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25 years ago I went to a big outdoor concert in Slane, near Dublin in Ireland, to see David Bowie. It was the big outdoor concert of the summer in Ireland and 60,000 turned up to see Bowie, supported by Van Morrison and Big Country. That was the “Glass Spider ” tour and Bowie played a set that consisted almost entirely of songs from his most recent album – Never Let Me Down (it did). At the concert, there were fans from the Ziggy era, the Berlin era, the Scary Monsters (mine) era, the Let’s Dance era – I’m pretty sure that there was nobody present that came to Bowie from Never Let Me Down. The Glass Spider Tour with its dancers, circus performers etc was a disaster. The show was mindnumbingly boring and the only song that received a cheer was “The Jean Genie”. It took me a decade to forgive Bowie his hubris.

Music critics often complain of “event tourists” – individuals who go to concerts for the fun, the crowd and to hear the hits. The ARTISTE is entitled to play what they want for however long they want. Put up and shut up you tasteless buffoons. I consider this attitude to be despicable. If you have forked out half a weeks wages to see on of your musical heroes, the least that they can do is play a few familiar tunes.

Blur turned up in 1999 or 2000 at the Point Depot and played 2 hours of songs that roughly nobody in the audience recognised. They tried to sound like the Clash. Again – folly – the individuals in the crowd paid high prices for tickets because they liked “Parklife” and the “Great Escape” and – hell they wanted to hear a few hits before the encore. There is a very simple way of dealing with the tug of war between artistic development and the fandom: tell the audience that your are going to play songs from the new album first, and, after  the intermission, you’ll be back with the hits. This is important, because, for most bands, by the time they are playing stadiums and large arenas, they have often become nostalgia acts that are trading on reputation: can you imagine the Stone Roses turning up at the Phoenix Park and playing nothing but the new album? An alternative approach is for bands to book smallish venues and advertise in advance that they are playing esoteric or limited popularity music: hence I saw Steve Earle a couple of years ago on his Townes tour, and new that I wasn’t going to be treated to a greatest hits session.

Last Saturday night, I went with my son and brother to see Neil Young in Dublin. It was a cold and wet evening, and despite being a major Neil Young fan (on this tour he was playing with Crazy Horse, his garage band), I found the concert more than a little disappointing. The band were playing from a large stage in a rugby stadium (albeit to a relatively small crowd). They huddled together, almost to the point of invisibility, at the center of the stage, and played to each other. The sound (“Pono” anybody?) was shocking. There was no video screen, no light show, and absolutely nothing interesting about the staging; zero stage craft. But big deal. NY started off with a couple of stonkers – Love and Only Love and Pocohontas: the crowd got into it. They then followed with two new tunes – Psychedelic Pill and Walk Like a Giant. The two songs were endless (strange – as I enjoyed them on the album), there was loads of indulgent (often out of rhythm and out of tune) jamming during the songs, and we were all relieved when Walk Like a Giant appeared to be ending. But No…..cue 15 minutes of Neil dicking around with his guitar aimlessly, trying, fruitlessly, to obtain feedback from his amplifier: it was stupefyingly boring (and believe me I can tolerate boredom). The crowd around me became restless and began to jeer – I have never come across this at a concert before: but you know what – they were right. It was a cold windy evening, and the crowd needed something uptempo to warm them up. NY then strapped on his acoustic guitar and treated us to “Comes a Time” and “Blowing in the Wind”. Just why an artist with NY repertoire needs to play an obvious Bob Dylan song as one of his two acoustic numbers baffles me. He must know that the audience would rather hear something from one of his 70s acoustic albums or even Harvest Moon.  Just when I thought I was beginning to enjoy the concert again, out came old black for another 20 minutes of monotonous jamming (Ramada Inn) and NY-CH had lost most of the audience. I have been to see NY several times (my brother who was with me had gone to see him at Slane 20 years ago), and never felt a sense of dissatisfaction before. Frankly, I did not enjoy the gig. And it cost me a lot of money.

Following the concert, there has been a lot of online discussion, between the die hard (Neil can do no wrong) fans and those of us accused of being event junkies (i.e. those of us who didn’t really enjoy the gig). People pay good money to be entertained – a bunch of old guys huddled together jamming 100 yards away on a stage with no audience interaction is not really entertaining. That is probably why the stadium was less than half full; the “event junkies” didn’t really see this as an event worth going to – and went to see Bon Jovi in Slane instead (who played a greatest hit selection to the delight of the crowd).

Anyway – bands tour to sell merchandise and their latest LP – fans who enjoy the gig buy lots of overpriced T-shirts, and if they haven’t got it already, run out and buy the album. Low, whose new album is one of my favorites this year, managed to piss off the entire crowd by playing one obscure track for the entirety of their 30 minute set at “Rock the Garden”. They thought that this represented a manifestation of artistic integrity – I would consider this business suicide. Interestingly, Glen Frey, in the recent Eagles History documentary, made the point (something like): “the fans pay good money to hear you singing their favorite song – you are obliged to sing it even if you hate it – otherwise you are letting them down”. That is why Deep Purple have played Smoke on the Water 1515 times (and counting). I’m sure Ian Gillen hates the song, but the punters expect to hear it.

Neil Young needs to understand that he is a nostalgia act. Can you imagine the Rolling Stones or U2 not pandering a little to their audience by playing their favorites. Perhaps that is why the RS and U2 can fill stadiums around the world, whereas NY isn’t able to half fill the RDS. He does need the money to finance his train sets, portable music player and electric car. Perhaps someone should tell him that it has already been done: see here and here.

~ by Pat Neligan on June 18, 2013.

Posted in concerts