i have a question specifically addressed to people on this list who went to
see the chemical brothers during their recent u.s. tour (e.g. not just
people who went to organic, although they would be included too). a friend
of mine who saw their show in san francisco remarked at how odd it seemed
to him that the cb's were not playing much, if any live music--that it was
mostly, if not entirely, on DAT. not only that, but that people seemed not
to care. at one point early on in the performance, the DAT failed and the
cb's were left sort of with their pants down, twiddling knobs onstage
without anything coming out of the speakers. apparently, they left the
stage (which caused a surge of boos from the crowd) then came back out and
"resumed" their performance...have witnessed this, my friend proceded to
ask a few people around him if it bothered them that very little if any
music was being performed onstage, to which the concertgoers replied,
"well, they made it at _some_ point, right? that's good enough for me..."
despite my protestations that this couldn't possibly be representative of
the whole crowd (although only later did i consider the one crucial fact
that could potentially have cleared things up: it was the _chemical
brothers_...), my friend maintains that probably it was unlikely that the
majority of people even cared, and that most of them were just there to be
entertained, and that music, whether performed or prerecorded, was for the
most part peripheral and incidental to that.
my question: do you agree? it's my feeling that, the above described
scenario being the case, the chemical brothers represent an unfortunate
(and unfortunately early) example of not trying very hard, and that had
people known that the "performance" they were paying $15 to by entertained
by was actually just theater (and, i would argue, not very interesting
theater at that), that they would (the few individuals he spoke with
notwithstanding) feel deceived and somewhat cheated. his opinion is that
music "performance," from the image that supports it to the spectacle that
feeds the continuous circulation and mythologization of that image, is
constituted from top to bottom by deceptions, and that actual _live_
performance is a comparatively small and (where entertainment value is
concerned) largely incidental part of that... i'm not asking for anyone to
solve this argument, but i would be interested in the impressions of those
who actually attended.
tia,
sc