BBC Culture article on Concert Expectations

[NogbadTheBad]

Interesting article on Concert Expectations

Thoughts?

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201...-play-the-hits

[Splicer]

I read it. I still have no idea what the point of that piece was considering it had no conclusion.

[JKL2000]

Who cares? They filled up almost a whole computer screen with it!!

[Man In The Mountain]

Yes, we want a spontaneous Prince concert in the middle of the night, at a private event for some extremely wealthy Hollywood dude, where you can't see anything, but the atmosphere was just right so who cares?

[NogbadTheBad]

I definitely agree that if I'm coughing up $80+ per ticket then I expect to hear the stuff I know and get an elaborate show, whereas I'm happy to go in with little knowledge or expectation if I'm going to a $20 gig.

[spellbound]

"We enjoyed the evening, though we’d had to alter our expectations, tune our brains away from our assumptions, and then back in to the gig. There were many in the audience who found they couldn’t, however; we met some of them in the bar afterwards, and they complained."

Concerts are not necessarily put on for the closed-minded and tiny-brained. Maybe Peaches' audience has low expectations. I never heard of her.

"Decades on, his [Bob Dylan's] gigs are still uncomfortable for many fans. Dylan’s refusal to compromise over what he wants to play and how he wants to play it, his inability to pander to an audience’s preference, can result in an evening where nobody is happy."

I have seen Bob in concert 3 times and never been disappointed or unhappy. Nor was the rest of the audience. If Bob takes the time and trouble to rearrange his songs so that they don't always sound the same, good on him. I don't find it boring and I sure don't want to see Bob bored. Whiners can stay home and listen to his records. Veteran fans know what to expect. Bob's lack of pandering is not based on inability. He is capable of playing note for note what is on the record. He just doesn't want to.

"stadium acts cost hundreds of dollars, even mid-sized bands can command $70 per ticket without anyone complaining."

Not true. Many complain about the high cost of concerts.

"Twitter exploded with grumbles."

Who cares?

"The audience weren’t sure who Taylor was, they couldn’t recognise the songs, they hadn’t been taken on the journey from the beginning."

If you don't know who Mick Taylor is, you aren't really a Rolling Stones fan. If you are too young to have heard their Taylor-era hits, you might try buying a record. Familiarize your young self before going to the concert you paid a fortune to see. What is that useless thing supported by your neck?

"Prince, like Beck, is known for being capricious, for playing as, when and what he fancies."

This is what you were complaining about earlier in the article. Now you like it, because it's Prince and not Dylan?

"His unpredictability is predictable; it’s part of his USP."

Now you're just high. WTF is USP?

So BBC journalism has now sunk to the level of their American counterparts. Now that's disappointing.

[NogbadTheBad]

Unique Selling Proposition.

Well it is the Culture journalist

[Jeremy Bender]

Dylan’s refusal to compromise over what he wants to play and how he wants to play it, his inability to pander to an audience’s preference, can result in an evening where nobody is happy.

I saw Dylan twice during the Time Out of Mind period and I didn't like either concert (I only went to the second one because I'd already bought the ticket and I couldn't give it away). I don't care if he changes the arrangements of the songs, does Tangled Up In Blue as a slow reggae song, but what I couldn't bear what that he totally ignored the vocal melodies and just sang in this really annoying, whiny voice. At one point, my friend and I turned to each, puzzled at what song he was playing, when it finally dawned on us after two verses that he was playing Ballad Of A Thin Man.

On the other hand, I'm not really in to bands *cough* Rush *cough* that sound exactly like their records either. I guess a compromise would be Phish, who play two different sets every nights and the songs can be standard versions heard dozens of times before or they can stretch out to 20 minute jams if they feel like it.

Mile varies, of course.

[GuitarGeek]

One of the cool things about the Grateful Dead after about 1969 was how open ended the setlist was. They'd play a different setlist every night, they'd go multiple nights without repeating a song, and even if they did repeat a song, the improv content would be such that it would at times a very different reading that what was on the record.

The Allman Brothers Band do that a lot nowadays too. Judging from the bootlegs I've seen, they did a lot of the same material from night to night on any given tour back in the 70's up through the early 90's. But after awhile, I guess they started changing it up in the middle of tours. And like with the Dead, I think they reached a point where they didn't really care if you wanted to hear the "familiar" material from the radio or whatever. There were nights I saw them were Jessica, Ramblin' Man, and Whipping Post were all absent from the setlist. And since they kicked Dickey out of the band, they don't do Ramblin' Man (or Blue Sky, for that matter) anymore anyway.

[Trane]

It depends, but I'd expect most acts that charge a lot of dough for a concert ticket (not really their fault, it's the promotor in most cases) to give the money's worth, especially in terms of encore....
all too many times, one feels the band is doing the "minimum syndical"... I understand that a concert can't last until midnight and that the roadies have long days, only halfway through the band stops playing, but fuck, some of these "things" barely last 75 minutes... they'd get rid of most of my frustrations or disappointment by playing a second or even a third ancore (what's an extra 15 minutes spent on stage?? Except to show a little recognition to those that travelled a long way to see them play.

Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily want a Grateful Dead or Springsteen-type of performance (I'd saturate and overdose of being bombarded from the same type of musicaftter the second turn of the big hand on the clock), but sometimes (read often), it has "un goût de trop peu", especially if I enjoyed myself

[JKL2000]

Maybe Peaches' audience has low expectations. I never heard of her.

I didn't know she was no longer with Herb.

[Vic2012]

I just found out "Peaches" is Bob Geldof's 19 year old daughter because of this thread. Apparently her stage show is "sexually explicit" so I Goggled her. Yeah there's a pic floating around of her in the buff, displaying her tats (and little tits ). She's pretty hot actually.

The Allman Brothers Band do that a lot nowadays too. Judging from the bootlegs I've seen, they did a lot of the same material from night to night on any given tour back in the 70's up through the early 90's.

Gov't Mule does that too. I only saw the Mule once. From talking to other fans and from hearing/seeing it at the concert they do a "standard" Mule set. Then they do a set with cover songs and improv/jamming. Some of those Mule fans I talked to told me they follow the band all over the country and have seen them many times.