![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogI am on a business trip covering a major telecoms event. Every year the organizers book some entertainment for the last night of the conference. This year’s entertainment: Rush
Unfortunately I can’t go to the concert because I have a deadline to meet, but we have a flatscreen installed in the press office so we can watch the concert. They play great, but the lighting isn’t very good and whoever is operating the cameras isn’t that skilled, so it’s hard to actually see the band playing.
At one point Rush start playing a medley of songs where they only spend about 30 seconds on a song before moving on. It ends with the spacy keyboard section of “Jacob’s Ladder”, which turns out to be on tape so the band can leave the stage and take a break.
We decide we’ve got enough work done to take a break ourselves, so we head to the auditorium to catch the second half of the show. When we get there it looks like what we last saw on the TV – pulsating purple lights and humming synths. While we’re waiting, I get into a conversation with one of the delegates about how much better the entertainment has become at these shows.
I explain that they used to avoid booking bands because they wanted to go with something with as much mass appeal as possible – which generally meant all-purpose dance acts or magic shows, something generic and safe. “But then they realized that people really want to see bands like this who can play and put on a good show.”
Eventually the lights and synth droning fade out, and the president of the telecoms association goes up on the stage to give a short speech before the second half. It ends up being more than a speech – a bunch of PR people get up on stage with him and perform a sort of dance based on Drunken Master kung fu. I’m starting to wonder whether there is actually going to be a second half for the Rush concert – maybe that was the ending we saw on TV.
And then I woke up.
Encore,
This is dF
Unfortunately I can’t go to the concert because I have a deadline to meet, but we have a flatscreen installed in the press office so we can watch the concert. They play great, but the lighting isn’t very good and whoever is operating the cameras isn’t that skilled, so it’s hard to actually see the band playing.
At one point Rush start playing a medley of songs where they only spend about 30 seconds on a song before moving on. It ends with the spacy keyboard section of “Jacob’s Ladder”, which turns out to be on tape so the band can leave the stage and take a break.
We decide we’ve got enough work done to take a break ourselves, so we head to the auditorium to catch the second half of the show. When we get there it looks like what we last saw on the TV – pulsating purple lights and humming synths. While we’re waiting, I get into a conversation with one of the delegates about how much better the entertainment has become at these shows.
I explain that they used to avoid booking bands because they wanted to go with something with as much mass appeal as possible – which generally meant all-purpose dance acts or magic shows, something generic and safe. “But then they realized that people really want to see bands like this who can play and put on a good show.”
Eventually the lights and synth droning fade out, and the president of the telecoms association goes up on the stage to give a short speech before the second half. It ends up being more than a speech – a bunch of PR people get up on stage with him and perform a sort of dance based on Drunken Master kung fu. I’m starting to wonder whether there is actually going to be a second half for the Rush concert – maybe that was the ending we saw on TV.
And then I woke up.
Encore,
This is dF
no subject
on 2016-10-30 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
on 2016-10-30 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
on 2016-10-31 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
on 2016-10-31 03:21 pm (UTC)