This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.There are a few advantages to being short. Scientists say small people live for longer, Megabus legroom is never an issue, and you don’t have to pay VAT on children’s trainers. But the fact of the matter is: tall people have it better. And that’s especially true if you enjoy watching live music.As someone who stands a few inches below the national average, the live shows where I can’t see the performing act due to my height far outweigh the shows where I can. Usually I spend the evening leering into someone’s shoulder blades or choking on someone’s greasy ponytail. If I’m lucky, sometimes, if I strain really hard on my steel-capped tip-toes, I can just about glimpse the artist’s knees through a tantalizingly brief gap between two bros shoving each other.
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You could say that’s part of the thrill of live music. If I can’t see the band properly, they remain an enigma—understood only by the Brobdingnagian few. Perhaps all the historical events in music—The Ramones at CBGB’s; The Sex Pistols at The 100 Club; The Velvet Underground at Max’s Kansas City—were all the better because short members of the crowd got stuck in and unintentionally ingested hair follicles—which could be the secret ingredient in “the authentic live experience”. Maybe there’s a benefit to bouncing up and down on your tiptoes, like strengthening the homo sapien bone structure for future generations, or reducing the build up of cheesecake deposits in your arteries.
Nope, I can’t do it. There is simply no benefit to being short at a gig. All you can do is flirt with early onset vertebrae problems, craning your neck in different directions like a palm tree in a hurricane just to maintain a miniscule hold on the band. As you leave, your friends tell stories of their favourite moments and all you can offer in response is a detailed description of the different scents of back-sweat you’ve had resting on your face.Especially infuriating is that tall people are so ignorant to the height they’ve been blessed with that they stand wherever they please. This is what ruins everything for us, the polite, nice, kind short people who cannot see. There’s ignorance everywhere—in the government, on the internet, whenever I smoke a cigarette—but never do I feel it more directly than when an altitudinous person proudly stands centimetres in front of me, at a show where they can see from any angle and I cannot.
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As a guy, I don’t even have it the worse. Fellow Noisey staff member Emma Garland, who also sits below average height, tells me the only thing worse than being a woman at a live show is being a short woman at a live show, because “every event means having to choose between standing near the front so you can see and risking being crushed and/or groped, or occupying a tactical spot around the back and sides to save your personal space but then having to spend the entire duration trying to avoid being shouldered in the nose.”So what can do we to fix this problem? Some venues - like London’s Brixton Academy or Hammersmith Apollo - have a sloped floor. In theory, their elevated vantage points should work – except the extra few inches are rendered moot once another tall person gets in the way. If a sloped floor is going to work it needs to be a dangerously steep incline. Seating is an obvious choice. In my ripe old age of twenty three, where I bath every evening and selectively choose candles for my living room, I’ve come to enjoy the upper floor of a music venue. But there’s a distance when you’re up there - like you’re not really part of the action. It’s just not the same when you have to remain in your seat, restless leg syndrome vicariously kicking in.The one positive of a crowd filming the concert is that it creates an extra viewing point. Often I’ve found myself watching a performance through someone else’s iPhone screen – it’s the best view I can get. And I’m pretty sure I haven’t made it through a single festival performance without spending 95% of the time fixated on the jumbotrons either side of the stage. Yet, selfie sticks are banned from shows and big screens wouldn’t work in lower-capacity venues, so these are small, brief respites to the problem, rather than solutions.
Beyond patenting a brand of comfortable, wearable and safe stilts or fast-forwarding through natural selection until short people have been phased out, it seems there’s one far easier to implement solution - which is for tall people to stand at the back or check their privilege. I get that’s hardly a novel idea, but despite studies claiming tall people are both more intelligent and more sociable than short people, it’s something that towering concertgoers still don’t seem to understand. In fact, it’s so rare for a tall person to show concern that, as Emma tells me, when they do “it fills you with so much joy you could almost snog them there and then”. So I guess, if nothing else, that’s something to think about.Tall people: I know you’re with me on this, you just need to show a little empathy, a little understanding. Hey I bet sometimes even you can’t see, what with all those iPhone cameras, crowd-surfers, and legally-defined giants getting in your way. Must be annoying right! If only there was something that could be done…I have plenty of gangly, stretch-armstrong looking acquaintances and pals - so, in order to test my solution, I used Joel Golby—VICE writer, Ratatat fan, and statistically Tall Man—as a guinea pig for (a) what to do if you’re small and a tall person is blocking your view and (b) what to do if you’re tall, and you’re blocking someone else’s view.Me: Hey - tall guy! You’re in the way. Can I stand in front of you?Joel AKA Tall Guy: Yeah, I'm fine with that, because you're only little, aren't you. I can see over your little head. If I'm in your way just say. Just don't jostle about in front of me or have a conversation with your tiny little mate. I'm trying to watch music here, mate. Shut up.Me:Duly noted. Thanks tall guy! You have restored my faith in humanity.So if you’re reading this and you’re tall, imagine the seething, burning anger you feel when a crowd-surfer boots you in the head, like you could finely slice someone with your eyeballs, and then imagine feeling like that for around 90 minutes while you’re forced to smell your own armpit. Exactly. So get out my way!You can find Ryan Bassil on Twitter: @RyanBassil
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Nope, I can’t do it. There is simply no benefit to being short at a gig. All you can do is flirt with early onset vertebrae problems, craning your neck in different directions like a palm tree in a hurricane just to maintain a miniscule hold on the band. As you leave, your friends tell stories of their favourite moments and all you can offer in response is a detailed description of the different scents of back-sweat you’ve had resting on your face.Especially infuriating is that tall people are so ignorant to the height they’ve been blessed with that they stand wherever they please. This is what ruins everything for us, the polite, nice, kind short people who cannot see. There’s ignorance everywhere—in the government, on the internet, whenever I smoke a cigarette—but never do I feel it more directly than when an altitudinous person proudly stands centimetres in front of me, at a show where they can see from any angle and I cannot.As a guy, I don’t even have it the worse. Fellow Noisey staff member Emma Garland, who also sits below average height, tells me the only thing worse than being a woman at a live show is being a short woman at a live show, because “every event means having to choose between standing near the front so you can see and risking being crushed and/or groped, or occupying a tactical spot around the back and sides to save your personal space but then having to spend the entire duration trying to avoid being shouldered in the nose.”So what can do we to fix this problem? Some venues - like London’s Brixton Academy or Hammersmith Apollo - have a sloped floor. In theory, their elevated vantage points should work – except the extra few inches are rendered moot once another tall person gets in the way. If a sloped floor is going to work it needs to be a dangerously steep incline. Seating is an obvious choice. In my ripe old age of twenty three, where I bath every evening and selectively choose candles for my living room, I’ve come to enjoy the upper floor of a music venue. But there’s a distance when you’re up there - like you’re not really part of the action. It’s just not the same when you have to remain in your seat, restless leg syndrome vicariously kicking in.The one positive of a crowd filming the concert is that it creates an extra viewing point. Often I’ve found myself watching a performance through someone else’s iPhone screen – it’s the best view I can get. And I’m pretty sure I haven’t made it through a single festival performance without spending 95% of the time fixated on the jumbotrons either side of the stage. Yet, selfie sticks are banned from shows and big screens wouldn’t work in lower-capacity venues, so these are small, brief respites to the problem, rather than solutions.