asimplechord

Yesterday spike.com posted this list of 9 bands with the worst fans.

I started reading, thinking it would be like a list of the worst NFL fans - like, Eagles' fans are *unbelievably* rude and crude. Not just to visiting teams and fans, but just in general. My family won't take children to their stadium because they think it's that bad. Fights break out. Lots of drunks (and I say that as someone who attended a Big Ten university and football games while said university consistently made the Playboy list of top 10 party universities) and foul language and just general not-polite-in-public behavior. I've heard it's the same at an Oakland Raiders game.

The Dead were at the top of the list - and I was like, OK, I can see that, even if I don't think that makes them "bad" fans. I went to Dead shows with college friends, and I've been to Bonnaroo, and that crowd *is* loud, and high, and messy.

But the author bags on FOB fans for being naive, Madonna's audiences for being mostly "fat chicks and gays" who pay too much for tickets, and 90's boy bands fans for having no taste.

The last one is a skinhead band, and I can see where if a band is promoting racist, sexist propaganda, and their fans are acting on said urgings, that's bad. A misuse of popularity that promotes violence and social injustice.

But. If they just like the music?

IDK, how does that make them/us bad fans?

Doesn't that just make them/us fans?

I'm not at all clear on the criteria used in determining what makes these fans the "worst". And I'm sorta wondering if the person who wrote the article is a too-cool-for-school indie person, or just looking to stir people up.