The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle
Commentary on the Flux of Events
A friend got me decent seats for the Lyle Lovett / Bonnie Raitt concert at our big outdoor performance shed last night. Probably 10,000 people came (many on blankets on the "lawn" portion of the great grassy bowl outside the shed). They put on a good show (though poor Lyle was encumbered by a huge surgical contraption on his right leg (compound fracture? knee operation??) and had to sit down through his whole set. Bonnie looked as slinky as a jaguar, sang great, and played pretty darn good slide guitar. What dogged me through the show, however, was the nagging thought that it might be the last bigtime rock-and-roll show that I would see for a long long time, if ever again.
Not because I expect to keel over from an infarction or get hit by a pulp truck, but because I believe we're entering an age when shows on this scale can no longer be mounted, and there will not be enough fans willing to spend seventy-five bucks to see a couple of musical acts. It seems to me that the rock show circuit operates at the same scale as WalMart, and I believe that scale of things has poor prospects. As we left the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) after the show, two huge 18-wheel trailers idled near the backstage area, waiting to cart the immense amount of sound equipment and stage scenery to the next gig. The performers themselves probably fly between many of their gigs. The number of fans who traveled over fifty miles by car to fill the shed must have been substantial. The sound amplification was excessive. We were in a middle row of the shed and the sound was deafening. These are not really the kind of musicians who need to be heard that way. In sum, the show seemed an exercise in the show biz of the cheap oil age. Bonnie made a few "green" remarks between numbers, but considering what the show requires in energy "inputs," her comments were fatuous.
Anyway, I much prefer to see either of these two acts in a club that seats a hundred and fifty people. And perhaps someday I will.