"Show gratitude to bands who travel far and work their asses off to play for you…"
In a recent issue of Kerrang!, we caught up with the one and only Jamie Lenman to hear his thoughts on how audiences need to respect support bands more than they typically do. And now we're thrilled to see that Paramore's Hayley Williams is echoing these sentiments.
The Tennessee trio are currently on the road with Foster The People and Jay Som in the States on The After Laughter Summer Tour (Tour 5), and it was brought to Hayley's attention that, at one of the dates, someone in the crowd was simply yelling over the top of support act Jay Som for Hayley's attention, and questioning "Who are you?" while Jay played. Urgh.
Hayley rightfully responded to the comment, stating: "If any of us hears about this happening again, someone from the venue will find you and you will be asked to leave. show respect & gratitude to bands who travel far & work their asses off to play for you."
Nicely done, Hayley. Fingers crossed this goes a long way in support bands getting the attention they deserve at shows.
Read a snippet of what Jamie Lenman had to say on the matter back in K!1727:
“When I put on a show or tour, I always try to make it the best show that the audience could come see, and that includes the support acts. A rock show is the whole evening, not just the main act, so I want it all to be top drawer and for the bands to fit together and make a neat package. Even if someone came to one of my shows and left feeling like they were more excited about one of the support acts than whatever I was doing, I’d still feel like that was a big success. Me and the support acts, or me and the main act if I’m supporting, we’re all in the same boat: we just wanna make some great noise together.
“It’s easy to understand that people don’t generally go to see a show specifically for the support act, unless that act is hard to see otherwise. But usually you go for the main band – you don’t really look at who the support acts are. Maybe people wanna go out for a nice meal first, or maybe they can’t get away from home or work in time, and that’s all fair enough, but you might be missing out on something really special.”
What do you think?
