As much as I love books I also love music. Now, maybe it is just me but when I part ways with my hard earned money so that I can attend a concert, the main thing that I am concerned with is seeing some quality music performed live. Why would I pay so much money to hear lip-synching? If I wanted to hear a band perform prerecorded then I only need to pop a CD in my CD player after all.
Apparently, though, it is not just me. Reports are claiming that a number of fans walked out on Britney Spears' Perth performance the other night. No, I am not posting about this to take a jab at Britney Spears, honestly. Perhaps I am old fashioned, but my idea of a good concert is getting to see the band perform live, maybe a bit of smoke and lights but rarely anything extravagant. It seems as though these days musical artists are going way over the top to impress crowds. If I wanted to see a circus act then I would go to the actual circus. I cannot help but feel that between lip-synching and acrobatics the significance of the music, the live band, and the intimacy between performer and audience is being over shadowed.
The other thing is, that to be able to afford all this glitter and pizazz they drive the ticket costs up. I know that if I am paying more then I at least want to see the performer doing what it is that they put at the top of their resume - singing! Not hanging off a trapeze, not doing stunts, not even trying to pull off fancy dance moves. If they cannot sing live can they even really sing at all? Are they just relying on technology to clean their voice up in a studio? A musician could be up there turning water into wine for all I care but if the music isn't real then I would feel like I had been ripped off.
But apparently some people don't care about this but why you would spend so much money on a singer and not care about whether or not they can actually sing honestly baffles me.
Terra
Actually, artists need to pay attention to this. Most musicians make their money by concerts. The record industry gets their money through the CDs.
I do think that the old concert may be coming back anyway.
The non-live concert thing drives me up a wall. I can't stand any of it - the lip-synching, the recorded backup vocals, even recorded instruments. I would rather watch a band be completely live even if the sound isn't that great.