When Sheryl Crow started touring, first as a backup singer for Michael Jackson in the late 80’s, and then to promote her own albums in the mid-90’s, cell phones weren’t nearly as prevalent as they are now, and people certainly weren’t holding them up at concerts to take pictures or record videos. So now, over 20 years later, when Sheryl Crow is on stage performing, and she looks out into the crowd and sees hundreds, if not thousands of people watching her show through the screen on their phone, trying to take pictures or videos, she’s learned to adapt to it. “You can’t put the tooth paste back in the tube,” she says, “and with young people today [the phone is] an extension of their arm to have their camera, their ability to throw something up on the net. It’s not going to change.”
Before it became so common to have cell phones at concerts, Sheryl says, “In early days when it was happening, I would always encourage people, ‘Hey take your pictures now and you’ve got a whole song to do that. And then you can put it in your pocket.’”
These days Sheryl has learned to adapt and to find people in the crowd who are in the moment and not watching her through their phone. She says, “I am all about the connection that you make in the room with people who are present, and how you feel a connection with total strangers even in this common experience. I’m a little sad that we don’t allow ourselves to experience that anymore, to the point where, not only do we not allow ourselves, we wouldn’t even know what that felt like. So, it is what it is, is how I feel and I do my work and I find the people that are tapped in and present and that’s who I play to.”
Sheryl has several tour dates lined up through the end of the year, where fans will get to hear her hits, as well as some of the new songs off her brand new album, Threads, which is available now.
Sheryl Crow – cell phones at concerts :52
“It’s about the same as technology and streaming and all that stuff. You can’t put the tooth paste back in the tube, and with young people today it’s an extension of their arm to have their camera, their ability to throw something up on the net. It’s not going to change. And in early days when it was happening, I would always encourage people, ‘Hey take your pictures now and you’ve got a whole song to do that. And then you can put it in your pocket.’ And I say I’m a dinosaur. I am all about the connection that you make in the room with people who are present, and how you feel a connection with total strangers even in this common experience. I’m a little sad that we don’t allow ourselves to experience that anymore, to the point where, not only do we not allow ourselves, we wouldn’t even know what that felt like. So, it is what it is, is how I feel and I do my work and I find the people that are tapped in and present and that’s who I play to.”