Let the man sing! (Photo: Wikipedia)
By Lana Schwartz | lana.schwartz925@gmail.com
We come to this place for magic, Nicole Kidman says in the AMC pre-movie spot that launched a thousand memes.
To me, as it is to Nicole, the movie theater is sacrosanct, governed by a social contract that dictates no talking, no texting, and generally being cool about being in a public space with a lot of people.
Unfortunately, that contract grows weaker by the day. Now it feels like a rare privilege to be amongst an audience that doesn’t spend a film’s two hour run time looking at various acquaintances’ Instagram stories. During a showing of “Sentimental Value,” I heard a woman say to her date, unprompted, “That’s the guy from earlier,” as though to clear up any potential confusion. Though maybe she was proud of her recognition skills and wanted to show off.
Thought dictated by a different set of rules, I consider concert venues, and by extension, concerts to be a sacred space. Sure, concerts call for more audience engagement, and phones are hoisted high in the sky, but there are other, more general precautions to take like, saying excuse me when you move past someone, or doing your best not to spill your drink everywhere.
But the number one rule — and I can’t believe I even have to clarify this — is that you shouldn’t talk over Bruce Springsteen. Even if you’re not at a Bruce Springsteen concert, the maxim still applies.
I will admit to having been in a bad mood recently. For weeks, I had been contemplating snagging tickets to see Bruce Springsteen — and by the time the concert rolled around, I figured attending the concert might cheer me up. I’d engaged in the intricate (and demeaning) dance that was buying concert tickets to see a major artist in 2026: Opening Ticketmaster, filtering by price, refreshing my browser, waiting for the price of tickets for the best possible seats to approach what I was willing to pay for them. $200 for a spot in the 112 section of Barclays Center was the compromise this Ticketmaster bot and I agreed on.
Upon taking the stage, Bruce spoke more cogently and with more gumption about the Trump administration than almost all Democrats. He sang the hits and then some, urging all of us to remember our humanity and connect through art. And the two people sitting in front of me talked through the whole thing. They talked so much, this man and woman, I thought maybe they were having an affair, because if they can talk this much at home, why would they need to talk while Bruce Springsteen was playing? But their matching iPhone backgrounds of them decked out in their wedding outfits proved their matrimony to be holy.
Listen, I understand wanting to make a comment or two about the concert; to say “I love this song!” and “Did you know Patti Smith wrote this one?” This was, instead, an ongoing shouting dialogue completely unrelated to the show at hand. I questioned if their tickets were so cheap, they didn’t feel an obligation to enjoy the show, or if they were so wealthy, a few hundred dollars on a night out is barely a drop in their Rockville Centre-living bucket. (Rockville Centre is my best guess.)
There were two men seated behind me also enjoying a long, loud conversation. And while I also am concerned about the male loneliness crisis, there’s a reason you get a beer before the show to catch up.
I will admit to asking the couple in front of me to “be quiet, for just like, one song?” They sank down to their seats, ashamed, and resorted to showing each other text messages on their phone. Being quiet for only one song was really all they were capable of.
It was only when the show was over that I realized Springsteen played for three full hours. The man is 76 years old. He is trying to entertain, educate, and inspire us. If you were willing to give him your money, why not give him your attention? You have his.
Lana Schwartz is a writer who was born and raised in Queens and today lives in Brooklyn. Her writing has appeared on The New Yorker, The Onion, McSweeney’s, and more. She is the author of the books “Build Your Own Romantic Comedy” and “Set Piece.”
