no good - start the dance !

Yes. Every time I go to the Spitz. EVERY TIME. A hushed semicircle forms around the 'stage' and no-one moves. First time - 1996 - Boymerang spinning some skewed but still pretty danceable d'n'b. Total paralysis from audience - we got looked at for even stepping forward.

Second time - The Clientele 2000 - obviously not a big dancing band but still the strange semicircle effect obtained.

Third time - Micro-Music festival 2001 - we have been drinking and fantastic electro-disco-jungle computer beats are URGING US TO DANCE. So we do - the four of us and 2 other girls. And that's *it*, in a packed venue. And yes we did get looked at oddly.

autechre at brixton fridge last month. very strange atmosphere. if it had been at nesh, loads of people would have been dancing, but at the fridge, in a gig atmosphere, nobody was dancing at all, and it just felt odd. was also very very packed.

whenever we used to go see stereolab, everybody would stand still, and there'd be about 6 of us dancing at the beginning, and we'd get disapproving looks. gradually, by the end, the whole place would have joined in. this happened quite a few times.

In Manhattan there is a relatively new club in chinatown (last of the unexploited frontier) called "Fun". A few weeks ago "pro-zac" was tellin me that he was playing there w/his roommate and John Selway. Not having to front the $10 I went... zack was playing very nice berlin-flavored reverby techno, slammin it... there were *loads* of people...sitting on couches... smoking, legs crossed, or hunched in conversation. i remind you they had paid $10 to get in. his roommate got on the decks on started blasting "shake ya ass" and whatnot in a desperate bid to get booties movin. It didn't work. Me and the barstaff were the *only* ones dancing. I found out later that Fun has got couches all over what would be the dancefloor because they are not one of the 15 or so establishments in the city to own a "cabaret license", necessary if patrons are to dance. Needless to say, Fun is anything but.

More recently I went to see David Byrne at Irving Plaza. Ok, DB's not dance music in the strict sense of the term but I certainly find it fits the definition... mostly house tempo songs, lots of percussion, a bounce and verve that speaks directly to the body... my friends and a serendipitously placed gaggle of excitable coeds defined the dancing section, those on our perimeter constantly throwing alternately stern and frightened looks our way... perhaps they would have preferred headphones and a beanbag chair. i don't know.

The Dismemberment Plan are known for the dancing at their gigs, but both of the ones I've been to they mostly played to statues. I didn't mind - I don't like to dance - but some people in the crowd did apparently, and held it against the rest of us. It was kind of a distributed responsibility thing, though.

What's wrong with paying to get into a gig, and then sitting on a couch? Even if it is techno. Some people just like to sit and listen to music.

..i dont dance..if i am at a concert i sing along. thats it..as for techno..nothing to sing along to. so i sit and enjoy. even if 10$...

Uh, I've been in my living room and gotten the vibe that everyone else at my co-op considered my dancing a tad outre.

90% of rock shows - big, small - crowd behavior mainly involves quelling urge to stand on tiptoes to see over guy in front of you. I remember seeing the Makeup and say what you will about the music I felt that night that it was Makeup 1, Crowd 0. That's the form for rock shows tho and I have made my peace with it. Anyone who expects a club night at a Dismemberment Plan concert is clearly going to have to get used to disappointment.

Nothing wrong with sitting on a couch, but ignoring the music, the crowd around you (save for covert glances at the chixxx), the vibe that the DJs are attempting to build - it just seems not only unimaginative but rude. I am blessed with no probs looking like a fool in public but most are not so lucky and at Fun even I felt the eyez on me...

1987: saw Parliament at the Apollo, New York. Stood rock-still front- centre in a heaving crowd, until gradually everyone else too began to slow down, and then stand like a statue stroking their chin and appreciating the inner rhythms and social implications of the guitarist wearing a nappy.

OK, not true (the Apollo has seats), but would be just as cool, no? No?

I'm not much of a clubber, but I did notice whilst watching thee glastonbury festival on telly last year, that a lot of the crowd during the dance/club-type events (specifically leftfield & fratboy slim) looked bored, and were dancing in what seemed to me to be a half-hearted way. Anyone else spot this? It seemed really obvious to me....

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