As someone who goes to a shit-ton of concerts, I have mixed feelings about this. One part of me sides with a performer like Ray, thinking “of course people should be respectful to whoever is on stage.” The other part of me thinks “Well, they paid good money to get in the door. That’s money that’s now in the performer’s pocket, so who cares what people do at shows?” The performers who tend to get butthurt about this are the ones who have never had to play to audiences of assholes at rowdy bars where no one gives a shit about what they are doing.
As a concert attendee I’ve had talkers ruin shows because they wouldn’t shut the fuck up while I was trying to listen. But a couple words to each other in the middle of a song isn’t going to hurt anyone, especially if you’re in a big crowd. Ray LaMontagne is the one who looks like the real asshole here, since the couple he told to “shut the fuck up” was talking about how they were going to dance to one of his songs at their wedding.
Probably going to change that now.