In his book “Wild Thing”, new-wave-breaking booking agent Ian Copeland recalls Sting’s reluctance for The Police to make the shift from performing in relatively small-large venues to arenas and stadiums. Sting was concerned about losing connection with the audience. It was only when The Police were taken to see Bruce Springsteen perform at Madison Square Garden (in 1980 if i recall correctly) that Sting looked at Copeland and told him to book an arena tour.
I’ve been to many rock concerts. Some bands are better than others at developing and carrying a relationship with the audience through the show. Whether it’s admiration or the ticket price, most audiences arrive with an automatic energy and implied necessity for participation. Bands performing in arenas and stadiums have a lot of work to do to harness and direct the audience. However, it seems to me that small, intimate settings demand much more of performers. In fact, Sting shares stories in his book Broken Music about the early days of The Police (the days before arenas and stadiums) performing in “fleabit” clubs to audiences of six to six hundred.
I’ve attended only a few house concerts. I’ve enjoyed them and the close connection with the artists.
If I were leading an arena band, last night’s performances by David Ross MacDonald and Ann Vriend at BobCat House Concerts would have inspired me to put the 18-wheelers in storage for a tour of living rooms.
In fact, last night’s concert is like a master’s course in audience engagement with applications in many areas of social media. David and Ann “worked the room”, put themselves into their performances and interacted with the audience in a way I’d never before experienced. Success was the result of their personalities (authenticity), music (content) and performances (genuine), participation WITH the audience (engagement) and calls to action (conversions).
It may sound cheap the way I’ve written these seemingly loose parallels to the world of communications and public affairs. That’s probably because I’m writing this at 5:30am after an invigorating concert. There’s more to write about this; logic in how the ideas can be synthesized and articulated. Those thoughts will come together and be shared here as I digest them.
To me, the true test of the impact of this house concert will be the medium- and long-term effects rather than the initial euphoria (another problem that dogs the overall impact of online engagement).
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