I was delighted to have tickets for the Tracy Chapman concert at the Brighton Centre on Tuesday.

She is a brilliant performer and seeing her on stage was the highlight of my husband's birthday.

The event was well attended and it was great to see so many people enthralled by Chapman's voice.

Why, then, were we unlucky enough to sit next to an extremely irritating man?

Not only was he considerably overweight and encroached on my seat but he felt it was acceptable to join in with all her songs.

He was evidently not a singer and would be well advised not to give up his day job.

He also jumped around in his seat, thinking he was in time with the music, and applauded so hard, I spent half the evening with his elbows viciously thumping me.

A polite request to mime, rather than sing, was ignored and when we said we had paid to listen to Chapman and not to him, he said, "I'm not stopping you".

But his drone did nothing to enhance her performance.

When will these selfish people realise that, if they want to sing along to their own CDs in private, that's fine, but that it is bad manners to accompany the performer at an event attended by people who truly enjoy good music and don't appreciate having to listen to such intolerable background noise?

What a wonderful place the world would be if only such people would stay at home, rather than inflicting themselves upon true music lovers.

-Monica Broom, Brighton