Clapping on the on-beat sounds weird and wrong on (most?) songs. In (most?) 4/4 songs, that means clapping on the 1 and 3 sounds bad and 2 and 4 sounds good/normal.
But an audience of a bunch of random folks just getting excited can get it wrong!
This video of Harry Connick Jr. extending a bar just one extra beat to adjust the audience to clapping on the correct beat is extremely friggin cool.
(via Alan Smith)
With you there. Though I do remember during a trip to rural Guatemala that the locals clapped on 1 and 3 during a church service, so I wonder if there’s a cultural difference in this practice?
Almost certainly. Probably more about music genre than culture though? Or both?