July 17, 2016 —
Smartphones are everywhere. And if you’ve been to a concert, what with so many raised up to record their owner’s favorite band or artist, it’s almost as if phones are half of the audience. I’m old school, even with photos, meaning I rely so much more on my memory than a photo, certainly than a video. Indeed, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken a photo only to look at the photo and think it doesn’t capture all that I remember. It’s that way with a photo of the vastness of the desertscape, of the ocean, of the buildings in a large downtown. If you’ve ever been up front at a concert and turned around to see an audience reacting to a song, hands raised, it’s the same thing. No photo can really do that justice; no photo can really fit that entire scene.
Still, we take our photos; we take our videos, our phones that extra attendee at the concerts. Indeed, we yearn for videos of past performances, performances that are lodged in our memories, if we were lucky enough to have been there, performances that we’ll gladly watch on the grainiest of Super 8 lore. But those videos have another element. There simply isn’t any phone in the audience, not a phone anywhere. The audience is fully participating in the moment.
I know I only record some songs for that reason – I want to participate; I want to remember the songs I really love with my mind; I want to experience it for that now moment, fully, without trying to get it on video, a video I know can’t really do the experience justice. And I’m pretty sure that sentiment is because I saw the concerts of yesteryear. And that gives me questions.
What about the bands, the artists? What do they see in the audience? What do they think of all the raised phones obscuring people’s faces? I know some bands and artists encourage recording, but does it change the vibe for the artist? Surely modern artists know of the time before phones. Do they wish for an audience like the audiences of the artists who influenced us all?
I’m guilty, truly guilty, because I prefer to hear my music live, so I watch these Youtube videos done by others more than I listen to the studio recordings. I am grateful for them. But there are other videos done of events, and I find myself appreciating them more and more, pro-shot performances. My new-music fav Ellie Goulding has many of concerts out there on pro-shot clips.
The latest to pop up in my feed made me want to talk about all the concerts I have seen, concerts that I really haven’t written about. I think there is something one takes from every concert, especially if one fancies them self a musician. Indeed, I think anyone who has a serious passion for music fancies them self a musician, whether they know it yet or not, but that’s an entirely different topic. My point now, is recording. And my latest Ellie Goulding video discovery answered my question. Indulging my Ellie thing that not many share, check out the video below at approx.. 2:23-2:34; she asks for phones down.
She talks about it in the song after too, if you’re interested, I put a link to the whole concert, below. Essentially she asks, again, for phones down, referring to the older artists, like Michael Jackson and Kate Bush, where the audiences had no phones. People mostly comply, and she is visibly moved, thanking the audience for keeping their phones away and calling it “beautiful.” (Show video, 43:03-43:10). And a small digression, but wow that dance sequence in song I posted, Explosions…. I really have to get … well that back. I so very much love to dance. It’s the closest thing there is to being able to fly.
And back to my point. The artists would rather we put the phones up and watch, and sing, and raise our hands, and be inspired … be in the moment. It really is better. And even with her, even in this modern day, with modern day artists and audiences, it is possible to have an audience with no phones, well at least in Brazil, it is. The cover photo is a screen capture from Ellie’s 2014 show for Lollapalooza, another great pro-shot show on Youtube; not a phone in sight, and look at the faces on those people… on Ellie. Mind you, I firmly believe that Brazilian audiences are amazing; they make the artists better too.
And even more so, perhaps all of this is indicative of how we should live – fully, not worrying about capturing a photo or a video so that someone else can see what you saw, because honestly, they can’t. Perhaps that’s why they call it live (the adjective). So… Just live (the verb). Take it all in. Dance. Sing. Raise your hands. Make it personal … because that’s what music’s all about, that’s what performance is all about, that’s what life is about.
Entire show Ellie Goulding 2015 show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqoVDiR0d8k