Loudmouth: Gig etiquette is more complex that “drunk blokes” v decent people

July 3, 2026

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By STEVE MASCORD

SARAH McLeod, the singer in The Superjesus, has found herself in the news over these past 48 hours.

Last Friday at The Entrance Leagues Club in Bateau Bay on the NSW Central Coast, she stopped the show to break up a fight. So far, so straightforward. Good content for the likes of news.com.au.

But in discussing the affair on her Facebook page, McLeod quoted a fan, Instagram handle @ainslieroses, describing her night at that very show.

“I went to this gig solo (as I regularly do) and I had an AMAZING time,” Ainslie wrote.

“I travelled from Canberra and it brought me so much joy. I didn’t get to see this stuff as a teen and now I’m making up for lost time.

“Thank you so much for creating and performing and sharing. You make the world a better place.

“The ONLY downer of the night was some old guy shouting in my face because I gently asked him to move over. Not the first time I’ve had a drunk guy be a knob at a gig.

“And I doubt it will be the last.”

In her post, McLeod decried the behaviour of “drunk blokes” and offered, sage-like: “Think twice before you make moves that might stay with someone longer than it stays with you.”

At this point, I started to ponder the fact there might be some nuances to this issue, that go beyond decent people v “drunk blokes’.

Are gigs like this (what might be termed ‘heritage acts’ who have young fans) testing grounds for a generational divide? I’m 57 and I had to admit to myself that although I most certainly would not have bitten Ainslie’s head off for “gently” asking me to move out of the way, I would definitely have taken umbrage internally.

A rock’n’roll show is, to me, a wild and largely uncontrolled environment. If you want a better view, you move – no matter how short you might be. You don’t try to influence the behaviour of anyone else as long as they are not clobbering you, groping you or pouring beer all over you (and even that is OK in some circumstances).

If a violent moshpit starts next to you and strangers slam into you (as happened to myself and the wife in December at a Danko Jones show) – you join in or get out of the area in front of the stage. Simple.

Younger people today seem to have a completely different worldview. The very definition of “respect” has changed. Respect is now shown by behaving in a way 100 percent acceptable to everyone who can see or hear you, whether you know them – or are even aware of their presence – or not.

I’d like to think I’m not a dinosaur. I know that Motley Crue asking audience members to show their tits and dicks when Vince Neil is 65, Tommy Lee is 63 and Nikki Sixx is 67 is patently ridiculous and inappropriate – not just in terms of the advanced years of the would-be flashers and changing community standards but also the fact that many of the would-be flashers have no doubt brought their children along.

But to what extent do we oldies have to conform to the social norms of those half our age or less when we go to see a band from the 1990s or 1980s? We’re doing no harm by our standards but by yours, just standing still in the same spot is offensive.

People lining up single file at the bar – a spreading contagion – just slows down everyone getting a drink and defeats the entire purpose of the shape of said bar. Should we just open Soviet-style windows through which libations are to be purchased?

But let’s think again. Really, it’s not an entirely generational thing either.

Some people of our age didn’t go to gigs when they were younger. They went to the movies or musicals or sports and their code of conduct at shows is foreign to those of us with mid- to high-range tinnitus.

I had a group of girls form a human chain in Cabo St Lucas to prevent me standing anywhere closer to the stage than them; I wasn’t going to stand in front of them, there was plenty of room on the right and the left where I – a lone gig goer as I am often – would not obstruct anyone. They were punishing me – a complete stranger – for getting to the gig later than them!

In the end I broke the chain by getting down on all fours and ramming between a couple of its links. I stood next to a rubbish bin to watch the show with no-one behind me … but knew if I went to the bar, these vigilantes would try to stop me returning.

Another thing that has a huge impact on these disagreements at shows is the impact of an audience and band getting older together and the concept of what that means being unclear to both groups.

At a seated show – perish the thought but yes we find ourselves going to more and more of them – when is it OK to stand up? Are you entitled to get upset at the person in front of you at a Cold Chisel, Sammy Hagar or Scorpions show who stands up?

To me, an emphatic no. If you choose to sit down at a roaring hard rock show, that’s on you. Telling the person in front to sit down because your hip is hurting displays a level of entitlement to put any 21-year-old to shame.

But our idea of etiquette is not an exact thing. There is no hive etiquette. We’re all – literally and figuratively – wandering around in dark. I can remember being at a Def Leppard show where two sassy girls roughly my age who looked like they’d seen them back in Sheffield days said: “Hey you just stood in front of us”.

Yes, we were seven metres from the stage and when the lights go down, there will be plenty in front of me, too. Standing in front of others is what people do at these events. I had to use the immortal line employed by one of our commenters on the Hot Metal Facebook page:

“It’s a rock’n’roll show!”

Sarah McLeod was right to say we should all exercise restraint and consideration in our dealings with others at gigs. But that consideration starts with accepting people have different values to you when it comes to interacting with others in a public space.

Now, 2026 is not exactly a highpoint of humans accepting people with different views and values, is it? What we are seeing at gigs is therefore representative of a wider malaise.

But no, it’s not just decent people versus drunk blokes. We have to accept that decent people have varying concepts of what decency is.

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