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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to not go to this concert with DP?

145 replies

thekittensmittens76 · 01/09/2017 13:21

DP is meeting up with his brother to go to a small gig. It's rock metal music or something. They were going with another friend but he dropped out, so there's a ticket spare. DP asked me if I wanted to go, but since he hasn't seen his brother in a while I initially said it would nicer for just the two of them to go and spend some quality time together. Important note - I have met all of DP's family but this brother, because he lives in another country.

Anyway, DP has really been digging in his heels about me going. To keep the peace, I half-heartedly agreed BEFORE he told me the specifics of this concert (he originally phrased it like it was a casual meet-up with brother). However, after learning the full story, there's a whole load of reasons that I don't want to go. I am tiny and hate crowded spaces like gigs because I get crushed or trodden on. DP's also said that I should bring ear plugs because the music will likely be too loud for me?! Plus I hate rock metal music. He's also said I will need to wear clothes 'I don't mind getting ruined'. I take great pride in my wardrobe and all my clothes are lovely and expensive! Basically, I really do not want to go, concerts were never my thing and never will be. I thought it was going to be a chilled out drinking session with music, but it's not.

DP is utterly insistent that I go. AIBU to not go?

OP posts:
KityGlitr · 01/09/2017 17:28

"Amazing how many people don't know that gig = work and that the performers get 'the gig' but the customers go to a concert."

Lol, no. A gig is a performance. People can attend, obtain, perform and watch a gig. Colloquial usage differs, but in my locality a gig is a pop/rock/metal/punk type performance whereas a concert is more classical, opera or solo classical musician.

jonsnowsbuttocks · 01/09/2017 17:30

Il go, I love a gig.

Jaxhog · 01/09/2017 17:35

If you really don't want to go, don't go. There doesn't seem to be an upside for you, and lots of downside.

sonjadog · 01/09/2017 17:38

I have been to many concerts/gigs over the years and never has people throwing urine been an issue. MN is educational at times.

Norland · 01/09/2017 18:13

KityGlitr
"Amazing how many people don't know that gig = work and that the performers get 'the gig' but the customers go to a concert."

Lol, no. A gig is a performance. People can attend, obtain, perform and watch a gig. Colloquial usage differs, but in my locality a gig is a pop/rock/metal/punk type performance whereas a concert is more classical, opera or solo classical musician.

Don't laugh too loud, people will stare.

forum.wordreference.com/threads/gig-vs-concert.209733/

Being a musician, I can tell you that "gig" is used from the musicians point of view. Concert is used from the audience's point of view.

Musicians don't say "we have a concert soon". They say "we have a gig soon". To gig = to play music for an audience.

TO concert = not a verb! To go to a concert = to watch a band

NicolasFlamel · 01/09/2017 18:21

Neutrogenawill go in your place, OP
Grin Grin

AlternativeTentacle · 01/09/2017 18:25

Don't laugh too loud, people will stare

Just read that link. There are a right few pretentious dickheads on that forum aren't there?

DopeOnARope · 01/09/2017 18:26

"gig = work and that the performers get 'the gig' but the customers go to a concert.........."

Technically true, but gig has now come to mean concert / performance in vernacular language. Hence published 'Gig Guides' etc.

EyesUnderARock · 01/09/2017 18:30

Your authority is a thread in a chat room? Much like this one then.
We called them gigs in the 70s, whether playing in or being present at a live performance.

ILoveMillhousesDad · 01/09/2017 18:32

Amazing how many people don't know that gig = work and that the performers get 'the gig' but the customers go to a concert..........

Pedants corner is

Criceta · 01/09/2017 18:35

Being pressurised to go to a metal gig sounds awful. My DH loves going to gigs, and will go on his own if I/ his friends aren't free or don't fancy going - no pressure.

TheLegendOfBeans · 01/09/2017 18:40

Oh boy. The amount of gigs I've been to alone as I really love the bands that NOBODY I know does. Usually also with bands that are either

A) old and male. Thus an extremely high proportion of 50+ males and wee me

B) pure hellish noise. So lots of chin stroking weird lads around...and me

As a small blonde woman who's been going to gigs at home and abroad alone for years I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say...your DP will survive. Hell, he may even make friends. Sell the benefits of the mosh pit without him having to worry you being lost in the crowd. Or better still, just tell him he'll be fine fine fine fine fine.

Seriously, if he shits you out for this that's a red card.

AnUtterIdiot · 01/09/2017 18:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AnUtterIdiot · 01/09/2017 18:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Butterymuffin · 01/09/2017 18:45

If he wanted this to be a wonderful surprise for the OP, he's got a very funny way of going about it.

AprilLady4 · 01/09/2017 18:49
Confused
Norland · 01/09/2017 18:54

EyesUnderARock I'm in my mid-50s and have been watching live music for over 40-years and nobody called them a gig in the '70s (in my locale)

Maybe the 80s but it was considered pretentious if you weren't in the band and spoke in such a way.

Anyway, I didn't intend to derail the OP's thread by casting my fly but I would like to know who the band is.

TheLegendOfBeans · 01/09/2017 18:55

yeah I want to know too. Come on OP, spill.

treaclesoda · 01/09/2017 18:57

I'm a musician and I have never played a gig, only a concert. Mind you, it was as part of an orchestra...Grin

OP you don't have to go. Don't let him guilt you into it. And while you're at it, ask him to stop being a martyr and going to events that he hates, just in order to use it as a point scoring exercise later.

ItsNachoCheese · 01/09/2017 19:08

Dont go if you dont want to

KityGlitr · 01/09/2017 19:34

Okay Norland, not that it makes my opinion any more valid but I'm also a musician, and have been performing in classical orchestras as a violinist and progressive metal bands as a keyboard player for years. And every last one of my colleagues in those groups referred to going to gigs when they were off to see bands, and concerts when it was orchestras. I have to say I have no idea why something that is so open to interpretation and dependent on local vernacular matters to you this much?

In orchestras we would absolutely say we are playing a concert soon!

AlternativeTentacle · 01/09/2017 21:07

I can't talk, my OH has dragged me along to a bloody jazz gig and I hate jazz...

abigailgabble · 01/09/2017 21:11

I would tell him to piss off personally. my dp is always trying to make me do things I hate and I always point out to him that that is fun for him not for me.

AcrossthePond55 · 02/09/2017 01:29

Alternative. I'm American. In the US, a 'gig' is what a musician calls a playing job and a 'concert' is what we go to to hear that musician.

DPotter · 02/09/2017 01:40

Gigs were gigs to us punters in the mid 1970s.............