Silvio 1 - Audience 0

Silvio Rodriguez at Carnegie Hall. He still has that beautiful voice at 64. His songs are gorgeous even if half the time I have no idea what they mean. The band, 3 acoustic guitars, drums and a flute, fantastic. He is a wonderful songwriter who has written a catalog of many beautiful, melodic songs. I know these songs too well, yet hearing him live was deeply moving. He is a great artist. Period.
The audience, however, was something else. I can understand their love, devotion, adoration and worship.  But I don't remember being in a concert hall so full of noisy, obnoxious, restless, disrespectful people. Adults who behave like toddlers. People screaming requests at the top of their lungs as if we were in a giant piano bar. Understandably, they want to hear their favorite songs; so do I. But has it not crossed their minds that the artist has constructed a set list of the songs he wants to play in the order he wants to play them and that there is meaning and beauty in this order? He is not the clown you hired for your birthday party. So when Silvio responds the first time if we can let him sing a couple of songs it should be evident that he is asking people to respect the evening he has in mind. Well, the crazy screaming never stopped, in fact, it increased, even as it was clear that he wasn't going to budge. It would piss me off.
I like Silvio as an artist. The whole revolutionary thing is not what sways me. My admiration for him is devoid of the fervor of some of his ardent admirers that conflate the artist with the regime they adore and the Che Guevara T-Shirt, and who would not stop yammering and screaming at him all night long. I have absolutely no patience for these people. So sue me.
At one point he left the stage for a brief intermission but the band remained and played their asses off. However, you could barely hear them because the audience reacted as if they weren't there. They took the time to talk amongst themselves at full volume, call their grandma, go to the bathroom. They gave the musicians wild and loving ovations, but the disrespect to Silvio and his band was appalling. Of course, I'm sure they are not even aware of it, they think their chaotic love is perfect and enough. That respect for the artists and the audience around them is superfluous. But really, Latinos, man qué falta de educación. And this is not a proletariat thing. The tickets were expensive. I paid $80 to sit in Mars.
I know I am a crank. The woman next to me sang all the songs in my ear the entire concert (not a great singer, but at least not out of tune, and to her credit she knew all the lyrics). She was so emotional that I could not bring myself to tell her that I hadn't bought tickets to listen to her. In the end, it was a singalong anyway and since everyone sang, so did I. A committed, loving audience is a wonderful thing and the energy in the air was amazing, (I'm not that cranky) but I wish people were a little more attuned to the artist on the stage, the delicacy of his songs and to the people around them.