Rain
sparkled and shimmered brilliantly like glitter as it reflected off the
breathtaking display of LED lights and drenched the relentless crowd of 25,000
in Soldier Field one spectacular summer night in Chicago in the year 2013. As
if it were planned by some higher power, the music began to swell in intensity
and the rain began to pour increasingly harder, causing a pseudo-riot and
sensory overload on the lakeshore; a culmination to a near perfect day at the
electronic dance themed Spring Awakening Music Festival. All in attendance
stood captivated by what they were seeing, hearing, and experiencing. The rain
had not dampened the set by any means, in fact it was accepted. The crowd went
absolutely wild when Subsonic mastermind “Bassnectar” took to the stage. The
entire sky was illuminated vibrantly, the entire color spectrum visible across
the horizon. Light was refracting and reflecting in ways only previously seen
in Physics textbooks. It was an unbelievably powerful hour of live music; the
perfect combination of people, hard-hitting electronic music, and stunning
Technicolor displays of Synchronized lights and visualizers. The sold out crowd
now had an experience to remember for the rest of their lifetimes, one they
only hope can be paralleled in the future.
Luckily, not only is this euphoric experience
bound to repeat its self in some form, it in fact is likely that this immersive
sensory experience will become the norm across all performers and genres of
music. Not only do concertgoers revel in the chance to be succumbed to the
sheer power of the modern stage production, but artist also have become well
aware that executing, perfecting, and even further innovating these experiences
are they key to their financial success in today’s Music Industry. Since the
beginning of the Recording Industry, and only until very recently, Artists
always relied on the selling and distributing of their original work to
consumers for a reliable source of income and to achieve a status considered successful.
However, as Technology inevitably evolved, it pulled the Music Industry along
with it. Not long after the invention of Digital Audio, mediums like MP3 and
platforms such as file sharing websites took hold of the internet, allowing
consumers to find ‘alternate’ ways of obtaining new and old music. This caused
the mighty record labels to loose ground and resulted in the drastic fall of
album sales. Though where some capacities of the Music Industry faltered, other
aspects capitalized off of innovative advancements and adapted to the changing
ways to re-establish their success and claim hold of a beyond sufficient source
of income. The Live Performance, which is in fact the oldest and most
fundamental format of experiencing sound, has undergone astonishing
transformations, and elevated it’s capabilities to captivate not just one’s
sense of hearing, rather through new multi-medias the entire sensory palate is
reachable via the performing Artist. In a mutually beneficial relationship, the
task of Artist is now to continue innovating using the technological tools at
their disposal in order to attain the consumers attention, support, and of
course business. The continuing rise of Digital Audio, the Internet, and Media
Distribution Technologies has revolutionized and shifted the focus of the Music
Industry towards live performances, where artists are utilizing new
technologies in effort to create the ultimate sensory-immersive experience to
attract concertgoers and ultimately obtain their primary source of revenue.
