Metro Theatre 1

METRO THEATRE PERFORMANCE

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Metro Theatre 2 Metro Theatre Performance Throughout centuries art has been quite sensitive to changes and evolved to meet new challenges of society. By the beginning of the twenty-first century it was clear that pop art, music inclusive, had taken solid ground as part of social reality. The trend is that art is becoming increasingly active, rather than purely reflective, which means that modern audience is quite demanding. So, artists and entrepreneurs who stand behind them, have to be provocative and aggressive enough to involve the audience who is used to being entertained, surprised and shocked. Concert venues are a suitable medium for this kind of interaction between an artist and the audience. Their structure and marketing are flexible enough to feel and meet the needs of people at a certain moment of time. Todays audience wants more than beauty, it wants a show, and the Metro Theatre as an example of a concert venue of this kind can fully satisfy peoples demands. My visit to a performance at the Metro Theatre was quite spontaneous. I was invited by my friend to a concert show by Ingrid Michaelson, with Greg Laswell as support act. My friend had little knowledge of the performers, and so did I. Anyway, because of her previous positive experience at the Metro Theatre she believed that she would enjoy this performance no matter who the singer was. This aspect is very peculiar, as I believe that this is the trend about modern venues to create an atmosphere, which will motivate people to visit not only because they have their favorite band performing but as matter of cultural experience. The Metro Theatre is this sense is quite successful in promoting the idea of musical gastronomy, that is of tasting fresh music, which is part of middle class urban life today. In fact, most of shows which are held at the Metro Theatre are rock and indie music. So, it would be fair to say that this hall is primarily meant for this kind of shows not only because it positions itself like this, but also because it has a suitable size, concept, acoustics, etc. At the same time, its marketing is good enough to keep the balance between indie and pop elements, or in other words those indie performers who come are still not so marginal not to be considered as part of pop music.

Metro Theatre 3 Speaking about the concert itself, it appeared to be marvelous. Ingrid Michaelson comes from New York and can be considered quite an interesting cultural object. Not only does she have great vocals that catch the audiences tastes but she also belongs to a larger environment of popular culture. Thus, her songs are quite recurrent of popular films and television shows including The Vampire Diaries, Bones, One Tree Hill, etc. So, she represents a trend that is highly characteristic of todays popular culture: popular music merges with other genres, especially films and television. This is in fact a major feature of todays young adults, who are the main consumers of television series. So, it is not enough now just to compose and record music, and it is even not enough to promote it. It takes expanding ones cultural context and being present in related genres and media too. Ingrid Michaelsons Sydney concert in the Metro Theatre gathered around a thousand people. This number is fair enough to keep the balance between being pop music while still keeping indie. The right capacity is probably one of the secrets of the venue, which is suitable for the type of shows it offers. At the same time, it is flexible enough to adjust to all kinds of performances. Yet, the bulk of its audience is probably the same, and they do not have to deviate too much from their major concept of being the best venue for rock concerts. Personally, I was pleasantly impressed by the performance of Ingrid Michaelson and Greg Laswell. They had their unique face and sound, and their music was also quite intelligent, and not so far from quality mainstream as many rock performers are. Michaelson was quite charismatic and inspiring, and she coped with her role not only as a soloist singer but as a show girl perfectly. Her weirdness was just enough to attract viewers without putting them off and without distracting their attention from music. The singer did not allow people to get bored, though. She applied the acting to her performance, poured water on her and positioned in front of photographers. The show was quite theatrical and quite confessional at the same time, which also fits the format of the venue. This intimacy would probably be impossible in larger halls or stadiums, and smaller clubs would not give it such passion. The performer was open and

Metro Theatre 4 talkative, the show did not confined to singing but she also tried to communicate with the audience by telling stories from her life and was quite successful in doing so. Greg Laswell was perfect too, his simplicity of presentation, absence of over-theatrical elements with awesome guitar, piano and vocal made the audiences day. Indeed, the format of the show and the concert venue fit each other perfectly, which is proved by the fact that the audience was quite sensitive in their reactions. They could be absolutely quiet at times, and quite energetic when it was natural. Thus, when speaking about popular music, it would be true to say that nowadays it is impossible to separate it from other media. Todays art is much about cultural experiences, rather than just cultural objects, and these experiences are quite mosaic in their form. As Geertz puts it, The definition of art in any society is never wholly intra-aesthetic, and indeed but rarely more than marginally so (Geerzt, p.97). In the same way, it would be not right to say that the value of music, and of life concerts in particular, lies only in the sound, voice and the beauty of melodies. Todays art exists as a system of elements that work in tune with each other. At first sight, concert venues are just part of infrastructure that helps producers make art commercial. However, it is not exactly so. Rather than being external elements to support art, venues like the Metro Theatre are now part of art. The media and space as part of cultural experiences are quite meaningful today. This conclusion can be drawn based on the fact that the same performers show would have different intonation and maybe even a different message, should it have taken place in another venue. So, having venues not only as spaces but also as elements of art is a trend of todays popular music. To conclude, it is worth saying that todays culture is very eclectic. This means that the mixture of genres and media is perceived as normal and, more than that, it is often perceived as necessary to create new types of cultural objects. In terms of popular music, its creation and recording is not enough to be a fully accomplished artist today. It has to be part of a show and get merged with other genres and media in order to be considered as a truly innovative piece of art.

Metro Theatre 5 Reference List Geertz, Clifford.Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books, 1983