At first glance, the news that two New York concert-goers are suing Madonna for arriving on stage two hours late for a show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center is hard to read without an involuntary roll of the eyes. There’s something about the terms in which their discontent is expressed that feels faintly pathetic. Hang on, you went to a gig and got upset because it finished late, you “had to get up early to go to work the following day” and, worse, faced “limited public transportation” en route home?
It is not an argument destined to cut much mustard with anyone who – like the claimants – is old enough to remember a time before golden circles, cordoned-off glamping areas at festivals, corporate packages, VIP suites, lounges and viewing platforms, “ultimate bars” and all the other latterday additions that have turned gigs into a branch of the hospitality industry. A time when a degree of discomfort and inconvenience was part of the gig-going deal. It seems to speak rather loudly about an entitlement on the part of the audience; a tendency to treat artists as though they work in a branch of the service industries: “I’ve paid my money, you had better do exactly what I want or else.”
