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Rowdy crowds raise the question: Are concerts getting out of hand?
Country star Chris Stapleton ejected two fans from his Mansfield concert Saturday. Time for more of this?
Chris Stapleton is having none of it.
At his concert at Xfinity Center in Mansfield last weekend, the country star was caught on video dressing down a pair of brawling concertgoers, reminding them that their fellow audience members “paid good money to have a good time.”
“And if this is what you think is a good time, get the hell out,” he continued, to cheers from the crowd. (And lest the rowdy pair in question thought that was just a suggestion, another video shared on Twitter shows them being escorted from the premises immediately thereafter.)
SUMMER CONCERTS:
Sadly, the behavior was not out of the ordinary, and performers seem to be taking notice. John Mellencamp, playing at the Wang Theatre that same night, delivered several well-placed STFU’s to rowdy crowd members, asking one particularly screechy fellow, “What are you, 12 years old?” That came on the heels of a show in Cleveland where Mellencamp threatened to shut things down altogether. “Look, guys, if I wanted to play in this type of drunken environment, I’d play outside or I’d play in an arena,” he said that night.
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As anyone who’s a regular concert goer knows, bad behavior has become almost par for the course. And it feels like it’s only gotten worse lately, having spread from outdoor stadiums and festivals to even the smallest theaters that happen to be hosting a rock or country concert. (Why can’t these audiences be more like the folks at the opera?)
But maybe it’s just our imagination — or maybe since those rowdy types have paid the exorbitant concert ticket prices just like everybody else, they should be allowed to do whatever they want. (Even though we’re pretty sure John Mellencamp would not agree.)
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