Banning phones at gigs? That's a bad call

Sydney Morning Herald

25-06-2025

Pop star Sabrina Carpenter has been considering something drastic. No, it's not pants and thank god for that. Rather, she's been thinking of banning phones at her gigs.
She came to this conclusion after attending a Silk Sonic gig in Las Vegas, which was her first mistake. No one should be taking professional advice from Bruno Mars, let alone his side project.
'I genuinely felt like I was back in the '70s,' Carpenter told Rolling Stone of the gig, which required concert-goers to lock their phones in pouches before entry. 'Wasn't alive, genuinely felt like I was there. Everyone's singing, dancing, looking at each other, and laughing. It really, really just felt so beautiful.'
In an age of such technological severity, it's understandable that a 26-year-old like Sabrina might romanticise the '70s, an era when everybody – [checks notes] – looked at each other. But she's wrong: phones at gigs are a gift from god (Steve Jobs).
As someone whose career was built on the virality of her Nonsense outros, those bawdy live clips her fans disseminated across TikTok that first propelled her to stardom, Carpenter should know this. If it wasn't for phones at gigs, she'd still be locked in a Disney dungeon, trying to fulfil her contractual obligations to Hollywood Records.
While it's fun to picture Sabrina as a tiny Boomer, yelling at kids to put away their devices and Live.In.The.Moment, she must be aware that her fans already seem to be fully enjoying their moments at her gigs, even behind their little screens?
Anyone who's been to a gig recently knows the heartwarming sight: a gig-goer, usually a teenage girl, holds a phone up high with the camera turned towards her, recording herself singing along at the top of her lungs, spiritually in sync with what's going on onstage.
In the old days, people used to point cameras at the artist on stage instead – Flo Rida, for example, or Fall Out Boy – as a sort of keepsake memento, a pop memory to be cherished in perpetuity. What a waste! Who cares what's going on onstage? The important thing, as these kids understand, is capturing what's going on in you. I barely know what I looked like at 21, and yet I have a hard drive full of photos of Jimmy Eat World at The Metro in 2003. It's not right.