There's a fine article in the new edition of The Word about the history of the rock concert. Or more perhaps how the live music experience has transmutated into the bloated behemoth that is stadium rock in 2010.
I hate stadium rock and it's a very rare artist that will tempt me into a large sports arena for a show: Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Plant and Krauss and Peter Gabriel being the most memorable occasions. For the latter all the trickery with lights and gadgets really got in the way of the music: a boy dwarfed by his toys.The whole concept is so opposed to everything that I value in the live music experience, which is the creation of some kind of communion between artist and audience.
The article concluded by suggesting that everything was just going to get bigger, bolder and more expensive and it was a foolish artist who tried to do it any other way.
Thank heavens for fools then!
This weekend Canadian singer-song-writer Jane Siberry is in town and she is certainly swimming against the stream. She's doing a series of small intimate concerts in people's home and in an office with a very limited number of tickets. I should have gone tonight but, circumstances being what they are, had to give it a miss. It's wonderful idea.
I've only once been to a gig in someone's home. A colleague of ours from Folkuniversitet had her sister visiting from Rumania and decided to hold a concert in her flat. At home, she was a big Eurovision star and was used to playing enormous concert venues. And here she was, performing for us in front of the fireplace, giving it all she had as though we were a crowd of thousands. Bizarre and never to be forgotten. I suspect Jane will be slightly more low-key.
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