The Outdoor Concert: A Bizarre Concept

The Outdoor Concert: A Bizarre Concept
by Ian Wigley

Since I was about 12 I’ve been going to see bands in concert. Seeing a band live, I think, is one of the best experiences ever. The first concert I went to featured a band called Magnum, at the University of Sheffield Octagon Centre. It was just before Christmas one year, and it was an experience that changed my life. It was like a drug. Once I’d had my initial fix, I wanted more and more of the same.

I always try and see bands in small venues – the whole thing is more intimate, you’re in a small place straight up against the stage, with the band a mere stones-throw away. I think back to the big bands who played small venues at frighteningly high points in their career, and just wonder what it must have been like to have been there. To highlight a few, think about Kiss at London’s 1000-capacity Marquee Club in 1988, think Aerosmith at the Marquee circa Pump album, think Oasis at 2000-capacity Barrowlands in Glasgow 2001, think Iron Maiden at Queen Mary College, London, capacity 1000, in 1988 – billed secretly as Charlotte and the Harlots – the night before they would play to 107,000 people, headlining the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington.

Once a band has shifted a million albums, the distance between them and the crowd at concerts is wider, to start with. Then the band sells another million albums and stops playing small venues and moves to arenas, and then, selling another ten million albums, they’re strictly an open-air shows only band. The open-air concert inventor really stuck a dagger through the heart of music when he staged outdoor concerts, taking away the accessibility option we have to the band. You can’t see your idol close-up, since you’re separated by a twenty foot gap filled only by photographers and security guards.

I’ve been to a handful of open-air concerts, and it just isn’t right. You have to be a very good band to cut it in the great outdoors. For me, the bands who have done it well out in the open-air are Oasis, Guns n’ Roses (although only with Izzy, for some reason), Pulp, Aerosmith and Iron Maiden. The rest just failed. I think the band has to capture its audience. As regular readers of this site will know, I’m pretty much Oasis-obsessed, and I think they do it best – being at their shows is bizarre; Liam and Noel Gallagher make you feel like you’re their best friend, and also that they’re you’re best friend too. It’s so strange, almost like a bonding session. Couple this with barnstorming anthems and the deal is sealed. I’ve yet to see Kiss (indoors or out), but I do reckon they’d be the business in the open-air.

A band is more likely to buzz off of a hardcore fanbase of 2000, I think, at a small venue in a back alley in Manchester rather than just going through the motions to an apathetic audience of chancers showing up just to hear their favourite single at Meadowlands, NJ. That’s why bands do it. I remember a few year ago, The Rolling Stones did a pub tour – well, not a pub tour, but a small venue stint around the UK to promote their last album, despite having played Altamont Motor Speedway, Knebworth and every massive football stadium around the world since 1970. That must have been good.

Bands often want the punters to see the genuine warts-n’-all band, hear all the bum notes from the guitar player, and watch the lead singer grimace as he can’t hit the high notes he did (thanks to studio enhancements) on a CD the year before. The band wants to see the look of amazement on the guy’s face in Row Two as they open up their show with his favourite number.

The band members are a goal behind outdoors, they have to deal with the elements. A bit of a gale, and that’s it, there’s an international time-delay on Slash’s intro to Paradise City. Add a bit of rain, and your cheesed-off Metallica crowd are less likely to be susceptible to a twenty-minute guitar solo from Kirk Hammett. Once the rain starts to soak into the ground you’re stood on, you get mud everywhere, all up your jeans and inside your Chucks. Then the crowd sways and your footing goes, you slip in the mud, and your legs bend the wrong way as about 70,000 people behind you push forward as the stage lights go down. It just ain’t fun anymore.

Getting to and surviving the day at an open-air concert itself is a trial. Often, the venue is miles away from the punter’s home town (for example, I travelled 300 miles south to see Oasis a few weeks ago), when you get to the concert you then have trouble parking, then when you do get parked you’re charged a small fortune for the privilege. When you do finally get into the venue and you want a beer, you’re charged twice the regular price for warm, watered-down lager. As for food, go to the food area, and pay £4.50 for chips and sausage…when you can get it for £1.20 at your local fish & chip shop.

