By Elliott Nace | Staff Writer
When we go to a live concert, what exactly are those couple hundred dollars going toward? The ticket itself, the inevitable $50 ticket fee from your booking app of choice, transportation, sure. But what motivated you to set aside so much time and money?
Many answers could follow, with the most concise being “I love the artist.” Such a simple response obscures our deeper reasons, yet reveals a prevalent truth about modern concert-going: we really love whoever we’re going to see. In fact, I would wager that we all love them as people as much as we do artists. My proof? They are ripping us off.
In the modern era, but also decades past, some popular musicians find it acceptable to merely get up on stage and perform their songs as they appear on their records. These musical offenders can be found across every genre: pop singers and bands, country artists, classic rockers and others all indulge in this practice.
If I may reminisce: I remember missing out on the chance to see The Flaming Lips perform their album “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” last September with my friends in Dallas. I asked my buddies for some videos of the concert to hold me over until I eventually saw the Lips on my own. To my slight surprise and much horror, the band had blasted one of their studio recordings across the American Airlines Center speakers while frontman Wayne Coyne held up a profane sign between two massive pink robots. I then asked myself, “What am I looking at?” — a question that should never come to mind when listening to music.
This problem stems straight from what it means to be famous. Many popular artists’ tours rely on iconography to get us to flood en masse into basketball and hockey stadiums. Elaborate sets, flamboyant costumes and a provocative stage presence do stem from a musician’s true personality and also carry the unique benefit of helping artists sell a ton of tickets. I do not have the proof (or frankly the courage) to question the authenticity of every single musician making up the Billboard Hot 100 right now, but what I will say with far more confidence is that we buy concert tickets because of how much we dig the schtick.
These entertainers entice us with so much more than their music — and it works. Why do we love (or hate) artists so much? Each has a schtick. In Jason Aldean’s case, that may mean being a controversial stereotype of country music and Southern conservatism. For Steve Lacy, his minimalist “bedroom pop” sound and somewhat phlegmatic attitude pique our interest. What these artists have in common is their ability to create something bigger than their music and push their stage persona.
This phenomenon is hardly a new invention in the music industry. David Bowie amazed (and perhaps disturbed) crowds of the 1970s with his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Michael Jackson and Prince operated in a similar vein. Yet these bastions of popular music brought with their personas an additional key feature: they were remarkable performers. Prince played almost every instrument heard in his recordings, Bowie was a master songwriter and MJ needs no introduction. No two concerts from this period sounded the same. Hip-hop featured several heavy-hitting live acts during the 1990s, including but not limited to the Fugees, Ice-T’s “rap metal” outfit Body Count and The Roots.
The solution to uninteresting live performances, although I may have framed it otherwise, does lie in the present day. Several great acts, especially pastiche bands that retool old sounds for the 2020s, continue to grace stages all over the world. There are still plenty of bands and singers that believe in giving a live audience a true performance — an experience distinct from what the audience expects. We may love an artist’s persona enough to idolize them on top of listening to their music, but do we really need to go to concerts where they perform the song exactly as we hear it on streaming? Decide for yourself, but I would recommend seeing live music that is truly alive.
