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Comment by dominicr | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat related, my brother is a musician (playing what you might call experimental music) and says Japan is an amazing place to play as the audience pays close attention to what you're doing and remains quiet whilst you're playing. It seems the culture there is that it's music lovers going to these venues for the primary purpose of experiencing the music. Whereas in a lot of places I've been people are going to hang out with friends and the music is secondary.

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that has less to do with japan and more to do with the fact that niche music doesn’t attract laypeople. you can find the same kinds of shows all over the united states for example

I think Japan might actually be different in regards to music performances. I know folks from a few lesser-known punk bands, the kind that might get 50 or so folks at a typical club show on a good night in the US, that did tours in Japan. They described the same kind of reverence at their shows in Japan, and punk isn't exactly known for reverent crowds. This was 10 to 15 years back, so things may be different now?

For the local music scene in my city (Kitchener ON), if you want a quiet, respectful, focused environment in which to enjoy, skip the pub sets and go to the house shows instead. Almost all the local artists play them, and there are a lot that are pseudo-public. Like, they're not advertised openly, so you need to ask the artist to find out, but you also don't necessarily need to know the hosts— it's very much a friends-of-friends type affair, and in my experience very welcoming.

If it was just because of the genre, their brother would notice that anecdote everywhere and not just Japan. The drummer in my current band plays with several groups (very common for a skilled drummer in NYC), and he just got back from a 2 week tour in Japan and had the exact same things to say. Crowds were way more respectful and focused on the music.

I agree though that in general niche music is more respectful than more mainstream music, at least in the USA. Harsh noise and stoner sludge/doom shows have had the most polite people in the mosh pits in my experience.

As someone who played in piano bars and bar bands, this does kind of sound amazing. With either case, it really depended on the venue, but usually it was a 30/70 split of people paying attention vs just having background music unless we did something like "Piano Man" or one of those classic bar songs like "Keep Your Hands to Yourself". (this was in TN and KY, although almost never in Nashville)

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