Going to a concert? Don't do this

Let me be the first to say that I love concerts. My budget only allows me to make rent, pay my bills and maybe get some groceries every now and then, but if there is a little surplus cash on hand (and there's an act in town worth seeing), I'm the first one willing to see a live show.\nHowever, if you go to indie rock shows in this town or anywhere that has a small-to-mid-sized venue, you will run into some horrible people. It seems the best bands have the most obnoxious fans or at least the ones easiest to categorize and make fun of. Also, if you're a pretentious, judgmental asshole like I am, you might need some of these coping strategies to combat the urge to dive into the path of a bus. These are just a few of the requisite subgroups of the audience.\n1. Overly-perky Fat Girls. They have a lot of energy (go figure.) Overly-perky Fat Girls will stand in front and gyrate awkwardly throughout the entire show, which sometimes makes the band start laughing. Their voices are peppy and excited, they make big gestures and it seems that if you're minding your business and trying at all costs to avoid acknowledging them, they will smell your distress and try and dance with you. You can defeat them by keeping your eyes fixed on the band -- they'll stare with confusion and hunger for a few moments before moving on to a new target.\n2. Vintage Jokesters. They dress like crazy people that live in bus shelters. Some of the guys obviously spent so much on black hair dye and Diesel jeans that they weren't able to afford food for a year; the others are loathsome, unhygienic and clad in something from Goodwill. The girls have ill-fitting vintage everything, black bouffants and smarty-pants black-framed glasses; all of them are united in their inability to shut up. Vintage Jokesters seriously talk nonstop and will always try to out-clever each other with a lame, "ironic" joke when the artist asks the audience a question (or says anything for that matter). I've chuckled once or twice, I'll admit, but more often than not I stare at the ground and pray for a fault line to open and swallow us all.\nYou cannot defeat them -- they will always outnumber you. Your only hope is that someone in the band tells them to shut their traps, which will make them all cry.\n3. Mr. & Mrs. Suck-Face. I understand that music stimulates our deepest emotions, and I know that seeing Ben Gibbard's gi-normous head or Conor Oberst's unshaven face arouses some people to a great extent, but I guess I'm at a loss for understanding why people spend $15 on a ticket to make out non-stop from the first sound check to the second encore. I have also noticed these people tend to do this as close to front-and-center as they can, which indicates that there's some strategy involved in finding a conspicuous place to be an attention whore. Also, the placement is thrice as strategically conspicuous if the people involved are a same-sex couple. Poor taste aside, don't you dare say anything, you fascist. How to defeat them: It depends on the audience; some don't care and some throw cigarettes and cups of beer after about 15 minutes, causing Mr. Suck-Face to yell impotently. My advice: choose your own adventure.\n4. Band Shirt Vulture. He comes to concerts alone and on the prowl. If you are so unfortunate as to wear a shirt of a band he likes, he will latch on to you like a face-hugging alien parasite and instigate an endless conversation about the band that you obviously must know everything about since you bought their shirt. The point of Band Shirt Vulture's trickery is to find out more bands that you like so he can keep talking to someone throughout the entire duration of the show. He will then compare the songs being played to bands he thinks you should know about since, like him, you obviously spend your days memorizing inane facts in a gloomy dungeon.\nThe best way to combat him is to not wear band shirts -- I dress like a lumberjack when I go to shows -- but if you're caught in a bind, you might pretend that you don't speak English. Be careful, though -- you never know the depths of his fandom. A friend of mine once told someone he was Icelandic in hopes that they would stop talking to him, but it turned out the guy was a Sigur Rós fan and had taught himself Icelandic greetings that he tried on my friend for about 30 more minutes. Ouch.\n5. Proud Apple Owner. There will always someone with an Apple laptop, most often sitting pensively or typing something, though no one really knows what. They're not bothering anyone, but they're always there flashing their Powerbook to everyone. I can't explain it.\nI can laugh at these people, but they're also pretty damn annoying. It would be really nice if people would just act normal at concerts, but I really doubt that could ever happen. I would just say please don't go to shows to show off. I may be the only one writing mean articles about it, but I seriously doubt I'm the only one thinking it.\nWell, I'll be the guy who's there watching the band. With any luck, you won't notice me.