This I Believe

Alfredo Garcia

“This I Believe”

“I couldn’t care less if we miss a change, or a number of changes, it doesn’t have anything to do with it for me, it’s all about the energy, and I thought it was a pumping show last night…People aren’t there to see us get through all the sections perfectly, but I thought people were rocking, and that’s all I care about.”

-Trey Anastasio from Phish

I believe in the power of live music and the effect it can have on the broadest range of listeners. Music of all sorts can hit you in many different ways. When listening to a studio recorded album, for example, I expect a superbly rehearsed song, crafted in parts and put together in a studio, stressing sound quality, instrumental tone, without mistakes, consistent singing and perfect timing to create a great song as a whole. I believe when a band is given an opportunity to make a studio album, they are given the opportunity to truly perfect their sound, and use all the tools available in a studio to show their craftsmanship as musicians. However, for great bands, the aim of a live performance should be completely different.

Yes, any good artist should look to display their talent on stage. Not missing notes, keeping the beat tight, moving fluidly as a unit from one section of a song to the next are all very important in a live performance. The band must demonstrate to their audience that they have thoroughly prepared to make the experience of their music worth the cost of the ticket. Nevertheless, the aim of the band or artist should always be to create the best possible experience for every member of the audience and to capture the crowd’s energy. The night someone attends your show should be a night they will never forget.

Can you not sit in your room in front of a blaring boom box and get the same effect of attending a live concert? No, you cannot. Although the conversation should always start and end with the music, a true concert experience cannot be described by only talking about the music. It is the atmosphere created by the band and its followers, due to the music, that captures the listener. A Phish experience would not be the same without the dread rocking thirty-year-old hipster next to you that spent the entire nineties following Phish.

When you are consistently playing for audiences ranging from sold out auditoriums to a Bonnaroo audience of over a hundred thousand people, you cannot rely on the entire audience being entertained based only on your craftsmanship, timing, tone etc. You must provide the energy and enthusiasm that anybody with any level of musical knowledge can feed off of and rock too. That is what makes a great live performance so powerful, its ability to capture anybody from avid fans to first time listeners. Amanda, a friend of mine whose first concert experience was amidst a hundred thousand raging Phish fans at Bonnaroo is a perfect example of someone who was truly captured by the power of live music. At the end of the four-hour Friday night set her thoughts were simple, “That was the single greatest experience of my life.”