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Vice Blog

LONDON - WHO WERE THOSE IDIOTS NEXT TO YOU AT THAT GIG LAST NIGHT?

If hell is other people, then gigs are hell with weak lager. But who are these fleshy individual hells who surround us? Where have they come from and why are they here? We ran some numbers. We got some answers. Here's a cross-section of the particular shapes of fan you can expect at average gigs by typically hip bands.

TV On The Radio

5% Members of oppressed working classes the world over, waiting for some more of Kyp's scathing social satire to free them from their manacles.
3% Insecure music journalists here for the one band no one could possibly point and laugh at them for liking.
2% Ill-informed indie snobs who think they're witnessing one of those legendary 'seminal early gigs'.
90% David Sitek's production roster.

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Vampire Weekend

27% Preppy Ivy Leaguers who think they're in on it.
29% Preppy Ivy Leaguers who look down on the preppy Ivy Leaguers around them who think they're in on it.
1% Tommy Hilfiger (not in on it).
1% Patrick Bateman (in on it).
1% Ezra Koenig's mom (no).
1% A punk (yes).
40% curious black people who read about them on Stuff White People Like.

Justice

5% Hipster Runoff readers who don't get irony.
10% Sesame Street producers who want them to write a series of further songs which spell out actions.
15% Rock fans making their annual exception.
70% girls who find religious iconography deeply sexy.

Gallows

25% People who think that Frank Carter is the stage name of Vivian from The Young Ones.
10% Former customers unhappy with the workmanship on the tattoos Frank gave them.
25% People waiting for the fat semi-nude bearded Canadian guy to come on.
39.9% Lethal Bizzle
0.1% Hardcore fans.

Fleet Foxes

1% Trees.
1% Shrubs.
2% Bits of moss.
6% White witches.
40% Investment bankers who realise they've found the new Zero 7.
50% American mobsters sick of listening to Alabama 3.

MGMT

10% Ziggy Stardust.
17% Aladdin Sane.
6% People who still think they're hip because they don't pronounce it 'Management'.
4% People who still pronounce it 'Management'.
63% Prospective litigants who mistook Goldwasser & Van Wyngarden for a law firm.

Crystal Castles

98% People who got into them through the t-shirts.
1% Couples for whom Alice Practice is 'our song'.
1% Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog on a nostalgic night out.

GAVIN HAYNES