As for concert merchandise at outdoor shows and festivals, well, that’s another story. I’m friends with a guitar-player who used to play guitar for Saxon, famed heavy rock band of the early 80s; he was friends with Joe Elliott and the rest of Def Leppard, and he told me Def Leppard made their money around the world in the 80s from concert merchandise as opposed to record sales and concert tickets. Do the math. I’m not going to pay £15 to get a t-shirt that says Anthrax on the front above a picture of Judge Dredd, and reads ‘Among The Living World Tour’ on the back with a list of shows they played. It’s just not right. My meagre income doesn’t account for any of that. Why should I pay that much money to further inflate Scott Ian’s bank balance?

Watching a concert should be…watching the band, there and then. If you watch a band at a festival, then you should watch the band. You shouldn’t have to watch them on the 50-metre square screen at each side of a huge stage. If you do that, then maybe you should have saved yourself fifty bucks and waited for the DVD concert release six months later. I hate being so far away from the stage that the only option is to see the guitar-player on a big screen. Concert promoters around the globe can only cater to 4000 people tops, the rest watch the show on the big screen. What’s the point?

A more recent development in outdoor concerts is the use of the mobile telephone and its camera and video facilities. How many times have you stood in a muddy field watching your favourite band, 100-yards from the stage, and had to look past some guy, two rows in front of you, videoing his favourite number, so he can replay it to his girlfriend the next day? How many times do you have some budding paparazzi snapping John Frusciante peeling off guitar licks like his life depended upon it? I hate it. It doesn’t happen in small venues as much, because you can see the band, close-up, and not have to worry about videoing it for you, or your spouse, because you’re there, five yards away from Ryan Adams…

Some bands (read: U2 and REM) will seldom even think of playing any venue, indoor or out, which doesn’t accomodate 50,000-plus people. Some might say it’s a supply and demand thing, namely that the band want as many fans to see theirs shows as is possible. I see it as musical snobbery, namely for a band to put themselves in small venues is below them, and it might imply that people think they’re shy to the massive outdoor counterparts. On top of this, the profits from selling-out the Hollywood Bowl will far outstretch those gained from selling-out Radio City Music Hall…and think about all that extra merchandise they’ll shift too.

By now you’re probably thinking I’m a real old cynic and a musical purist. A cynic I’m not, a musical purist I am. Don’t get me wrong, there have been high points in outdoor concerts, for example Woodstock, Live Aid, Queen’s Magic In Europe escapade, England’s Glastonbury Festival, and the wonderful travelling circus that was Perry Farrell’s Lollapalooza. Lollapalooza was great for its propensity to break dozens of small bands in the States, and for its political and cultural references. For anything else, it was just an outdoor festival.

So, why did the Ramones only ever play small venues, despite having a career that spanned 25 years? Some might argue it was because they were never big enough to play stadiums (they were very poor in terms of record sales and global domination). I say that view is a fallacy. The Ramones never played anything too big, consistently, because they cared about their fanbase more than most. They wanted their concert goers to experience an aural and visual experience that was unique. They wanted some kid from Queens to get his $10 worth, to be able to have his Eustachian tubes blown to bits, to be able to giggle as Johnny messed up another dead-easy rhythm bit, and to be able to feel the spit hit his forehead as Joey roller-coasted his way through Sheena is a Punk Rocker. That’s what it’s all about.

Too many bands these days forget the simple beauty of the small gig. It’s all about money and catering for the masses today, ensuring thousands of people who turned up to see the gigs, buy the next CD on the strength of the live show they saw the year before. They forget the simplicity of four guys on a two-foot high stage kicking it freestyle to an audience of 200.

To this day, the best live show I ever saw was the Ramones at Manchester University in 1992. I was on the front row that day, the crash barrier, my ribs were hurting so bad because the push from behind was so immense, there were only 1499 people behind me that day. It kicked the pants off of any outdoor concert I’ve ever been to – although Weezer at the Leeds Festival in 2001 deserves a very, very honourable mention – I’ll never forget that day in Manchester, and I’ll also probably never ever pay to see a band outdoors again…unless it’s Kiss…and that’s only if they keep the make-up on.

Thank you Johnny and Joey Ramone, for showing me the way, and if you’re reading, Perry Farrell, leave that Lollapalooza thing alone.

“1-2-3-4….” anyone?

Ian can be reached at ian@babblog.com.