It’s a sort of sensory deprivation. Going to a show and not seeing the performers. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a perplexing trend.
I remember my first rock concert experiences and how I became an avid concert goer. I was Maybe 11 or 12 years old. Out of a coincidence I didn’t then appreciate, Edgar Winter’s White Trash was playing at Albany, New York’s Palace Theatre on the same night as my dad’s Presbytery meeting which was at a church in close proximity.
So, me, my parents, my dad’s secretary, my older brother and his friend piled into my dad’s Chrysler New Yorker and headed east on the New York State Thruway from Amsterdam. This was the day when huge cars had bench seats in both the front and the back so we all fit. Those things were lucky to get more than 10 miles per gallon of gasoline.
The plan was to drop off Paul and Kelvin at the Palace and pick them up after the meeting. The meeting ended early and the show went late. My brother and his friend were still inside. The front doors to the theater were open and unattended. Concert goers freely walked in and out, so we – a preacher, his wife, kid and secretary – walked into a rock concert. I don’t remember if my dad had on his cleric collar but it sure would have added to the sight of us if he did.
While moving through the lobby I heard, “Do you want to hear some more?!?!” thunder from the stage PA. Those leaving stopped in their tracks, did an about face and ran back into the theater. Everyone was cheering the unexpected extra encore song. We all joined the flow and found ourselves in the back row watching what was to me an absolutely amazing sight.
There it was. The stage. I could see fans in the front out of their seats up against the stage. Edgar Winter, whom I’d only seen on his album covers and in pictures in Rolling Stone Magazine, was lit up by the immensely bright spotlight, his white hair and white clothes made him look luminescent. That electric keyboard he hung around his neck like a yoke. I could see his and all of the band member’s faces. Clearly.
To me it looked like they were having fun. Rick Derringer’s overly theatrical guitar moves became my first air guitar impression before I knew what air guitar was. I could see their sweat and they looked like being in the spotlight helped them thrive.
I enjoyed watching the musicians. Their fingers on their instruments, their faces at the microphones.
It wasn’t until a few years later, where in that very same theater, I saw what made me want to be a rock star and cemented my becoming a concert goer. One of my brother’s friends backed out of a ticket to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band. Lucky me, I filled in!
At that time, Bruce was the biggest thing for me. He, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson were steadily supplanting Elton John and Paul McCartney as my most listened to artists. The New Wave Punk thing was starting to gain my attention. I saw Bruce as a punk.
I also identified with Bruce because as a young child my family spent summers in Ocean Grove, NJ, which is literally one beach south of Asbury Park. His first album is entitled Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. It came out when I was 12. The album cover depicted a post card where on each letter of Asbury Park is an illustration of the beach, boardwalk and, most importantly, the Convention Hall. Each image a real memory. I like to fancy that, one-day Bruce and his buddies were hanging out on the boardwalk while I was on that very same beach. The same boardwalk in the song “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy.)”
I didn’t know it until writing this, but the show at the Palace is a famous event in the annals of Springsteen lore and actually has been released as a live album, to which I am now listening as I type and edit this very essay. It is titled simply Palace Theater Albany NY 1977. Three weeks prior I had just turned 16.
Seeing Bruce in the spotlight, his newly shaven face, mirror sunglasses, black leather jacket, white tee shirt and jeans; he looked like a 50’s punk greaser from one of his own songs. On his flanks, Clarence Clemens and his sax shining in brilliance, Miami Steve looking like a loyal happy henchman, the whole band looking like they loved what they were doing and doing it with people they loved. The audience to performer connection was electric. My first full concert – seeing Bruce during the long period of his legal woes after Born to Run and right before Darkness on the Edge of Town was released. No one sat down, ever. Not only did no one sit, everyone had to stand on their seats to see. Even during the slow songs.
Anyone who has ever seen Bruce and E Street will attest. It is different. In 1977 it was an epiphany to me. It was spectacular.
Spectacular is a word based on the word spectacle, or according to Webster’s, : “something exhibited to view as unusual, notable, or entertaining.” To be viewed. To be seen. To be appreciated.
So what is happening on stage at live concerts now? I guess some rock stars don’t want to be rock stars. Granted, the vast majority (99.9%) of bands I have seen since those 1970’s experiences love being seen. Keep it up! Your fans love to see you!
But, somehow a new trend is forming. I’m assuming that three instances might constitute a trend. Some might argue.
My first sensory deprived concert was a few years back at Lollapalooza. I got interested in going because Death Cab for Cutie was playing and this other new band, Tame Impala, was a headliner.
