Damon Albarn Thinks People On Phones At Concerts Is A Performer Problem, He Explained In Response To Bob Dylan’s Policy

Since the dawn of cellphones, there have been those who have used them to film videos at concerts, and there have been those who have complained about it. Uproxx’s Steven Hyden previously argued that filming at shows is good, but Bob Dylan appears to disagree.

Dylan has a tour coming up, and on that tour, he has banned attendees from using their phones during the show. This is a policy with which Gorillaz and Blur leader Damon Albarn disagrees.

In an interview with BBC, Albarn said of Dylan’s phone-free tour, “If you start banning things, where does it end? I think you’ve just got to turn up and do your thing. People won’t want to be on their phone if you’re engaging with them correctly.”

This comes not long after at a concert last week, Fantasia called out her fans for being on their phones, saying, “So I wanna tell you now: We’re living in a world where y’all can’t have fun because you’ve been too busy trying to film stuff. So wack now. And we as performers, we be up here working and y’all [gestures holding up phone]. You know the money that you pay in here tonight you could’ve done something else with it. So if you paid the money, you might as well get your [money’s worth].”