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| A fan grabbing some ass. Looks like she’s married too. |
So you spend a small fortune on a concert ticket in the pit
next to the stage — why? You won’t be far enough from the stage to get a good
look at it; your entire view will be of the legs of the performers, and a
severely telescoped look at their heads. Your view will be impeded by a forest
of hands holding up phones. The sound will not be engineered to resonate well
at this distance. You will not be able to sit down. You will be squashed. You
do it for proximity: the opportunity to make physical contact with the star.
Everyone on the economic end of the concert experience knows
this; it’s why the star will devote considerable time during the show to
slapping hands with those in the front rows. Some will even sit down on the
edge of the stage to sing a song or two, legs dangling perilously among the
fans. Stages are designed to facilitate this, with their promontories
stretching out in configurations allowing for maximum front-row exposure.
And if you weren’t quite close enough to shake hands during
the show, or just missed by an inch? Then if you hang around afterwards,
chances are the star will too, staying to sign autographs as the house lights
come up and the crowd files out.
It’s one of the big perks of the ticket price. But has the
expectation of physical contact become so de
rigueur that it seems a right to those who pay for the privilege? If you’re
an excited, perhaps tipsy lady with a powerful crush on the star, where do you
draw the line between being satisfied with the momentary hand touch and a
full-on grope? What if you have the opportunity, and could reach the denim-clad
crown jewels, say — the bull’s-eye — would you? And if you’re the star, how
close do you let the ladies get to your wedding tackle? The Inky Jukebox has seen phone footage of the crotches of singers
so close to the lens that surely, surely,
such an opportunistic grope would have been not only possible, but possibly
invited.
Some entertainers have reached a point in their careers
where this sort of thing — the grabby problem — is a known issue. Tim McGraw,
for example. There was the famous incident in which his wife, Faith Hill,
freaked out on a grabby fan after she groped him onstage. There was a mixed
reaction: on the one hand, folks thought Faith was being a tad Mama Bear in
going after the fan; on the other, folks wondered why Tim himself didn’t
respond in the same way.
Skip forward a few years, and here we are again: some woman
makes a grab for McGraw’s well-muscled leg (and more?) — but this time, his
wife isn’t around to kick ass, so he swats the offending intrusion away. The trouble is, he
makes contact with the woman’s face instead of her hand. And all hell breaks
loose. Did he intend to slap a bitch? Of course not. He’s in the middle of a
song. Did he do what he felt was immediately necessary to extricate himself?
Yes. Case closed. The woman, however, is gunning for revenge (or an apology and
cash), for the humiliation. Let’s get this clear: she reached for him, first,
not the other way around. Case closed.
Tim McGraw is a veteran performer; he never fails to tell
the audience this, as if anyone in the crowd didn’t already know. He is fully
aware of what the ladies want. They want to touch his crotch. They want a “Real
Good Man.” They do not want “Truck Yeah” or “Mexicoma” to make a set list ever again.
The Inky Jukebox
has witnessed McGraw interrupt a show to ask fans to remove their beers from
the stage. He cited safety reasons. The fans at McGraw shows are humped so
close to the stage upon which he struts that there is nowhere else for them to
rest their beers.
Does this mean Tim McGraw must now push his stage back to
create distance between him and his fans? Does it mean no more hand-slapping
during shows? Or does it mean that people need to respect the basic social
boundaries that prevent us from grabbing at what we want whether we're in the
front row of a show or at the supermarket?
Sometimes, an iPhone crotch-cam close-up has to be enough to
satisfy. Gentlemen: take heed. Except Luke Bryan. Dude already has that angle
covered.
(And Justin Moore: don’t stop. OK, you play bigger venues now, and have three kids. But still.)
(And Justin Moore: don’t stop. OK, you play bigger venues now, and have three kids. But still.)
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| Whoa, lady! What you grabbin’ at? (Picture cropped.) |
