The timid finger gently taps the back of the dancing concertgoer, currently engaged in a grotesque pelvic thrust that is part macarena, part electric slide, and all horror.

The concertgoer spins around as if shook from a dream, to hear a kind request to sit down so that the face of the timid finger can see the performer on the stage. The dancer answers by gruffly threatening future physical abnormalities and by telling the person to do something to herself that is physically impossible.

The dancer spins back around and continues his boogie-woogie-woogie. The woman sits in her seat dejectedly. Her seat happens to be a wheelchair.

This, of course, makes the dancing man the world’s biggest asshole.

I witnessed this at the recent Elvis Costello/Bob Dylan October 2007 show in St. Louis.

Only the intervention of a security guard convinced the dancer to at least move to the aisle, so that he could continue his gyrations without blocking the woman’s view. It also led to me to ponder the question of what qualifies as appropriate behavior for a music concert, since I have seen too many cases where norms of human decency have been scuttled in favor of behavior that would rival that of our knuckle-dragging ancestors.

The fact that this type of thuggish behavior has mostly happened at concerts by “established” acts (Dylan, Costello, R.E.M), and not at shows by less-known indie acts (The National, Silver Jews) is a topic probably best left for another day.

What follows is my humble attempt to create a modern day Hammurabi Code for Concertgoers. Minus the punishment by dismemberment and disembowelment.

Reserved Seating

You’ve just thrown down hundreds of dollars and donated several pints of blood in order to afford a couple Neil Young tickets, yet you aren’t exactly thrilled to be sitting at the top of the mountain:

• Your reserved seat number is not a suggestion or a general approximation of where to sit. If your ticket says Nosebleed Balcony Seat 236, your posterior should be drawn like a magnet to the confines of that seat’s dimensions.
• If you are occupying someone else’s seat and you get called out on it, don’t feign surprise and act like you were unaware you parked it in the wrong spot. Your hangdog expression and slow ascent into the wilds of less cozy environs within the venue gives you away every time.
• People occasionally leave their seats to get a drink or buy $50 tour sweatshirts. When they come back to their seat, you shouldn’t be sitting there like a rock-n-roll Goldilocks.