Concert Encores
Aug. 21, 2001
Last October, Dave, Kim, and I went to see Sting in concert at the Ice Palace in Tampa. Dave and I, being rabid live-and-interesting-versions-of-music fans, conspired, with the aid of his Sony Minidisc recorder, to capture as much of this event as possible. Much to our dismay, the high decibel output of the Ice Palace sound system overwhelmed Dave's Minidisc recorder, and all we got was a bunch of static punctuated with various scraping sounds.
In order to atone for his Minidisc recorder's failings, Dave bought us a DVD recording of another stop on Sting's tour. The whole point of this story is that I watched it again today, again disappointed that it lacked the 20-min. version of "When the World is Falling Down..." and "Roxanne." However, I was thrilled to see the strange, fast-version of "Lithium Sunset."
Anyway, I got to thinking yet again about how much I dislike the feigned encore experience that all musicians seem to give now. Every concert I've been to, at least every one by a big name recording artist, follows the same pattern at the end. Big ending number, band walks off stage, but lights stay low, and crowd roars like crazy. Band walks back out, plays another big ending number, and then says "thank you, good night" and walks off stage again. Then lights come up, people take out their keys (why do they take them out so early? they still have to walk to the car!), and everyone goes home. There is no attempt by the crowd to force a real encore, and everyone is satiated with the artist's semblance of appreciation to their fans. Gone are the days when a band, stricken by fear of being mobbed by the throng of fans demanding "MORE!", come out and play a cover of someone else's music, or a little known B-side from their early days, since they have nothing else prepared. Why don't concert-goers demand this sort of thing? Where are the 5 hour concert-a-thons?
Sigh. I wish I was old enough to have seen Bruce Springsteen in concert. Then maybe I would have been satisfied.