The Beat Surrender

An obvious statement to say you love live gigs, hardly makes me unique does it? No of course it doesen’t but that is not the point- every music lover worth their salt loves a live gig so lets celebrate that fact. This website focus’s a lot on live performances with various reviews spanning the years and careers of numerous bands. It’s important to see if a band after releasing a great album can cut it live in front of Joe Public, or alternatively did a band release a disappointing effort to the masses but subsequently really raised their game on the road, did they convert you? Ticket sales matter, audience appreciation matter and getting the tightest sound possible matters for longevity in a career.

Bit why do we love live performances? Well its everything that a night at a gig involves isn’t it? We love the build up. A couple of cheekies before hand in a local pub never does any harm and sets you up nicely for what is to come. It also takes the edge off getting into the venue later and waiting 30 mins to purchase a more expensive warm beer in a plastic cup that you never enjoy as much. But perversely we somehow don’t mind that because we will do the very same thing at the next gig! We never learn do we?

We enjoy looking around the gig to ascertain the type of crowd we have dictated by the musical stylings of the particular band, do we have Indie kids, Goths, Emo kids, Chavs, New Romantics (Human League may tour again!). I love it when its an eclectic audience and a band appeals to everyone so you will have someone with a Hadouken! T shirt stood next to the second coming of Robert Smith!

And then the band themselves emerge. There is that joy of recognising the opening chords of that slightly lesser known track on the album that you adore but in your mind no one else likes as much as you, and your willing the band to make it sound exactly like that 3mins 3 secs on your CD at home. But that misses the point again because the live performance should offer something different, a more raw performance that might also involve some audience intergration- and then your favourite song becomes even more important to you as a result.

I have no real preference when it comes to the style of performance on show. I have witnessed the over the top dazzling visuals of U2’s Popmart Tour in 1997 to the relatively bland approach of bands like Placebo, Elbow and Gene. I can’t really say I have a preference as they all fit the situation at that time. I think deep down everyone likes a bit of audience participation because as a paying customer you want to feel the band appreciates you being there.

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing an extrovert lead singer engage the audience- Bono, Dave Grohl, Liam Gallagher, Keith Flint, that fella out of Faithless! All great front men who I have witnessed live who by their sheer energy raised the enjoyment levels 10%. And the future is in good hands as far as charismatic leads go, Paul Smith, Lovefoxx etc really get the crowds going these days and there are many many more.

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