I, too, cannot understand why people go to musical events and want to spend their time talking.

I go to music events to listen to the music and find it annoying when someone in the group wants to chat at me while a singer is performing. Even if I don't respond they will quite often keep going and have to be shushed to shut them up.

At Old Songs this last weekend, during one of the workshops, there were a couple of people behind me who were droning on while one of the performers was talking about the song they were about to sing. I did my usual - turned round and glared - and they shut up.

At an open air concert featuring Jose Carreras a group near me were chatting through the opening number by a choir (The Chorus Of The Hebrew Slaves)and I tried to ignore them but when they continued to chat while the great man (IMHO) was performing I just told them that I had paid to listen to the music, not them.

Sometimes one needs to be a bit rude to shut rude people up - just fighting fire with fire.