I like how you break down Cornell’s audiences. Soundgarden gigs back in the 90′s usually had a lot of younger girls (teenyboppers? is that the right word? and college frat boys attended the shows when they hit big on MTV. The crowd wasn’t as diverse but they were just as rude and ignorant. The Vic Theater Soundgarden show in Chicago this year also had a lot of ignorant young people that were more interested in texting on their cellphones and making out than actually listening to the music.

You have every right to be annoyed, like you said, if you want to not have an obstructed view do the leg work and get to the venue early or get on a riser or another elevated spot. I am 6′ but like to take lots of pictures so a clear view is always on my mind, so I arrive early get somewhere close or up on a riser or balcony and hunker down. I would NEVER ask someone taller than me to move, what right do I have, it just isn’t cool, in these all standing venues its just how it works. Anyone that would bagger you into moving has an Ego bigger than thier tiny brain and obviously have some abstract view of what “they deserve” vs. what they really need.

I go to concerts more often than I go to class. Yet at that show I was made to feel like I was a newbie punk intruding on an older crowds “big night out at the rock show” simply because of my age and normal concert-going activities, such as checking out the sound from the bar, the wings, the crowd at the front of the stage, the lobby, etc.

I say because of my age, because, I saw people shifting and groaning. People giving each other angry stare downs and all the like. The ONLY people who were actually verbally badgered and called out for doing what everyone else was doing was my boyfriend and I, who looked at least 8 years younger than the rest of the couples we were surrounded by. Coincidence?

In ALL of my years of concert experiences, I’ve honestly never felt such a wave of condescending and negative tones from that many people over something so minute as my tall date and I mingling through the crowd.

Is he tall? Yes. Unfortunately, it’s no more his fault that he’s tall than it’s my fault that I am 5”1. He has the same ticket that everyone in the venue has for a GA show. We weren’t throwing punches to get where we were standing, so as far as I’m concerned, it was our right to stand there and watch the show there all night if we had so chosen. We were nice enough to quell everyone’s, frankly, whining and groaning, by leaving the floor and watching the show from a different part of the venue less than 5 minutes after the show started.

If I want to guarantee that a taller person wont get in front of me at any given concert, I go to the front at an early hour and stay there. I know this because I go to shows, I’m realistic about going to shows, and I don’t expect people to give me my way if I throw a fit loudly and with an attitude if I’m at a show.

I seriously could’ve written this entire review on how completely abrasive and annoying the crowd at that show was. So thank you for giving me a platform to address that concern, seeing as how I’d been ready to let it go. That is, until the implication was made that I’d unjustly labeled the majority of the crowd that I encountered.

If it smells like a dog, and barks like a dog…

Although, my boyfriend and I did agree that one man was actually pretty cool when addressing us in place of his mouth-piece girlfriend. Hopefully that guy was your boyfriend, maybe you’ll feel a little less insulted.