is it so much to ask?

Call me crazy. Maybe I'm alone here. Maybe my concept of public, paid-admission musical performances is just different than most people's. Maybe I'm a freak.

But when I go to a concert, I want, really more than anything, to HEAR THE PERFORMER.

Not the people "whispering" - with full engagement of their vocal cords - behind me the *entire freaking time* (I'm thinking specifically of the Mason Jennings concert a few months ago - not that I hold grudges - but this seems to happen to me just about every single concert I go to).

And not, by any stretch of the imagination, the woman who feels like getting involved in the impromptu kora-guitar-more kora-singing jam session by hijacking it with an Aretha Franklin-soul-diva song about pajamas.

PAJAMAS.

We came to hear this amazingly gifted man, who traveled halfway around the world and then through the backroads of western MA, play his beautiful kora. OK, it turned into a jam session. And yeah, the woman had a pretty nice voice. Which I'd be fine putting up with sitting (preferably strong drink in hand) at a local dive bar's amateur open mic night, where presumably I would have paid far less for admission and had far lower expectations for my evening of musical enjoyment. NOT HERE.

Is it so much to ask?