I just was at a Kamleot concert last weekend. About half the crowd were standing. The singer for the first warm-up ban, in a friendly and fun way said. Hey! It's a metal concert!, let's stand up and rock! (Paraphrase). Everyone stood after that. I feel it is awkward for people to sit when they are right in front of the band. I feel embarrassed as I think the bands would Much Prefer the audience up and giving energy.
Exactly how I felt. James even made a comment about the venue staff handing out quaaludes prior to the show
... the first time it was funny, the second time (right before Home) he seemed like he wanted them to get up. I'm serious when I say this... mid venue from the front row (I'm assuming the Meet & Greet fans) back to the 8th row was a solid wall of sitting people. A few got up during certain songs in the second set and most all of them were up during AWE (which was awesome btw... James NAILED it), but for the majority of the concert, the first 8 or 9 rows sat. The band didn't let it get to them that I could visibly see because they were giving it everything they had all night, but it sapped a bit of my energy honestly.
An exception to what I said above was one young girl (9-10 maybe) standing in that sea of seated people giving it everything she had! Singing, mimicking James' hand motions, a little head banging and jumping up and down... she was feeling it! About half way through ANTR, I started to just feed off her energy and my wife's energy and enjoyed the rest of the show. I told her Dad (I assume it was her Dad) during intermission that it was good to see the next generation learning how to enjoy the rock show
It was a great show.
Venue was maybe 3/5ths full... probably slightly less than half.