As Apple reveals plans to stop iPhones recording acts, we ask if they should be banned COMPLETELY from gigs
See what our two writers have to say on the debate that could leave some music fans' ears ringing
CAPTURING your favourite stars in action at gigs could become a thing of the past.
As we reported yesterday, Apple is developing a system venues can use to stop iPhones recording videos and photos of shows.
Fans are getting angry watching from behind a sea of mobiles and some performers have complained at being filmed.
Here, a Sun showbiz writer and a Sun on Sunday columnist give their views on the issue.
YES says ALLY FARRELL
DURING her Verona gig in May, Adele stopped what she was doing and singled out a female fan standing behind a tripod and video camera in the 15,000-capacity arena.
The singer pleaded with her to stop filming the show and said: “I’m really here in real life.”
How do I know this? Because Adele’s rant was captured in full by a different fan in the crowd, who was armed with a camera at the other side of the venue and then uploaded it online.
Gigs these days are nothing more than a sea of smartphones, lightbulb flashes and selfie sticks.
Apple’s decision to develop new technology to switch theirs off should be commended.
And if I had my way, phones would be banned at gigs entirely.
At a Rihanna concert, my view was obscured by someone holding an Apple MacBook in the air.
During Beyonce’s first tour night in Sunderland on Tuesday I was forced to watch an entire song through the iPhone of the person in front of me.
What does that person do with the footage when they get home? It’s grainy, shaky and the sound quality is awful.
If people appreciate their favourite artists enough to fork out £80 to see them live, surely they have enough grace to follow their wishes and put the phones away
I’d hazard a guess 80 per cent of fans who stand filming shows don’t watch any of it again.
Adele isn’t alone in her crusade against taking videos at gigs.
Countless stars have told me how much they resent fans standing filming their shows rather than actually watching them.
Not only does it kill their momentum but they find it disrespectful, too.
If people appreciate their favourite artists enough to fork out £80 to see them live, surely they have enough grace to follow their wishes and put the phones away.
A simple picture or two I can understand. You want to show off to your mates or save a nice memory — but recording an entire set is completely nonsensical.
It defeats the point of attending a live gig.
It is the only place you get to develop an intimate relationship with a pop star first-hand. And it must hurt your arms.
Go on, try it. Leave your phone at home and leave your video camera in the Nineties.
The last thing you want is to be humiliated by Adele.
NO says TONY PARSONS, age 62
FOR those of us who came of age in the golden years of sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, it will be a source of amusement that mobile phones and selfie sticks are being banned from the gigs of today.
Whatever happened to anarchy in the UK? Whatever happened to the man can’t bust our music?
Whatever happened to the spirit of youthful rebellion that this music was built on?
When I heard that the Eagles — amazingly mostly still alive — were asking fans to switch their phones off, and that the Soundwave festival in Australia was banning selfie sticks, I recalled the gigs of my own youth.
The entire Hammersmith Odeon sparking up a joint as Van Morrison came on stage. Iggy Pop swinging from the lights in a jazz club in Copenhagen.
The invention of the mosh pit when The Jam played the Hope & Anchor in London.
Good times — and yet in truth gigs were never quite as wild and free as they wanted to be.
I remember heavy-handed bouncers getting physical with over-excited music lovers from Philadelphia to Newcastle.
I recall getting grabbed by the scruff of the neck for trying to capture a Kodak moment while Prince was on stage.
As soon as you left the subterranean dives where most bands start for the concert halls where they all want to be, the grown-ups want you to behave. That was as true in 1977 as it is today.
What is different, of course, is that the youth of the past, all those long-gone hippies, mods, punks, new romantics, goths, Britpoppers and acid heads, did not have the technology of today.
When I was at the great gigs of my youth — Bowie, Prince, Springsteen, the Sex Pistols, The Clash — there were probably only a handful of cameras in the hall.
Now everybody has a camera crew in their pocket.
But have a heart! Most people are not trying to bootleg the music or capture the image rights of the bloke on stage or — heaven forbid — put the Eagles off their stroke just as they strum the opening chords of Hotel California.
They just want to savour the moment.