Entertainment For Lively Minds
Enormo-gigs - who needs 'em?
I read the article in this month's Word, about the rise and rise of the modern rock show as full-on, high-cost multimedia spectacle, with a sense of deepening gloom and depression. For the first time in decades, I actually felt perhaps I was losing touch with the current rock/pop world. I actually felt the words "In my day..." rising to be spoken, like the archetypal Old Phart...
In my day, when dinosaurs (Yes, Floyd, ELP) roamed the Earth, you went to gigs first and foremost to see your favourite bands play fantastic music, in the company of a couple of thousand other fans of the band. If there was a good lightshow, or if there were a few amusing costume changes (hello, Peter Gabriel), that all added to the fun, but the major excitement was seeing your heroes playing That Music. Live.
Now, however, it seems the main reason we go to gigs is for the Barnum & Bailey, Cecil B. de Mille spectacle of it all. The choreographed lighting! The dancers! The massively architectural stage sets! And buried in it all, struggling to find a bit of legroom amongst all the props, the music. Poor little bugger, it hardly stands a chance does it? The most telling snippet in the piece was the image of poor Larry Mullen Jr, manfully striving not to stray from the click-track, so as not to throw into disarray the hidden rrom full of electronics which Edge's guitar effects require. That must be the saddest case of the tail wagging the dog I've ever read.
I blame videos, to some extent. Ever since "did you hear the new single by...?" became "did you see the new video by...?" the emphasis has been steadily moving away from the music to the spectacle of the rock band / pop performer. Don't blame Simon Cowell for this one, blame MTV. Video did indeed kill the radio star, and now, when it comes to high-profile bands, it's killing live performance, as fans want the live equivalent of a music video.
Well, they can keep it. I've not been to an enormo-gig for over a decade, and after reading that article, I have no desire whatsoever to pay huge sums of money to see a circus. I'd rather go and see a band. Playing music. In a pub or small club. That's where the REAL gigs are happening. The other stuff is more like the Teletubbies' LaLa Land than a real gig.
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In that case
You will not be going to see the Daleks and Cybermen on tour then...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10118464.stm
Arenas are just big sheds. Hell, the one I worked for was previously a railway station (but a lovely listed building). Not all shows were indoor Disneyland fireworks though. The demand for such shows arises out of the desire for punters to encounter live music. Even if a hall is half-full it is stil 2/3 times busier than the local theatre-style venue
Less effort on the part of the musician, in terms of shows played = more money in the bank for all concerned. Cynical moi? Great to work on, better when ligging, not my cuppa when paying.
I agree with you...
The first show I saw of the modern type was Michael Jackson on his Dangerous tour. It was a uniquely dispiriting spectacle, perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the video to Billie Jean was showing on the big screens as he was singing it. I think it was probably my least favourite of the hundreds of concerts I've been to.
The kind of entertainment I most enjoy is encapsulated by the couple of hours I spent in the company of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham at the Embassy Rooms in London in 1999. Two superlative musicians, no fuss, a great venue. Thank you very much... that's really all I need.
Never again
will I go to a large arena gig. The last one I did was to see Coldplay at the M.E.N Arena. Impersonal, unengaging and just like listening to the record only on a better sound system. Nothing communal or revelatory occured, there were no technical hitches, there was no concept of a band giving and an audience giving back. We stood, we watched, we looked at everybody else, I thought about where I'd parked the car, what we'd be doing for food later, what I had on at work the next day, oaccsionally I'd listen to the 4 blokes on stage when I heard a familiar refrain. The highlight was my then pregnant wife clutching my hand and putting it on her belly as the baby kicked inside.
Ahh. Bisto
Do you think your baby was trying to tell you something?
My current wife had the same experience at a Jethro Tull concert. Baby did not merely kick, she somersaulted and nearly shot out as the band started immediately and suddenly at setting 11.
Before my time but wished I had been there
Well, I suppose we've got the best of both worlds.
There's the enormodome stuff if you want that, and the local scenes and smaller gigs for the more intimate settings. I suppose the one benefit now is at least you can see the band from wherever you are in the cow shed on those television things they fly from the roof, or wherever.
But if what you're asking for is the option to see the likes of Coldplay in less cavernous circumstances, and I think even I would quite like that, then I fear that the answer is going to be a big fat Forget It.
This is not a new situation, of course. Here's a monumentally stoned Keith Richards talking about this very problem, back in the olden days, starting at 2.10.
Re. your second para...
No problem there. I don't think I am, or have ever been, so in love with a particular band that I would rather see them in one of those places than not see them at all. If that's the kind of gig they're choosing to play, then they're not the kind of band I'm choosing to go see. However much I love the records. (And, er, I'm certainly not talking about Coldplay here). Although my main beef isn't really with bands playing large venues per se, it's the lack of spontaneity required by shows which are sequenced and choreographed to the nth degree that is my major turn-off.
Well, I suppose we've got the best of both worlds.
There's the enormodome stuff if you want that, and the local scenes and smaller gigs for the more intimate settings. I suppose the one benefit now is at least you can see the band from wherever you are in the cow shed on those television things they fly from the roof, or wherever.
But if what you're asking for is the option to see the likes of Coldplay in less cavernous circumstances, and I think even I would quite like that, then I fear that the answer is going to be a big fat Forget It.
This is not a new situation, of course. Here's a monumentally stoned Keith Richards talking about this very problem, back in the olden days, starting at 2.10.