Double Live Budokan Comes Alive
 
I watched the DVD of Peter Gabriel’s “Growing Up Live” tonight, and it got me thinking about live performance. For anyone that’s seen Peter Gabriel live, or a tape of one of his shows, it’s obvious that he puts a lot into it, both musically and production-wise. Peter has figured something out -- that if you are going to play a hockey arena or football stadium, you are going to need to give the people a little extra than just the songs. Many artists have come to the same conclusion: Pink Floyd’s flying pigs, the Rolling Stone’s giant inflatable doo-dads, the light-up logo of Kiss (and Weezer) -- all that stuff. The question is, why? Aren’t the songs enough? If I’m a Motley Crüe fan, circa 1990 (and I was), isn’t "Dr. Feelgood" enough for me without Tommy Lee’s drum set spinning upside down? More pointedly, what’s the relationship between rock and roll and the spectacle?

Most artists seem to say the reason that they tour with giant skeleton-men that crash through walls is that without the intimacy of a small club (where they started playing and learned how to perform), the fans need something else to get excited about. And there has to be some truth to that. People have been suckers for big set pieces ever since the crane-operated deus ex machina of Greek drama. That is a lot of what we look for in entertainment -- the fantastic. If this is true, then why worry about the intimate connection with the audience at all? Rarely do you see a band in a club trying to incorporate big special effects, partially because they just don’t fit. Imagine Pink Floyd building a wall that covered the stage at your local club -- the thing would be finished before "Mother". More so, it is because the thrills that people seek can instead be induced by the relative intimacy of the venue. I say relative for a reason though.
 
Only once in my concert going life have I actually met a performer after seeing them play. It was the summer of 1997, and my friend James and I saw one of my favorite artists, Hayden, play at a small, now defunct club called Mecca. There were only about 50 people in attendance that night, so during the show there was quite a bit of banter back and forth between the artist and the audience. Long story short, very good performance. After the show, Hayden was just kind of hanging around talking to people, so James and I walked up to say hi. Now, all my life, I assumed that if I ever got to meet a musician that I really dug, I would be able to strike up a great conversation, amazing them with insightful questions and interpretations of their work. They would be able to tell that I had the intellect and sensitivity to be a great songwriter also, and they would take me under their wing and get me signed. So I walked up to one of the artists I most idolized, and this is a rough transcription of our conversation:
 
Me: Hey man, great show tonight.
 
Hayden: Thanks.
 
Me: I really love you first album. It helped a friend of mine when his girlfriend dumped him.
 
Hayden: Oh, thanks.
 
Me: Uh, see ya later.
 
Hayden: Yeah, see ya.
 
Needless to say, he never called me to write songs together. What this taught me was that the communion the audience wants from the artists when they play (and which many artists want as well) only exists when onstage. I don’t really know Hayden, even though I know his songs. The connection stops when he becomes a real person, not someone on stage. But that is not to say that the connection between the artist and audience is artificial -- just temporary.
 
One more personal anecdote: a couple of years ago, I saw Elvis Costello perform, and, thanks to a good friend of mine, I had front row seats. Elvis, having been doing this a while, knew how to work a crowd. I figured he would know how to work the back of the room, but it was amazing how he worked the front of it. Just a little eye contact here and a well time smirk there, and I felt like I knew him, and he knew that I knew what he was singing about. That connection is very powerful, especially when one is already "sold" on the material. At the end of the night, I knew that Elvis didn’t know that "I Want You" was the soundtrack to my drunken summer of 1999, but it sure felt like that when he played it.
 
Which leads me back to Peter Gabriel. What he seems to have really figured out is that the songs are what is going to move people, and he has found a way to artistically express the songs inside an cavernous arena. It is popular to decry big production numbers as pretentious, but in my humble estimation, this is the best kind of pretension possible. What he is doing is taking the energy or meaning of a song and translating it visually. Whether that is as simple as the choreography on "In Your Eyes" or the human hamster ball used for "Growing Up", the spectacle serves the song, giving the audience what is really wants, which is to connect to the music.
 
Of course, Spinal Tap might disagree with me...

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Anthony Eldridge is the footnote's resident music-head. you should email him, or go and check out his blog, which is never updated.