HARK!
I hear...CHECK! CHECK! CAN I GET MORE BASS? CHECK CHECK CHECK…
If you hear that, ringing in your ears, you’re not on your sofa, anymore, Dorothy….
Anyone else having a hard time leaving the house? Thanks to a confluence of surging technology and a devious virus, there is more from-the-couch entertainment now than in the history of humanity.
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can experience the live performances of extreme talents, without sharing germs with strangers.
You can get, like I did, a paradoxical experience of the ephemeral yet—thanks to YouTube—perpetual brilliance of Lisa Gerrard and Dead Can Dance, in various concerts across four decades. (Had tickets lined up to a DCD show in San Diego, until they canceled.)
You can get hundreds of festivals, scores alone from Burning Man https://www.youtube.com/c/burningman/videos
You can get the hilarious, multi-talented, good-as-hell Lizzo blasting her “Rumors” and “Truth Hurts”; the singer, rapper, songwriter and flutist has a Dec. 4 show in Miami coming straight to...your house. Details: https://twitter.com/AmericanExpress/status/1457779320752340992?s=20
(And if you can’t make her show, you can be one of 120 million to watch “Good As Hell” on YouTube.)
You can get...more than a feeling, itself: Foreigner’s “straight to the couch” tour:
https://mastercard.gigcasters.com/foreigner.html
But you can’t get...soundchecks, second-hand smoke, lines for the porta-potties, the drunk guy throwing up on himself (that was at my first concert, the Beach Boys/Peter Frampton/Gary Wright extravaganza at Three Rivers Stadium, circa 1979….
Nor, for that matter, can you get that “more than a feeling” experience of a live show, the singer busting poses, the bass player cooling-out, the guitar dude shredding and the drummer laying into a solo, sweat and sticks flying….
There is something about standing next to a speaker that is taller than you, and not only hearing but feeling the notes going through you—as if they are inmates busting out of prison, whizzing past you as they seek freedom…
I felt all that and more: the live-music experience.
Pizza Fest crowd
I’ve been watching the pandemic from my couch, but now that I’m 3x vaxxed, got up and went downtown for the Phoenix Pizza Festival, where I caught Gus D. Wynns & The Breakers, dropping some psychedelic rock, Echo and the Bunnymen meets Spiritualized and reincarnates Spirit. (The latter is the band Led Zeppelin allegedly ripped off “Stairway to Heaven” from, though its six-year battle in court failed; listen to “Taurus” here.
I stayed long enough to post a few Facebook Lives.
I’m a rank-amateur, but here are my tips after studying hours of concerts posted by fellow band-fans on YouTube:
Whatever angle you start with, stick with it. There are few things worse than someone who zooms in and out, panning around like a tweaker on the lookout for a cop…
Oh, and it’s a good idea to facts straight on things like spelling before you shoot. Ug, I called the singer “Gus D. Wynd," instead of Gus D. Wynns. (And Facebook Live is rather merciless, not allowing much in the way of editing/fixing.)
Here’s my best shot:
Notes on the Phoenix Pizza Festival:
Main complaint: The name. Bland. Blah. As flavorless as Domino’s cardboard special...
Suggestions:
-Burning Mouth
-Lalapizzalooza
-Goatcheesa
-Woodsauce
No shoes, no mask, no problem????
I guess there’s a reason the Phoenix area remains one of the hottest spots—in a bad way—for COVID. As far as I could tell, the only person of several hundred at the festival wearing a mask was...me.
Masked up
It’s mostly a UVA-blocking deal, but it might have some barrier to the virus; at the very least, I figure, it scares people from getting too close.
Speaking of which: didn’t see a lot of social distancing, either.
At this point in the pandemic, people have read enough, seen enough, heard enough to make their own decisions: to mask or not to mask, to vax or not to vax.
If you’re one of the many not quite ready to rub shoulders with the “woo hooooo” party crowd, enjoy the scene from the comfort and safety of your couch.
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