Sitting room only

If there are ever two things that should never mix, it’s rock & roll and seats.  However, at the Esplanade in Singapore the two are inextricable.

I’ve complained for ages and ages (read: a year and a half) that Singapore never brings good pop musical acts to its concert halls.  If you wanted to see live music, you had a few options:

• See a “high art” show
• Visit an expat populated bar where the band only plays U2 covers
• See a local band (usually more “miss” than “hit”)
• Wait for a huge band like Linkin Park to come through (and subsequently pour gasoline in your ears and light a match)
• See Kraftwerk for S$300

There was absolutely no venue for popular indie acts.  Recently, with the advent of the Mosaic Music Festival, this has changed.  Great acts like Broken Social Scene, The Roots, Fujiya & Miyagi, Múm, Mogwai, The Bird and the Bee, Camera Obscura, Stars, Battles, Brad Mehldau, and Of Montreal have started showing up on the bill at the Esplanade.

Pop music fans of Singapore rejoiced!  Long sought-after indie/electronic/rock & roll bands were finally making their way to the Merlion-guarded island.

I rejoiced with these fans, and, althought I missed the 2008 festival since I was traveling in Thailand, I hit up Camera Obscura and Stars when they came through in late ‘08 and early ‘09 (despite the ridiculous price of at least S$50 for upper balcony seating).  The key word in that parenthetical is “seating.”  See, the Esplanade is an amazing venue, don’t get me wrong–the acoustics are incredible, the view of the stage is clear from all angles, and it fits something like 1500 people–but it is completely wrong as a venue for a rock & roll show.  There is absolutely no room to dance.

Yeah, sure, to a certain extent you can dance in front of your seats, but the mere presence of those seats changes the experience from a participatory one to that of only a spectator.

My experience seeing Camera Obscura was good.  They are great musicians, they played the songs I wanted to hear, and it sounded great.  However, everybody in the crowd was sitting until the encore.  I’m sure everyone enjoyed themselves, but at the moment it seemed completely absurd.  I chalked it up to the fact that the band is largely a soft rock, ballad kind of act, and thought that if a really rowdy band made its way to the concert hall, things would be different.

Then came the Stars show.

Just in case you’re not familiar, this is the kind of sound Stars brings to the table:

If this song doesn’t make you want to get up and dance, you may very well be a lost cause and you should probably throw in the towel (as far as having fun is concerned).

Anyways, I went to this show with my girlfriend in very high hopes (as Stars has been a favorite band of mine for 6 or 7 years now).  However, I was largely disappointed with how similar the crowd acted at the show to my experience with Camera Obscura.  On the plus side, everybody on the ground floor got up and danced, which made me excited.  However, the floor seats costed something like S$100, and I don’t make that kind of money.  The balconies were a much different scene: bodies sitting rigidly in rows.

I assumed that there was some sort of a conformity effect going on here where everybody was so afraid to disrupt the people around them that they couldn’t find the courage to get up and dance.  I figured that if a couple people got up, everybody would follow suit.  Once I finally got up the courage to do so, I was (very politely, mind you) asked to sit down by the people behind me.  I ignored them for a song (and actually asked them to stand up as well) but I had no luck in convincing anybody around me to join me.  After that song, I sat down.

This is how I imagine it looked from the band’s perspective:

However, at this point I was forced to consider alternatives to my own selfish idea of what a concert should be.  Was I wrong to want people to get up and dance?  Obviously they wanted to sit, so what right do I have to apply my own concert-going tendencies to them?  Even though I knew in my heart of hearts that they were having less fun as a result of their choice, shouldn’t I respect their decision to be boring?

More importantly, to what extent should I let this affect me?  If I just decided to care less, wouldn’t I have had a better time?  The music was amazing, and the band put on a spectacular show, but I couldn’t help but feel out of place sitting up in the balcony, trying to dance awkwardly in my seat.  It begs one to consider whether this is a result of the much chagrined expat perspective of Singaporean passivity, or if this is an honest facet of the people at the show.

I’m really not sure how to resolve this issue.  I can’t imagine seeing Of Montreal without dancing, but I’m probably still going to come this March.  I imagine Brad Mehldau and Battles will be better experiences, as they’re both  bands that are more passive-listening-predisposed.

I’ll keep you updated when this comes to pass, and perhaps I’ll try out the Singapore perspective and see if my enjoyment of the experience increases.