Living Life Second Hand

This week, I ended up watching a repeat of the Paul McCartney "Electric Prom" which was shown on BBC Four a few weeks back. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable with a good mix of Beatles favourites and highlights from his own solo back-catalogue. Maybe Macca has never been the coolest of rock stars but I don't much care for liking something because it is regarded as hip - he has written some great songs over the years and he really knows how to work a live audience. It must have been a fantastic experience seeing him in the flesh. At least it would have been for me but I noticed something rather odd during the performance.

I don't know where the practice originated from, but it was once commonplace at stadium rock concerts for the audience to light up cigarette lighters for atmospheric effect during slow ballads. I always thought this was rather naff but the sight of a sea of hundreds of lights actually looks quite special. With smoking now being banned at indoor venues this is maybe not so common. However, I thought that this was happening at McCartney's Roundhouse gig for the BBC until I noticed that it was actually a sea of mobile phones:

What has been bothering me is whether this is now a modern day substitute for the Zippo or whether the people are actually recording what is going on. I'd like to think the former but most of the phones in that clip are facing away from the stage - and towards whoever is doing the filming. I don't particularly approve of this kind of low level piracy - not so much because of copyright infringement but because it is a distraction for anyone nearby who actually wants to watch the show. What is completely bonkers regarding the Electric Prom is that the BBC were recording the whole show in high definition with multiple camera shots and fully mixed sound to be broadcast free-to-view on terrestrial television.

I can't quite place why anyone would still want a crappy camera-phone home movie of the whole show when they could sit back and enjoy it live and catch the whole experience again at home on TV. Where they simply trying to catch bragging rights to say "I was there"? If that is the case, it is almost as indecipherable an activity as trainspotting - simply cataloguing dates and events without ever actually appreciating what was going on. I may occasionally keep programmes as souvenirs from concerts or football matches and I have, on occasion, tried my hand at sports photography (with little success) but the memory of those occasions are burnt into my head as a series of experiences and emotions that no facsimile could ever replace - and if I have forgotten a show or event, it is simply because they were not worth remembering.

Is this now the curse of the modern age? An event must be catalogued like a stamp collection? I don't think it's for me: You only live life once - it's best not to live it second hand.