Audience-ception

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Hello? Is this thing on?

It took me a while to figure out how to start my first blog post, especially considering I’m talking about audiences to an audience…

Every single person, including you and I, are apart of some kind of audience – whether it is knowingly or not. I like to think of audiences as people, often the regular public, that collectively observe and listen to different art forms (BC Campus, n.d.).

Personally, I am most aware of being within an audience at concerts and gigs – I have been to a little over thirty concerts in just the last five years; ranging from well-known bands in arena’s, such as One Direction, to smaller, lesser known artist, playing in cramped, dusty venue to just 70 people.

My time as a live-music attendee has always been pleasant, and I am very lucky to say that every-single crowd I have been apart of have been respectful and (mostly) filled with kind, like-minded people. But my absolute, most favourite concert experience was in January 2015, within the walls of Horden Pavillion.

The 1975.

Of course, if you know even the smallest amount of information about the world of alternative music, you’ll know who The 1975 are. And it may be cliché to talk about them, but even after so many different concert experiences, this one in particular holds a special place in my heart, and here’s why…

First and foremost, the music was exceptional – The 1975 have this amazing ability, as performing artists, to capture everyone’s attention so completely that to take your eyes off the stage for more than 2 seconds would be a great loss. Adding to that, they sounded exactly the same live as they did recorded – which never ceases to amaze me.

But, it was not just the music that made for such an incredible experience. More than halfway through their show, lead singer, Matty Healy asked the audience to join hands for the duration of a song, regardless of if you knew the person next to you or not – consequently unifying the whole venue. The act symbolised how so many people, so different from one another, could be connected through something as simple as music. It showed how powerful music, as a medium, could be, and how important it is to understand that fans, as an audience, can connect and build relationships with not only the music and artist, but with each other as well.

(Twentieth of March 2019)

References

BC Campus, n.d., Audiences and Audience Research, BC Campus, viewed 20^th Mrch 2019, <https://opentextbc.ca/mediastudies101/chapter/audiences-and-audience-research/>

Image: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQz2fuZD0q0/