I’m curious what people feel about this?
Due to my work being within this industry I realise I am possibly viewing it (pun) in an entirely different and probably somewhat irrational way to a lot of people, but I have started to become vexed by the omnipresence of video screens at gigs.
It started with The Chemical Brothers who use visuals to cover up the fact the bulk of their sound is playback and came to a head recently with The Prodigy who still just use an old school light show, which seems rare these days and made me ponder this question…
They can look amazing (Bicep at Glastonbury) and add another dimension to a performance, but I feel we are now evolving with what is needed to hold our attention for a performance: could music drop the video screens and people would still be as excited by the performance.
Would it be like the Bill Bailey sketch about the Edge, and what he would sound like without all the effects on his guitar?
People are either looking at a huge video screen or looking at their phone screen, are we still able to listen to live music without visuals?
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https://youtu.be/GikjhOEqX3Y
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I remember on Top of the Pops in the 90s when artists started using big video screens for their "live" performances in the studio once screen technology got good enough, with the screens showing the video of the song
Trying to watch an artist when some idiot in front sticks their arms in the air with a phone in their hands pointed at the stage is bloody infuriating.
Content on screens is all designed to give the wow factor to the audience, and if designed well looks fantastic with special effects and lighting effects.. A lot of money goes in to the content design! Here is a good example Afrojack - Live At MDL Beast Festival 2021 (12/18/21) - YouTube As you can see the screen plays a big part not only in content but lighting as well.
Ed Sheeren tour used a different type of screen, circle hanging in the middle of Wembley, which had play back and content to support the lighting theme!
I'd question whether it started with The Chemical Brothers though. I can remember some early 80s bands using screens. The Human League had an array of nine screens which were used as a backdrop. These had images from slide projectors. I think the good thing about their show was that they planned the images when they wrote the music so it all hung together well. Blancmange had a smaller screen that was used variously for images and to write stuff (laser?). I expect it would look a bit lame now but was great at the time. Before that, I think Pink Floyd may have incorporated screens into their act, but I've never seen them live so it may be better for others to comment.
For many years previously there was always visuals, The Glenn Miller band doing stand up sit down moments, the stand up bassist in Bill Hayley’s band climbing on his double bass, Jerry Lee Lewis jumping on his piano. There were fancy lights, costumes and dance routines everywhere, British artists like Arthur Brown and Jethroe Tull were eager to be captivating front men visually as well as musically.
Then something seemed to happen with regard to films.
Led Zeppelin at the Ally Pally in 1972 played cartoons before their show (I was there!) and I also saw the Floyd Dark Side concerts in 1974 where they had a fantastic film on a circular screen, and their music was fantastically well coordinated with it.
From my experience the live screen first happened with Led Zep at Earls Court in 1975, and in such a large auditorium I think the idea was to allow folk to see detail (like close ups on Page playing the guitar). The Osmonds of all people went to see Zeppelin at Earls Court, they were due to play there, and immediately decided to use the screens too.
Interesting that you work in this industry, my curiosity is specifically relating to wether live music is becoming a screen based experience if that makes sense?
Also my genre is electronic music so I suppose the screen is more prominent within it, I’m all about the sound and sometimes feel it gets overshadowed by the visuals but it’s the artists choice ultimately.