Neil Young Chastises New York Crowd for Clapping Along and Shouting Between Songs

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jan 8, 2014

Plenty of artists request that fans refrain from using their phones to photograph or film live shows, but at a recent Neil Young concert in New York, the legendary singer-songwriter apparently made a couple of slightly more unusual demands of his audience: no clapping along and no shouting between songs.

The New York Times reports that, during Young's gig at Carnegie Hall on Monday (January 6), he chastised the crowd for clapping out of time during an acoustic number. "Wrong!" he said, while waving his hand to stop the clapping. "It's something that you probably don't know, but there's a hell of a distance between you and me."

Between songs, fans apparently shouted out to the performer and made setlist requests; at one point, as Young fiddled with a harmonica, he reportedly looked towards some vocal fans in the balcony and said, "You guys finished? No, you paid real good money to get in here, so you should be able to listen to each other."

As tense and awkward as this situation sounds, it luckily doesn't look as if this will be a pattern for Young; Billboard indicates the subsequent gig last night (January 7) went more smoothly, and the fans were apparently quiet and polite.

Young will play two more shows at Carnegie Hall on January 9 and 10. After that, he will play some Canadian gigs as part of the "Honor the Treaties" concerts with Diana Krall.

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