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Multiple shows, bow bow bow



At 9:53 -0700 5/13/1999, The Who Mailing List Digest wrote:
>Alan:
>
>So what is it about multiple shows?

Have you ever smoked pot, or spun round and round until you fell down, or
ridden a roller coaster?  Have you ever done any of these more than once?
Why?  It's just the same old thing.

The answer is that it's NOT just the same old thing.  Even in the case of
the roller coaster, which is TOTALLY predictable if things go as they
should, you get picked up and shaken around, and get an adrenaline rush.
Some people like adrenaline and excitement, and will repeat an activity
over and over to get it.  For some people the music is like that rush when
TED nail it.  Most everyone wants to repeat pleasant experiences...hence,
they go see multiple shows.

2)  Imagine if it were not live, if they showed a movie of (the same)
performance every night. I might go see it a couple of times, max, the
second time just to catch what I missed the first time.  But because it IS
live, you never know for sure what's going to happen.  You know what's
SUPPOSED to happen (for the most part), but TED+ still have to get up there
and display the talent to do it, live and in color, that night.  Some
nights they're better than others; if you see just one show you run the
risk of seeing them on an off night.  Conversely, the more shows you see
the more you're likely to catch the once-in-a-tour incandescent performance
that IS the measure of that tour.

3) If you see multiple shows, you start noticing the differences, and if
you see enough shows you can see it evolve within its structure.  (The '98
JEB tour was like this, the shows were, frankly, better toward the end of
the tour.)  With multiple shows I'm more likely to catch errors in the
beat, mistimed phrases, improvisations in the soloes or, even better, in
individual phrases within the songs, things the guys discover along the way
and discard or adopt permanently. It's easier to feel, along with the
performers, how the performance is going, to know when things are going
well and when they're ragged.  If I just see one show, I'm usually so
stoked that I think every song is great and assume that everything I see
them do is planned just that way.

4) As an audience member you're not performing in the strict sense of the
word but the band does respond to the audience and alters their performance
accordingly.  I've seen Pete change the show for just one person in the
audience (who was seeing multiple shows).  If that person had seen only one
show and quit going, I wouldn't have seen the show I saw.

5) I'm prepared to be called delusional but I think the band likes to see
some familiar faces out there.  Seeing multiple shows increases the chances
of interacting with them during the shows (if that's a value).

6) Some people would hate to be actors, because it's always the same show,
night after night.  For those people, no amount of argument will change
their opinion that seeing multiple shows (or acting in them) is a waste of
time.  Yet many actors are thrilled to be cast in shows where they perform
a 2-hour show 8 times a week and can do it for months or sometimes years.
I fall in the latter group, but I realize that it may be impossible to
argue someone into liking what they see as repetitive actions.

7) Derick already cited the reason of meeting more fans by seeing multiple
shows  (tip-o'-the-chapeau).

8)  In the above, I had kind of the worst-case scenario, the Quad shows, in
mind, which were totally planned for about 1:45 of a 2:00 hour show (and
yet, those 15 or so minutes, which included John's 5:15 soloes and Pete's
"Drowned" improv, invariably were among the high points of the evening in
terms of audience response, most of whom I assume WERE seeing only 1 or 2
shows).  With shows in which the setlist can vary more, I could point out
that seeing multiple shows increases the chances of seeing "rare" songs
that are only played for a couple of shows.

I might be able to squeeze out a couple more but it's time for my medicine :-).


>Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 11:20:55 -0500
>From: Jim Topp <jtopp@ophelia.ucs.indiana.edu>
>Subject: Re: "Days Of Light"
>
>Out-of-Date? Is the "ba-ba-ba" part in "Face Dances, Part 2" or the
>"bow-bow-bow" part in "Early Morning Dreams" out-of date? Does the
>"'Doo-doo-doo' crap" ruin "You Can't Call it Love" (RITH also)? I think not.

The psychic armor I had to grow to get past the "rooty toot toot tooty
tooty toot toot" in "Tattoo" allowed me to sail through DOL's "dit duh-dit
dit dit dits" without much trouble.

Alan
Be sure to read _McKendree: A Burning Novel of Murder and Revenge_
by Douglas Hirt, ISBN 0-8439-4184-7  (available at www.amazon.com)