"It's a fucking concert!"

My understanding of concerts has always been this: the performer does his thing, and the crowd goes wild. it's a pretty simple dynamic, and something that I am really, really fond of. It's one of the few instances in life where it is absolutely encouraged that you stand on chairs and scream your hearts out.

As everyone of my Twitter followers found out last night, I was at the Kris Allen concert. While it started out a little low-key with Boyce Avenue, the crowd was getting pretty pumped by the time the Jabbawockeez performed, and it would have been a cakewalk to get them into a frenzy once Kris Allen went out.

But all throughout the concert, if anybody so much as stood up ON THE GROUND, security personnel would walk up and ask us to sit down because the people at the back couldn't see. There were also people from behind shouting "Sit down, we can't see!" It got so annoying that I would routinely shout back "Stand on the chairs then, it's a fucking concert!" We got asked to sit down so many times I just gave up and tweeted for most of the show.

I haven't been to a lot of concerts, but all of the ones I've been to had security AND audiences who were absolutely cool with you standing up to show your appreciation. You happen be blocking their view? Fine, they'll stand on the chairs. Even THE CLICK FUCKING FIVE audience understood this dynamic.

And to top it all off I ended up being one of those people at every concert who end up misplacing some of their stuff and never finding them again. Perhaps I was being too obnoxious when I told them to stand on the chairs? But you see, I never thought I'd have to reason to ever say those words AT A FUCKING CONCERT.

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From left, Ruhal Ahmed, Brandon Neely, Shafiq Rasul

Guantanamo guard and inmate become Facebook friends.I know, this story is a month old. But isn't it amazing? These two probably got along better than I did with those concertgoers.

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A Contract for the Gay Guy/Straight Guy Friendship.

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Lesbian Albatrosses Raising Chick Together.

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They're going to be teaching drag at Brazil's first gay school.

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Finally, I know there are some Ben Whishaw and/or Brideshead Revisited fans on my flist, so perhaps you may be interested in this article from Out. Brian Moylan from Gawker indirectly came out in that article, specifically because of this exchange:

While he might reject labels -- his character in Cock declares that the labels gay and straight are “words from the ’60s made by our parents…only invented to get rights” -- the coincidence of appearing in consecutive plays (Cock and The Pride) that explore sexuality might suggest a subconscious desire to discuss his own identity. Are the plays a way to make a statement without making a statement?

“Maybe it’s subconscious, I don’t know,” he says. “It’s intriguing to me that these parts come along. Of course the choices you make express something about you to the world, and of course the work I do is all about me, but rather than me standing up and making statements about myself and things, I’d prefer to let the work do the speaking.”

This part of the article is also interesting;

Whether this is a disingenuous fudge or a heartfelt response from a man who, at 29, still seems something of a boy, Whishaw is not oblivious to the complex and painful issues that the question raises. Asked if he thinks it’s important for young gay people to have positive role models, his ambivalence vanishes. “I really agree with that, and I feel in my heart that it’s important, but I don’t quite know yet the way to go about that. Maybe that’s the transitional thing I feel I’m in the middle of at the moment. It’s something I think about, but it’s important for me to do it at the time that’s right for me. And I’m not there yet.”

What do you guys think? Gay or Nay?