Aren't you missing the point? Which is, that a person can not fully immerse themselves in the actual experience of an event, whilst all the time trying to be a recordist of the event. The central issue is people not realising that they are spoiling it FOR THEMSELVES.

Though having read about Kate Bush's concert, it seems to have been as much about theatricals as well as music, i.e. a total experience, and perhaps this is justification that even you would not dispute - you wouldn't deny that a performance of - say - Hamlet would be totally ruined both for camerapeople and the rest of the audience by a forest of waving iPhone screens; why? simply because the staging of such things and especially getting the most out of them is based on the concept of catharsis, and suspension of disbelief - or to put it in lay terms - you have to "get into it". It seems that Kate's gigis plenty of solid theatre as well as music and so this principle would apply.

In answer to your last question, if you waved your camera in the air whilst I was at a recent Ed Sheeran concert, I don't think it would have made much odds to me at all, - but would, to labour the point, interfere with YOUR experience of the gig even if you failed to realise this - but OTOH if you'd done it at Les Mis I'd have prolly taken your phone and stood on it for you.

I don't know how old you are, or how many gigs you've been to, but before the advent of smart phones, etc, the majority of the crowd at most gigs would immerse themselves in the experience; dance, wave their arms, sing along, mosh, wave lighters, whatever.

Now, if you stand at the back of a gig you see before you an ocean of little glowing screens and people fiddling with their devices rather than immersing themselves in the event. So yes, certainly the joint experience of some gigs can be ruined by this weird obsession with getting it on your phone and presumably onto facebook asap for your friends to see how cool you are and what a cool life you lead. Even if the performer is inevitably a tiny dot in the distance and the audio is inaudible and no-one gives a toss.

And what I find astounding is that these people, who may have paid a lot of money for that concert, are watching it ON A TINY SCREEN. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Look at the players walking up the steps at Wembley, so many people desperate to film it and therefore watching it ON A TINY SCREEN, when instead they could have had a much more personal experience, maybe shaken a player's hand, spoken to them, etc. Instead they're gazing at their little screen as the players pass by when the BBC are good enough to film the entire thing in HD for their televisual pleasure.

As for tablets, I'd make it law that anyone taking an ipad or similar to any event to film it should be dragged on stage and have it smashed over their tiny brains and then tossed to packs of ravernous wild dogs. Just because.

I do find it personally annoying when someone points their phone at the stage during the concert in front of me because of the distracting light from the phone itself. Also people who take flash photographs - inclouding from crappy iphone cameras.

Seriously, from 50 yards away you need decent lens to take any kind of good photo, let alone movie footgae. I bet it looks dreadful at home, especially with all the background noise of people talking 'oooh - I love this one' etc.

You can see from their screens that the pictures are wobbly, grainy and just generally sh*te. Surely they are as unwatched as the countless hours of home videos referred to?

Trying to pass this off as some young vs old thing is b*llocks as well. Most of the people I've seen filming concerts aren't kids but older people.

On a side note, my grandad used to take the silent cassette (cine 8 or whatever) movies every time we went on holidays. He insisted on showing us all the next year, which was suitably dull. However, after he died my uncle got a lot put onto video, which was quite cool because the films themselves were short (2-3 minutes). Watching it is actually more like "my childhood to age 10 in about 15 minutes".

That's the way to do it - the occasional short and sweet family video, even a compilation of which won't last long enough to bore. And which will hold real fascination and memories in decades to come. Mainly cos it documents individuals, events and, to a lesser extent, places.

In contrast the utter rubbish concert footage will be literally unwatchable, and swamped by quality recordings of the artist, none of which would matter if the recordist hadn't unknowingly largely spoiled the concert for themselves in some futile belief that there was a point.

Having said that the mobile phone manufacturers have been pretty consistent over the past 20 years in being able to sell this years poor quality all-in-one must-have device to mugs over and over again, the two good things that mobile phones do is make phone calls and send text messages, even emailing on them is a second rate product to having a PC. Taking photographs, taking video is done far better on even a cheap camera and as for the "video editing" app that I was persuaded to download last week, well I just can't imagine why there is still a film making industry in Hollywood if everyone can make movies on their telephone like it promised.

And I haven't mentioned Apple once.

Just wait until the Apple watch hits our shores next year and people at gigs are desperately trying to film the gig in some sort of James Bond pose. Something for us all to look forward to.

always great to read people who can't afford Apple devices slagging off Apple devices.

You think people can't afford 200 quid?
They may choose to spend the money on something else but I'm willing to bet they can afford it if they really wanted to.

let me know where you get new Apple devices for £200, please, please

Quote: Standee "let me know where you get new Apple devices for £200, please, please'" You mean like watch that people were mentioning? www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 23264.html Or the IPad mini at £250? www.johnlewis.com/apple-ipad-min ... 8000030510 And that's without searching very hard.

Quote: Standee "let me know where you get new Apple devices for £200, please, please'" You mean like watch that people were mentioning? www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 23264.html Or the IPad mini at £250? www.johnlewis.com/apple-ipad-min ... 8000030510 And that's without searching very hard.

Who was slagging off Apple devices ?

Nobody. Standee is obviously a massive Apple fan boy and has been brainwashed by the incessant Apple marketing machine.

I thought he got a free iPhone from his lawyer for letting them do his whiplash claim. I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Oh yeah I'm sorry one is £216 the other is £250.

Yeah that extra £16 is the really difficult bit to justify.

For once just admit you F'd up and thought they were all a lot more expensive.

So, what makes you think the people you tried to take the mick out of can't afford £216?