PRETTY SOON, YOU MIGHT NOT EVEN NEED TO EVER LOOK AT THE STAGE

Proving that large gigs these days barely has anything to do with music, the people behind recent Avril Lavigne and Green Day gigs have hooked up a big monitor to display text messages above the stage while the band is on.

The people who've cooked up the technology are thrilled with their own brilliance:

"We've done this at bars with 30 people and at shows with 40,000 people, and the dynamics are totally different," said Alex Campbell, CEO of Chicago's Vibes Media, one of a growing number of companies that supply venues with the software to do in-house text messaging. "At a House of Blues show with 2,000 people, it's more of a back-and-forth conversation and interaction between people, like at a Las Vegas [show] with Hoobastank where we had a guy dump his girlfriend via texting and then all these other guys were trying to pick her up. But at a show with 30,000 people, it's just about getting your name up there and giving a shout-out and getting noticed."

We're not sure if this merely an admission that megagigs now are so huge it's virtually impossible to even spot the artist miles and miles away from you, so you actually need to have something to keep your interest; or else it's merely accepting that there's bugger all happening on the stage at a Hoobastank gig and people would rather read some barely-literate SMS messages from people they don't know than actually listen to the band.

Of course, a lot of it is merely about opening up the crowd for being shaken down by commercial companies - although they deny there's any money in it for them. Yet:

Sprint, one of many major carriers that offer the service, coordinated the texting at a recent Avril Lavigne show and has signed on to provide the service for Bon Jovi's upcoming tour in support of their new album, Have a Nice Day. "It's not a moneymaker for us, but we're hoping that as it becomes more popular it will become a standard part of what the tour manager thinks about when he's putting together the lighting, pyro and other equipment he needs for a tour," said John Styers, director of data communications services for Sprint.

"This really extends what is typically a two-hour event into a longer experience," he continued. "An hour after the show you can ping the phones of the people who sent messages and let them know about a special Web site with exclusive behind-the-scenes material and more information on the band."

... or, presumably, an exciting new telephony service from Sprint telecom.

We like the idea of concerts being interactive. But the best way, surely, is to play your arse off and make everyone leap about like they're crazy?

music avril lavigne sprint hoobastank