From the Beginning
Part 3, In which I channel the spirit of the cranky old man I will inevitably become:
Our performance last night went well, far better than I imagined considering the set-up. The place looked like a big metal barn, a warehouse space converted to a theatre by setting up a stage and pointing some folding chairs at it. It looked like the sort of place where a rave might break out at any moment, complete with massive club sound system, video projection screens on every wall, sunken cocktail bar, and a stage full of DJ equipment. I almost expected the staff at the door to distribute glow-sticks to people as they entered. The show went well, though. The tech people did a great job, the sound was awesome, and the Divine Ms. R did her usual stellar job of pulling the crowd in and keeping them in spite of the distractions of the space.
Which were considerable. During the performance, the video screens on the walls of the space continued displaying giant "ambient imagery" loops. Evidently Ms. R prevailed upon the organizers to at least turn off the screen behind the stage, which was nice of them.
I am not sure why, but we now live in an age when it is important that a screen be flashing moving imagery somewhere within our field of vision at all times. The rise of this trend has proven to be an increasing irritation to me when I play in bars, as it often results in audience members tuning out the performer on stage ( who after all does not fly or explode or morph into a talking toilet brush) in favor of staring at the fascinating if ultimately meaningless stimuli offered by the video monitors. The best example I’ve ever experienced was the bar that ran footage of naked women gyrating on a pole while the band played. There’s nothing like coming in second to cheaply-shot, soundless video of strippers to give one a thorough grasp of one’s place on the entertainment food chain.
When the DJs that followed us took the stage the reasoning behind these screens’ presence became instantly clear: There is nothing inherently compelling about watching a headphone-wearing hipster guy stand behind a bank of turntables, occasionally pushing a button or making one of the small hand motions required to scratch a record. It’s really about as interesting as watching somebody work a cash register. The music blasting forth from the sound system may be eminently danceable and may represent an unbreakable wall of pulsing rhythm that few human bands could hope to match, but the lack of any sort of theatrical presence (or in fact movement) from the performers combined with the fact that they are not so much generating music as they are pushing the "on" button on a very fancy stereo virtually necessitates some kind of additional visual distraction. Hence, videos of burning radial tires and a battery of spinning, flashing multicolored lights. Voila! A gripping spectacle of live musical entertainment!
Of course the point of these events isn’t the performers on stage at all. It’s the crowd, the groove, the vibe in the room. It’s about people who are younger, hipper and sexier than me dancing the night away in (and perhaps on) ecstasy to a continuous, throbbing beat. And hopefully hooking up afterwards.
But I guess my worries that this will spawn a generation of audiences that don’t feel obligated to actually face the stage when people are up there performing for them were laid to rest by last night’s experience. Not only did they choose to watch the performing humans instead of the giant dilating eyeball graphic they could have been watching, but for the most part they shut up and listened, laughed at the funny bits and generally interacted like they were at an actual event and not a cunning electronic representation of an event taking place in their living room.
So I guess all hope is not lost after all.