(because i'm feeling lazy, perhaps, and becuase i reckon people don't read comments on several day old posts, this was a comment responding to this on an earlier post)
Goosey, I find your example very odd - what's strange about fans at a gig raising their arms and cheering for the band on stage? I'm well up for making people consider their actions in a different light, martian's-eye views and all. (Although it seems a little risky when those in question aren't just cheering but are pushing you toward stardom!) When at rallies, I feel a bit uncomfortable looking at people chant about whatever they chant about. Or rather, the most striking aspect is always the similarity between war-stopping or World Bank bashing protests and rallies on other, mutually exclusive activities, NF or whatever, football chants, the bits in church services where everyone mumbles the same thing. They all have something sinister and disappointing about them. In true bio-structuralist form(!), I guess it says that people and social organisms are very similar undearneath, only distinguished by the window-dressing of allegiances or agendas.
Audiences are oppressive, and they have codes of behaviour. Seeing Wynton Marsalis at the Royal Albert Hall was (great, but also) very frustrating: an RAH audience Does Not move. At all. the very occasional nodding head, and goodness knows how many tensed up buttocks and silenced hips dying to show that they can hear the music.
The time I most hated audiences was at the end of "Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder", a dance piece by Yasmeen Godder. She is an Israeli choreographer and this piece had a major theme of the suffereing and humiliation of life with checkpoints. Of course it was much deeper than that, with a lot of references to pain within individual relatinoships as well as the larger scale, and all delivered with maybe the most precise, smooth dancing I have ever seen. In short, both form and content were captivating and moving. It ended with a woman crying-scraming very loud and hysterically with her boyfriend dying in her arms. A very strong climax, the stage dark apart from the two of them, all other dancers gone - it was 'over', except that she was continuing this incredible grief. In that moment, there was no wronger audience reaction than to start clapping and whistling. We should have all left quietly, or what. But they clapped and cheered and I couldn't fathom that we had just spent an hour watching the same thing. Maybe I'm snobbishly projecting, but pretty much everyone else had missed the point.
4 comments:
First of all it is odd you calling me goosey. Thats what people used to call me on the womens hour notcieboard and I never liked it.
what's strange about fans at a gig raising their arms and cheering for the band on stage?
They were voting for us, with hands that were not in fists, they were basically zieghailing, but with two arms instead of one.
And they just didn't stop and we couldn't leave the stage because of complicated reasons.
Like I mentioned, I hate bows and claps and stuff at the end of plays, for similar reasons to the ones you mention. The thing is though (and this is why that audience clapped) at least you have set rituals with them. I was always trying to do plays without claps and bows but I very rarely got my way because audiences feel this is what is done, and if they like a play they feel slighted if they don't get one.
The equivalent of this sort of thing in gig terms is encores. I have never been in a situation with so much cheering, but I imagine if and when it happens again we will do an encore. In this scenario tho we couldn't do one. So we just stood there, not leaving the stage, waiting for whatever was meant to happen next. This made me feel uncomfortable. I mean, what do you do? You can't raise up your hands and bask in the glory or you become robbie williams and before long you won't be singing your songs, just the first word of each line and then turning the mic to the audience. You can't turn your back and snub them. And you can't bow. It becomes a bit surreal after a while. Then you notice the similarities to Nazi rallies, and then you mention them.
The audience didn't hear though so it was alright.
i think i've never seen a sincere encore. have you? (and wouldn't it have been odd to have them vote for you by the fist, as though you were gorgeous george?)
on a completely different note, i rather liked this from the land of classlessness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eISBTBwWKeE&NR=1
I have most definately seen sincere encores.
And... you don't understand this hand thing. Imagine someone raising a hand and then dropping it and then raising it again, whilst shouting, and repeat. Hands raised = no problem. Repeated Nazi salutes (albeit with two hands) for minutes and minutes whilst you stand there looking out at them thinking "I could muder a fag" = feeling very awkward.
ps I love William Shatners version of Common People. I have it on CD. It's kindof terrible and wrong and yet in many ways so right.
There are two truly perfect songs on the album its off though. One about a dad talking to his daughter who he abandoned but still be selfish and cold but also warm and open. It's really beautiful. I'll play it for you sometimes... actually hang on... how does this google thing work again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr3dkWbfVd4
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