My Chemical Romance
Yesterday I witnessed one of the more hilarious concerts I've ever seen. It was a band that had one very obvious hit, and an audience full of teenagers. At the end, they announced that this was their last song, etc etc - except that this last song clearly wasn't their one obvious hit, which they hadn't played it all night.
I've seen many, many teenage audiences before, but this was the first one that didn't know what an encore performance was. Admittedly, the encore performance is a stupid tradition, whose point becomes kind of muted as soon as everyone knows that it's coming. But I guess last night's experience showed me that there's a reason for carrying on this stupid tradition: for somebody somewhere, it brings the fresh joy of a most welcome surprise.
What's amazing is that the auditorium had emptied by more than half in that short interval before the "last song" and the encore. Half the floor was gone, and more than half the other sections, and the entire left lower tier was WIPED OUT (ie, approx. 1/6 total auditorium), and this is no exaggeration. It was also the shortest interval before the "last song" and the encore that I've ever seen, probably because they realized that they'd be playing an encore to no one if they waited a second longer. But this little scene became truly hilarious the moment when the encore song started, and you suddenly saw these RIVERS of frantic teenagers running back in as if they were evacuating from a fire, in reverse.
One quick FYI: taking a place in the back of an auditorium is not as good idea as one might think, because the sound bouncing off the walls is almost as damaging as being right there next to the speaker. This I did not know.
I've seen many, many teenage audiences before, but this was the first one that didn't know what an encore performance was. Admittedly, the encore performance is a stupid tradition, whose point becomes kind of muted as soon as everyone knows that it's coming. But I guess last night's experience showed me that there's a reason for carrying on this stupid tradition: for somebody somewhere, it brings the fresh joy of a most welcome surprise.
What's amazing is that the auditorium had emptied by more than half in that short interval before the "last song" and the encore. Half the floor was gone, and more than half the other sections, and the entire left lower tier was WIPED OUT (ie, approx. 1/6 total auditorium), and this is no exaggeration. It was also the shortest interval before the "last song" and the encore that I've ever seen, probably because they realized that they'd be playing an encore to no one if they waited a second longer. But this little scene became truly hilarious the moment when the encore song started, and you suddenly saw these RIVERS of frantic teenagers running back in as if they were evacuating from a fire, in reverse.
One quick FYI: taking a place in the back of an auditorium is not as good idea as one might think, because the sound bouncing off the walls is almost as damaging as being right there next to the speaker. This I did not know.
posted by Rex at 7:19 PM
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