Damon Albarn disagrees with Bob Dylan over mobile phone gig ban

Blur’s frontman Damon Albarn does not agree with Bob Dylan’s policy to ban mobile phones from his upcoming UK tour.

In an interview for BBC Breakfast, Albarn explained his reservations: “If you start banning things where does it end? I think you’ve just got to turn up and do your thing.

“People won’t want to be on their phone if you’re engaging with them correctly.”

Earlier this week, Bob Dylan announced a 10-date UK tour in November, including shows in Bournemouth, Nottingham and Wolverhampton.

At every venue, fans, on arrival, will be made to switch off their mobile phones and place them in a Yondr pouch, which will be locked by staff.

The gig-goer can hold onto the pouch during the show, but it will only be reopened if they leave the building.

Yondr pouches have been used in US schools since 2014 to try and tackle the problem of phones disturbing lessons.

Dave Chappelle, the comedian, was an early adopter in the entertainment world, employing the use of them for a tour in 2015, as a way of protecting his material. His fellow stand-up, Chris Rock, also used the pouches for his 2018 UK Arena tour.

In 2022, Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, organised a phone-free UK tour.

Music journalist Mark Beaumont attended the show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, writing in NME: “The crowd was more pumped and enthused than any I’d seen in the digital age. Instead of screens in the air, there were hands.

“Instead of lit-up faces lowered like a 4G prayer meeting, there were bobbing heads entirely engaged with the show.”

In an interview on Apple Music with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Jack White explained his reasoning:

“I don’t have a setlist. I really react to the crowd, just like a stand-up comedian would. If I finish a song and it’s ‘tah-dah!’ and it’s crickets. I don’t know what to do now.

“What I don’t like, is that how they really feel or are they just not even paying attention because they are doing this, they are texting?

“When you go to a movie theatre, a symphony, church, there are all these moments in life when people put them away and engage.

“I love the idea of rock concerts being punk as hell, I love that. But I don’t like the idea that I don’t know what to play next.

Alicia Keys, Childish Gambino, Guns N Roses and the Lumineers have also tried out the system.

Arguments against the use of locked pouches at gigs include frustration at longer entry and exit queues, a desire to check in with babysitters and a fear of not having a phone if a major incident happened, particularly after the Manchester Arena attack.

As for Bob Dylan, on the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan track I Shall Be Free, he sang; “Well, my telephone rang, it would not stop.”

But the only explanation given for his use of Yondr pouches, is on the press release for his tour, which simply says it will “make the occasion even more unique”.

Albarn was speaking ahead of the cinema release of a new Blur documentary To the End, which is a behind-the-scenes look at the band preparing for last summer’s shows at Wembley Stadium.

The concert footage shows thousands of fans holding their lit-up mobile phones aloft, as the band play their hit Tender, doing the job once reserved for a cigarette lighter.

Albarn said the Sunday-night show was the best gig they have ever played, and mobile phones played their part in creating the atmosphere.