Metalchicks concert review, part 3: Asa-Chang & Jun-ray
by Curl on 2005年08月31日 03:05 AM
@ Home / HelloWorldProject / ENTRY3 (edit, history)
Review of Metalchicks concert, third part in a series
8月29日 (日ー月) 1:15 am JST
If nisen’nen mondai and kiiiiiii demonstrate that one can be awesome while either absolutely loving or absolutely hating the audience’s attention, Asa-Chang & Jun-ray demonstrate the dangers of indifference. Asa-Chang & Jun-ray weren’t bad, but neither were they truly great. True greatness comes from passion, and passion means embracing extremes. To be a great rock star, you must the Keihan or the Hankyû. There can be no piddling about with the Kintetsu.
The problem with Asa-Chang & Jun-ray is essentially that they weren’t concerned with the audience’s feelings as much as they were interested in playing with their toys. They had a kind of sampler hooked up to respond to their tablas and trumpets, and they droned on different kinds of rhythms. Which sounds pretty cool in theory. It even looked pretty cool, as they sat around in the black lights, wearing Hawaiian shirts and smoking between trumpet blasts. The problem is that Asa-Chang & Jun-ray is based in theory rather than fact. For better or worse, Rock is Aristotle not Plato. A good theory enhances Rock, but Rock precedes theory.
When they got going, they had a good, repetitive rhythm that built itself up and broke itself down with the ocean sounds returning periodically to clear the mental space of the piece. But when the act didn’t go, it seemed like they were just proud to have use of their sampler, and that was it. In one part of the show, they used trumpet blasts to switch between “radio station” samples. This is pretty similar to a bit that Cornelius used to do. The trouble is, when Cornelius did it, it seemed like he was claiming every station and every genre as his birth right. When they did it, it seemed like they had just gotten bored with one station and decided to try another. Naturally, the audience began to see the song as a whole in a similar manner. They placed their love of their gear in front of their feelings for the audience, and as a result, the audience had to either relate itself to their equipment or be shut out all together.
The lesson of all this is reasonably clear: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” The audience is a priori going to be part of a concert, since a concert is defined as the interaction between an artist and audience. That means the artist has an absolute requirement to engage with the audience. To do otherwise is a display of bad faith. It doesn’t so much matter what form the engagement takes. What matters is connecting and leveraging the connection in order to transmit a message from the artist to the audience. However, if the artist has no message for audience, be it particular or implicit, how is the audience supposed to relate to artist? And if the audience can’t relate to artist, what is supposed to compel them to participate in the concert at all?