
Tiernan said the phone-obsessed audience member was the kind of guy who’d like to watch someone else shag his girlfriend instead of do it himself.
As well as humiliating this audience member, Tiernan probably did him a big favour by reminding him that dodgy phone video does not a memory make. Belly laughs and ringing ears and a sore throat from singing along are what make doing something worthwhile.
The only souvenir I took from the excellent Spandau Ballet concert (Tears for Fears were also still brilliant) was a pair of sore knees for 24 hours afterward, a product of two and a half hours of bad dancing and a bit of jumping up and down on the concrete floor of the Entertainment Centre.
Although I did use my phone once, to take the pic above, just in case you didn’t believe my tale!
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