Saturday 18 December 2010

Living It Up With Live Bands

By David Livermore


Walking down the streets of most big cities, you can see them. On every telephone pole and every bulletin board there are flyers advertising performances by live bands. The names change from town to town, but the message is the same: these are your sources for homegrown musical entertainment. These are the places you turn when you want to feel the real music from the place where you live.

Local nightclubs and homegrown acts are the most common sources of these printed advertisements. During the week, a typical set may feature a bunch of small bands playing their own songs in a nearby dive bar. At the end of the week, there will be fewer bands at one location, but the performers will have greater name recognition. Whether a small band or a big name, however, all of these musicians create experiences that cannot be replicated. Each performance is unique.

Going to see a band at a nightclub, of course, is different than going to see a band at a party or hosted event. At a nightclub, the band cannot be assured of who will turn up and the relationship between performer and audience has to be negotiated effectively by the performers if everyone wants to have a good time. For parties and hosted events, however, this is not the case. The attendees are all invited and the crowd can be counted upon. This makes for a more relaxed atmosphere.

Though DJs can provide their own kind of experiences, actual musical performers can make give a party a very different feel. Particularly, live musicians can take the pressure off of people in the audience and allow your guests to feel freer and unrestricted. DJs, though they can play hit songs, do not provide any visual stimulation. When your guests want to dance they may feel like everyone is looking at them because there is nothing else to look at. With actual musicians, however, especially a good group that can really work the crowd and keep attention n themselves, your guests do not have to feel unnecessarily self-conscious.

Homegrown talent can also give your guests a better sense of your citys actual creative expression. When DJs play, they take the latest songs that are popular from across the country and one DJs set in one city can usually be interchanged with another DJs set in another city. Only occasionally will a DJ have a deep enough library that he can play songs by local acts. Actual bands from your area, however, usually create music based their experiences in the local scene. These performers are usually more able to address the actual tastes and interests of their audiences.

For variety of musical tastes, a live ensemble is also a good choice. Many bands can play in a number of different styles whether it be rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country and western, or some other particular type of music.

For parties, bands are great because they tap into something essential to human consciousness. Making music as a group is a primal activity left over from our earliest ancestors. When bands play and create music on the spot, it can move people in a special organic form.

All in all, live bands are an asset for any party. They can make every event an enjoyable one.




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