This has been rattling around the old noggin for a while but should a band get a middling press review because the reviewer doesn’t feel part of the audience.
Recently two reviewers in The Times gave Ben Folds & Belle & Sebastian ‘meh’ ratings for much the same reason. Will Hodgkinson said that although he’d liked the show he felt not being able to join in with the “call and response” bits made it feel like an ‘in-joke’. I assume he is referring mainly to ‘Army’ where the crowd perform a three part horn section and fill in one key phrase. This has been a feature of his live shows and his live album dance he went solo. The reviewer was unfamiliar and felt left out – is that his fault or the artists for not being inclusive?
The other reviewer went to one of the R&H performances featuring B&S playing ‘Tigermilk’ in its entirety in celebratory former. He remarked heat he didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as the rest of the audience “for whom this music was familiar to them as their wallpaper’. Well, yes, these shows sold out really fast and the band have one of the most devoted fan bases going. We all gleefully recall the look on Pete Waterman’s face when they beat his pop puppets Steps to the Brit for Best New Group thanks to a fan bombed public vote. L
It seems both reviews seem to be coloured by a feeling on not being part of the gang. However with acts that command a small but passionate following is that really their fault?
Here’s another question – what are live reviews for?
“Here’s a short essay about a free gig | went to and you didn’t. It’s gone now.”
It’s a question of what does the reader expect from a concert review. A report on how good the show was (in case he’s thinking about going to one of the artist’s next gig), or what was going on at the show (did Miss Adele forget the lyrics again, did the crowd perform some ritual in-joke, or were they booing at the performer’s mother-in-law jokes, etc.).
The reviewers in the opening post seem to think that readers are anxious the hear how (and why) the writer enjoyed the evening. Next: “The one-off reunion gig of The Jam was fantastic, but as the wife had left me and my dog got run over the day before I wasn’t in the right mood for music. Thumbs down.”
I suppose the contrast is with someone like Springsteen, who makes 60,000 people feel like they are in his gang every night. There’s an elitist element to the following of a few of my favourite bands, especially New Model Army, where you can still get looked at funny if you weren’t down the front at Coventry Poly in 1986. It’s a bit annoying but mainly kind of pitiful.
Strikes me the best way to avoid the moans cited in the OP would be for Mr Folds to mention the crowd participation in the intro to the song. At least then people won’t be taken aback when it happens.
To be fair he usually does hand out the parts in a Macca style ” this side of the room, that side, now just the ladies….type way. But when I saw h8m recently he just did it and we all knew our bits. We are sad bastards
Yeah. The first time I saw this live I was too busy laughing to worry about whether I was in on the joke:
I confess that the OP confused me.
Was a noob
A) a rather nubile reviewer? A gorgeous pouting hottie.
Or
B) a Nubian?
Both these novel alternatives seemed to offer an interesting new perspective.
A reviewer is perfectly entitled to mention that an act has a very deadicated following, in fact they ought to. The reader wants to know what it was like to be there. If a much loved artist is playing their first live show in years, it impacts enormously on the atmosphere, for example.
But they should also attempt a more objective assessment. A difficult balancing act. If they are frank about their own relationship to the artist that certainly helps.
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=noob
Given those reviewers are doing it for money they are only going to appeal to those who like the band or those who like a good roasting of bands they don’t like or know. Thus either diss it defiantly or dish out the truth. Never admit your shortcomings. never make excuses. Or you won’t get any more commissions.
(Suddenly realises why Bargepole isn’t ringing my phone to share his stash or records, whether I am paid or not……)
I think you’re on to something there, Retro. Who wants to read a review that says that a gig was OK: quite good but nothing special. You lose the reader after the first paragraph.
Unless of course it’s for the local paper and you sprogs, friends or neighbours were performing.
So there must be a temptation to either large it up or knock it down to make for a better read.
In that respect, it’s much easier to write a review of an artist no one has heard of than to write yet another Springsteen review. The reader is interested to find out about something new.
I would amend your last sentence thus:
The reader is interested to find out about something new or to confirm their already-formed opinion.
A lot of bands have “fan pleasers” in their live shows, and why not. Fans appreciate a reward for their effort in coming out and supporting the bands they love.
I do think that if a reviewer finds themselves feeling a bit left out, they should at least wonder why before telling it as they found it anyway, because that’s their job.
Sometimes being an outsider is inevitable and part of the experience in a positive way. For example, in the late 70s I was visiting a friend in San Francisco and was lucky enough to get a ticket to see the Dead live in Oakland. Seeing a band on their home turf is a gathering of the local tribes which one does not belong to. But it’s a fascinating experience anyway.
No review is written in a vacuum. The reviewer has some idea about their readers. When DFB wrote about Costello here a few days ago, he quite rightly presumed a fair bit of background knowledge. If he’d been writing about a similar artist from, for example, Chile, the Faroe Islands or Tibet, it would have been very different.
Hmm. Tibet’s answer to Elvis. That I would like to hear!