‘I wish I’d stayed home’: Disruptive audiences at NoDa venue ruining concert experience

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“I realize your venue isn’t a listening room. It’s a bar. And on most nights, a loud one,” Charlotte concertgoer Page Leggett wrote in a thorough message to Neighborhood Theatre earlier this month.

“But last night was insufferable,” Leggett continued in the email, which was titled “I wish I’d stayed home last night.”

Leggett, who is a writer (and has written for CharlotteFive), told us she has been attending live music at the Neighborhood Theatre for years.

Located in the heart of NoDa and surrounded by a plethora of restaurants, gallery crawls, and hippy dive bars, the historic performance venue hosts local and national acts including Sneakers With The Eyebrows, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Will Hoge and more. The theater has three main sections when it’s hosting performances on its main stage: A general admission area (a lively section that’s often standing room only), barside seating along the side, and a VIP area with seats on the balcony.

Leggett told us she has always felt that the barside seating is at least somewhat “less raucous” than the general admission “mosh pit”, which has unrestrained energy. So on June 3, Leggett was eager — ecstatic even — to pay $100+ for an upgraded front-row seat in the section beside the bar to see one of her all-time favorite artists, Robert Earl Keen.

People want to hear the music

Yet, Leggett said she couldn’t hear the country singer because a couple in row two was talking so loudly she could hear the entire conversation. She was convinced she’d sat in the “talking section”.

“They may not be a couple after that night, as it sounded like a breakup — an angry one,” Leggett wrote in her email to Neighborhood Theatre, which she later shared on her Facebook page and with CharlotteFive.

She urged the couple to stop talking. The man expressed regret, and still, the conversation went on — with their volume getting louder. He then accused his girlfriend of sleeping with someone else before taking his leave.

“I expressed my frustration to the girlfriend, who told me I ‘wasn’t part of the conversation’ and ‘didn’t understand what was going on,’” Leggett wrote.

The couple told her they’d reserved those barside seats specifically because they “wanted to talk through the show.”

Neighborhood Theatre never responded to Leggett’s email.

The sold-out — and loud — Watchhouse show

Leggett isn’t the only music fan frustrated with recent chatter during performances at Neighborhood Theatre. Marc Gustafson, who attended the Watchhouse show on June 6, told CharlotteFive how much of an “embarrassment” the show was.

“About halfway through the hour-and-a-half show, it was clear the patrons of the bar were beginning to annoy Marlin, who appeared to ask his wife between songs whether he should say something,” Gustafson said.

“The concert quickly turned into an awkward dance between the uninterested attendees and the annoyed musicians,” he said.

“My friend who attended the Watchhouse show with me thought some of the responsibility lies with Neighborhood Theatre for not telling people to be quiet,” Gustafson said. “I have to admit, the thought of offering people money to leave the show or paying to close the bar crossed my mind at the height of my frustration.”

A Reddit post echoed Gustafson’s experience, with other Watchhouse fans creating a long thread of music lovers who are fed up with the behavior.

Neighborhood Theatre: ‘Don’t talk over music’

On June 8, Neighborhood Theatre posted a statement with a graphic titled “Don’t Talk Over Music” on both Facebook and Instagram. The post began by stating that the team had “read enough messages and posts” and felt it was necessary to address the noise at the Watchhouse concert.

Gregg McCraw, owner of MaxxMusic, the entertainment company that brought Watchhouse to the Neighborhood Theatre, told CharlotteFive that night at the sold-out concert was a “standing show that occupied at least 956 people.”

“Two percent of the crowd didn’t want to listen,” McCraw said. “Bartenders tried to quiet those who were talking, which was soon followed by a uniformed ‘shhhhh’ from the crowd.”

“We brought the social media attention to ourselves when one of our bartenders made the post,” McCraw said.

Why are people talking during concerts?

Vox recently addressed the phenomenon of behaving badly at public events such as concerts. “In some cases, it’s an upsettingly tangible example of the self-interested behavior we’ve come to call ‘main character syndrome,’ wherein a person seems to believe that everything that happens around them only contributes to their own story,” wrote reporter Alex Abad-Santos.

Vox attributed the behavior — at least in part — to a return to in-person events after a period of COVID-related virtual shows, but other news sources show this was an issue long before the pandemic began.

NPR addressed etiquette surrounding talking at concerts in a 2014 segment. “When everyone is confined to an indoor space, conversation in the crowd functions as noise’s equivalent of secondhand smoke: The talker’s need to be heard is greatly outweighed by everyone else’s need to enjoy (and perform) music without disruption,” said reviewer Stephen Thompson.

How will the venue address this?

Neighborhood Theatre is surrounded by NoDa bars for people to socialize, and McCraw told CharlotteFive they do “have a right to tell people to leave.” The theater is already taking proactive steps to make the experience more bearable for concertgoers, he said.

“We are first and foremost a music venue, not a bar,” McCraw said. “Our strategy is to make pre-show announcements and post signage reminding people to remain respectful to those who are here to listen.”

Neighborhood Theatre

Location: 511 E 36th St, Charlotte, NC 28205

Instagram: @Neighborhoodtheatre

Future shows:

Nekromantix: Thursday, June 13 at 8:00 p.m.

Archspire: Friday, June 14 at 7 p.m.

Ravin’ Melon Saturday, June 15 at 8 p.m.