The balance was off at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday. Seconds after an emotional Thom Yorke bitterly and justifiably spoke of a silence that was deafening, an audience got loud at the worst time. Radiohead had the blues in Toronto, and rock ’n’ roll needs a soundcheck.

The concert, at what used to be called Air Canada Centre, was the first local appearance by the British art-rock icons in more than half a decade. In 2012, a stage collapsed hours before the band was set to perform at Toronto’s Downsview Park, resulting in the death of their British drum technician, Scott Johnson. Since then, Radiohead has avoided concerts here as a negligence case has been bogged down in legal complexities. After a mistrial and a stay of charges, the case is in limbo. Deep into its Thursday concert, singer Yorke expressed his outrage:

“Six years ago … we wanted to do a show in Toronto. The stage collapsed, killing one of our colleagues and friends. The people who should be held accountable, are not being held accountable. In your city, the silence is … deafening.”

Story continues below advertisement

After the statement, the band members bowed their heads – a moment of silence not explicitly requested, but clearly implied. Most of the audience observed it, but scattered boors mistook the dead air as an opportunity for catcalls. Others yelled useless admonishments in return, creating an awkward, indecorous situation, like a hurdy-gurdy monkey at a funeral.

It was painful to witness.

Yorke and Radiohead regained the occasion by pointedly and powerfully closing the show with 1997’s Karma Police – “arrest this man” – but a potent, moving concert was partially spoiled. A moment was disrupted by ill-mannered behaviour, something that happens all too often in music venues.

Earlier this month, I attended a Neil Young solo show at Detroit’s Fox Theatre, where the troubadour was in great spirit and voice. Constantly, however, audience members shouted out song requests and interrupted the stories a visibly frustrated Young sought to tell. “Which one of you is the loudest?” he asked at one point. “I mean, besides me, because I have a P.A. system.”

The following day, Young posted a journal entry on his website, thoughtfully explaining how the loudmouths had ruined the concert:

“On nights like last night in Detroit, it seems that the yellers are not with me. They are interested in celebrating their love of the music in another way. There is nothing wrong with that for them. They are having the time of their lives out there. Unfortunately, for the audience, everyone else misses out on what might have happened while I am distracted by those celebrating their favourite song titles,” Young wrote. “I could slip deeply into a song if not distracted, but I’m just relegated to the surface while fighting off the distraction, and so is the rest of the audience.”

Young is right about the yellers – they’re not with him, they’re not with us, they’re not with anybody. Imposing themselves into the occasion, they are concert narcissists and Free Bird-shouting hyenas. I witnessed security teams and ushers patrolling the Fox Theatre crowd with vigilance, making sure no smartphones were recording the show. But the yellers? They interrupted with impunity.

Story continues below advertisement

Why is such behaviour accepted? No one is allowed to blurt out “Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9!” at a Toronto Symphony Orchestra concert and no one shouts at Hugh’s Room shows. And yet, it’s okay to yell “Sundown” at Gordon Lightfoot in Massey Hall, as I witnessed this month. (Lightfoot, by the way, had already played the song when the inebriated fellow requested it.)

As for Radiohead, they could have played a song for the oafs who stole their solemnity. Creep, one might suggest.