I try very hard to avoid conversation during music mostly for my own sake, and only secondarily out of respect/sympathy for the performers.

Not only do I prefer to listen to the music without interruption, I am really only able to hear the music. Whether it's because of old age, or the cumulative effect of countless evenings in live-music venues, or whatever, I can't hear a word anyone tries to say to me when even moderately loud music is being played. And I certainly don't intend to make any extra effort to participate in conversations that I do not wish to prolong!

My personal experience is that most people, most of the time, behave fairly appropriately in regard to maintaining a level of decorum in the face of musical performance. Of course, I live in a town where MOST music venues are NOT "folk," the music is generally pretty loud (jazz played by multiple horns and drums or blues/rock/pop on electric guitars/bass and drums), and crowds are not expected to maintain respectful silence.

However, at the few venues where quiet attentive listening is the norm ~ not only for folk/acoustic music, for serious jazz, too ~ the audience is generally well-behaved, if only because they're interested in getting their money's worth.

I'm a little surprised and dismayed to learn that audience rudeness, and fellow-musician rudeness, seems to be such a common problem in the UK. Holding sessions and singarounds, etc., in public houses where there is no admission charge might explain noisy audiences, but there's no reasonable explanation, and no excuse, for players making life miserable for each other...