I’m a huge fan of Fleet Foxes. who just played Hard Rock at Universal in Orlando. We had front-row balcony center seats, held the tickets for months. Waiting. Finally the day came. The band came out and played beautifully. The musicianship was wonderful. The sound system was great. The song-selection was superb.
But the show was … awful. Really, truly, awful.
Why? For some reason, the band had decided they would keep VERY BRIGHT LIGHTS blasting straight into the faces of the audience the entire time they are playing. They had a wall of incredibly bright, obviously computer-controlled LED stage lights, behind them, at the back of the stage. And these lights were aimed straight forward at the crowd, from behind the band. And they left them blasting into our faces for two solid hours.
Seriously. That’s EXACTLY what they did. Two hours of incredibly bright, incredibly annoying lights, at times steady, at times blinking, but always ON, and pointed right at your face. While you are trying to enjoy the music.
We could not see the band. At all. Because these lights were behind them, at the rear of the stage, but pointing straight out at the crowd. As a result, the band were little more than dimly visible silhouettes on the stage. Just shadows. You could not see them playing. You could not see their faces. You couldn’t see anything but the lights.
Why was it so annoying? Here’s an analogy: Imagine going to the Louvre museum in Paris, specifically to see the Mona Lisa. You go in that room and there she is, behind the glass … but there’s a big loudspeaker on each side of her, blasting out AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” at 110 decibels. Repeatedly, over and over, without a break. Even if you are an AC-DC fan, you not there for them. You’ve are there to feast on Mona with your eyes … but you can’t, because of the overpowering assault on your ears.
Do you think you would be able to enjoy seeing the Mona Lisa with that noise blasting in your ears? Same thing: We couldn’t enjoy the sweet sounds of one of my favorite bands, because the visual equivalent of Highway to Hell—turned up all the way to Eleven on a giant Marshall amp—was blasting so brightly in our faces that we found it impossible to enjoy the music we both love. My wife literally had to keep her eyes closed the whole time. I just put on my sunglasses and gritted my teeth.
It was just awful. Who on earth thought this kind of stage presentation was a good idea? The band had to know this was happening, didn’t they? I have to assume it was the band’s own light show, performing as they intended, and not just the Hard Rick’s house lights being operated by a deranged lunatic. It included multiple arrays of super-bright flashing LED’s that, at times. produced a strobe effect so powerful I started to worry that photo-sensitive people in the crowd were going to break out with seizures.
For me, the whole experience was simply infuriating. At first, I thought it was a mistake. It HAD to be. Any minute now, someone up there is surely going to realize how unbelievably annoying and distracting it was, how much it detracted from— and interfered with—a performance we were there to enjoy, from a unique, gifted band whose music is filled with sophisticated harmonies, lovely instrumental passages, poignant lyrics. But no. No, it was not a mistake: this was apparently how they actually wanted their show to come across.
What on earth were they thinking? All of that lovely music… lost, overwhelmed by a tsunami of klieg lights better suited to an airport runway, all shining straight up into your face.
Please. Somebody. Tell them. Tell them they have to stop doing this! We had looked forward to this show for months. By the third song, we couldn’t wait for it to be over.