The concept: - Whenever we think of live concert we imagine an open air platform or a pub with 1000 something people with good ambience and good vibe with good food and good drinks. North East India's live music scene has been taking the entire music scene of India by storm and there was a time when we were getting live gigs at the pubs every weekend and an Open air gig like in the intervals of every six months or so.
Why is live gig important for an artist?
It doesn’t matter if an artist is from the industry of Bollywood, mainstream, Indie or
underground scene, his and her income depends on gigs but why is it important for an artist to do more live events then spending time writing songs at home or recording in a studio? Because an artist needs to build a rapport among the audience, promoters, organizers and label, in short a name among the mass and also he/she needs to interact with a large scale audience at a bigger platform. Suppose if today a singer releases a hit song and if he/she don’t promote it at a bigger platform, not many people would know of or accept the song. Also, it is important for an artist to get paid enough to put such income on their next projects. Also, touring can make an artist more experienced in categorizing the audience type and to build a fan base or community of their music and they can also learn the musical and cultural impact of the type music that prevails in that region or country, that helps them experiment more.
The concept of online gigs: -
Live streaming an entire concert, that concept started a long time ago when big concert banners like Wacken Open Air, Impericon, Bloodstock, and Resurrection fest, Rock Am Ring, Graspop Metal Meeting, Downloads and Ozzfest used to stream an entire live set into their official channel. But at this point we are talking about the current phenomenon of live streamed concert of an artist from the comfort of his or her home or his or her studio or from a rehearsal room. This concept started since last couple of months when the artists were suffering a lot from the global COVID-19 pandemic. The concept is good, as in such session we also got to know more about an artists and they raised some much needed awareness about challenges and issues being faced by the artists but how far the online gigs are being as useful as a usual live gig at a pub or an open platform?
Pros: - To start off with the positive side, some artists, promoters, bands, organizers and
studios were able to help each other through DIY initiative, for example: CORE INC. from Guwahati were able to raise funds for the bands under their bill recently. Also the matter fact that people are still being able to hear music from the artists around the world even from some big names from Papon to Joi Baruah to the freaking heavy metal band Lamb of God. So at one point online gigs are a good thing.
Cons: - I might be wrong but at such online live events the audience is tad bit stagnant and uncertain and also we miss that vibe and energy and the ambience of an actual live gig where people will be dancing, if it’s Bollywood or EDM, moshing and banging heads, if it’s a rock or metal concert. Also somewhere the actual interaction between the energized fans and the artist is lost. And the targeted amount for funding an artist is may or may not being achieve which is why at the end the organizers and the artist might be at a bit of loss and disheartened.
Conclusion: - What I think is that online gig’s concept is a good initiative globally and must be accepted by everyone and it shall be able to grab a bigger audience so that the artists could be well-funded during this time of pandemic. I also love the concept of going DIY to help each other but I think that more batter strategy are to be implemented. I just hope that in the coming days artists of our region and in global sector will bring in some more entertaining content to their live session and we will witness an entertaining and an informative session.
Comments