Death Cab was awesome and looked great on stage. Ben Gibbard is a great performer, songwriter and band leader. A tight 50 minute set, complete with legit light show in the evening. Later, after dark, Tame Impala took a stage stage across the park. They had a big video monitor behind the stage that displayed colorful images that morphed into different shapes along with the beat of the music. It was cool.
What was not cool, in my opinion, is that the band – the people playing the instruments and singing into microphones – were in complete darkness. To the audience they were nothing more than black silhouettes. I was confused. Why can’t I see the band? Isn’t that why one goes to see live music? To see the performers?
I really haven’t followed Tame much since.
Fast forward to this past summer. At the Salt Shed. One of my favorite contemporary bands, Portugal, the Man. What great music. Great beats! Impossible not to dance. But what was up with the spotlights? The stage was lit. The band members were visible but, when a performer stepped to a microphone, their face was in the shadows of the mic into which they were singing.
Faces obscured. I was convinced this was intentional because every band member’s mic had this condition. It was no accident. Roadies set up every piece of a stage equipment to tight specifications defined the band. No way they screwed up every mic’s lighting.
I enjoyed it less than had I been able to see the expressions on the performers’s faces. It was frustrating. I took some solace in the fact that this band has multiple socially progressive causes and are spokespeople for them. And one can’t deny the vibe of Portugal the Man.
This is where I started being aware of this recent trend. I’m like, “this reminds me of Tame!” Two instances do not a trend make but I started noticing and asking why.
On to another Salt Shed show just this past summer headlined by The Psychedelic Furs, an old college favorite! The opening two acts, however, both displayed this disturbing trend.
The first opener will forever remain anonymous to me. Don’t care enough to do the research. They would have been more interesting had they been visible, but the place was just filling up and not a lot of the crowd was dialed in, so it was a ‘whatever’ moment. Performers once again in silhouette. Yawn.
The second band, however, I had heard of via XRT, so I was looking forward to ‘seeing’ The Jesus and Mary Chain. Maybe they can earn my fandom. I never really got into them in the ‘90’s, much less listened closely to anything of theirs prior to this show. Perhaps it might have helped if I had. What didn’t help was the darkened stage.
Yet another band in silhouette on a darkened stage. For some reason this bothered me so much it hurt. I found it excruciating. I didn’t know the music, didn’t know the performers, it was too loud to hear the words, I had no sensory input that was satisfied. What is the point? After maybe 3 songs I went to the back bar until The Furs came on. Every couple of minutes I peeked around the corner to see if maybe a spotlight was on. Nope.
I looked around at the crowd as I was headed for the bar and everyone seemed to look content with seeing nothing on stage. That confounded me even more. As I seethed my way through a throng of nothing watchers, I started wondering whether or not I was crazy. Were they seeing something I wasn’t? Were they Jesus and Mary Chain devotees expecting to see their heroes and, like me, wondering why the F we can’t see them? Or apathetic about it? Was the band even playing or was it a soundtrack?
A couple of tequilas and beers got me through to the end of their ‘set without sights.’ I found my buddy whom I abandoned back inside and told him my concerns. It didn’t seem to faze him any more than it did the rest of the 3,500 attendees. I had a weird alone feeling.
Thank god for The Psychedelic Furs. None of that darkened stage crap for Richard Butler and the boys. The whole stage was resplendent. Butler soaking up the front spotlight with huge wide grins, radiating happiness. So clearly appreciating an audience’s appreciation. Ironic that in the late seventies The Furs had a bit of a dour brooding stage presence and now here they are loving the limelight. Knowing every word to every song and singing along with him and the rest of the crowd cured my crankiness and turned it into sheer joy.
Ahh… THAT’s why I am a concert goer. To see the band.
But, if I may, Concert tickets are not cheap. I’m the sort of person who likes to feel like I got my money’s worth. Tell me, Mr. Jesus and Mary Chain, do you feel like you delivered a good product? I feel sort of ripped off. I paid to “see” three bands. I only saw one.
When the Sugar Bowl got postponed because of the horrific terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Years Day, I happened upon the Induction Ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2024 while channel hopping. I saw Dionne Warwick and then Peter Frampton get inducted and then perform live. Dionne’s sequin dress was sparkling as brightly as her smile. Her voice just as fresh as it was when we first heard her sing “Walk on By.” Watching Frampton’s fingers blister across his guitar frets and playing the sixteenth notes of the extended solos in “Do You Feel Like I Do?” was amazingly entertaining even after all these years.
Can you imagine a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony with no spotlights? Sounds silly.
What would not be silly would be a warning on the ticket vendor’s site that states that the spectacle would be obscured by darkness. If a band doesn’t want to be seen don’t put on a concert.
Spare Me the Details 