I Need a Fix: YouTube vs. the Live Concert Experience
By: Grace Babcock
Ah, YouTube. I spend a lot of time on that website. Probably more time than I’d like to admit. It’s chock full of videos that cover every subject imaginable—anywhere from videos of a young boy strung out on medicine, to auto tuned crooners trying to become the next Justin Bieber.
One of the reasons I find myself on YouTube so frequently is because every so often I stumble upon quality concert footage. The number of videos featuring an artist performing in concert is staggering. This got me thinking: Which experience is better? Attending the real concert? Or watching a segment on YouTube? While the answer may at first seem obvious (the real concert), I think that there is an argument to be made for the YouTube experience so many of us find ourselves watching at three in the morning (what, just me?).
I love concerts. I have spent a lot of money to see bands that I highly respect and admire perform on stages big and small. I would say that the year 2010 was a big one for me: I saw both Pavement and Superchunk in Philadelphia, which fulfilled my lust for some classic nineties indie rock, as well as newer acts such as singer-songwriter Brendan Benson, and the kitschy ‘supergroup’ Bad Books. Each of these concerts was extremely exciting for me. In the case of both Pavement and Superchunk I had long relinquished my dreams of seeing the groups live, as their touring schedules were dormant for much of the last decade (in the case of Pavement, many felt a reunion was completely out of the question). I consider myself lucky to have seen these bands, and in the same way lucky to have seen other more widely-touring acts as well.
The experience of attending a concert can feel like a drug to me. It’s addictive to pay a somewhat reasonable sum to spend a few hours amongst other equally fond fans singing along to some of my favorite songs. I have attended concerts that left me spent and exhausted, I have relied on the promise of a concert to get me through the next few weeks of my life–let’s just say that eating birthday cake in celebration of Brendan Benson’s birthday last November was the light at the end of a very dark tunnel for me.
So why would I want to forego the atmosphere of a concert? Or miss out on the chaos that is thousands of hipsters drunkenly screaming the words to “Cut Your Hair?” It’s simple: convenience. As a college student I am far and away from being a millionaire, so I simply cannot see every band I would like to (Sonic Youth has been eluding me for years; I swear it’s a conspiracy).
This is where YouTube has aided many of us who long to be in the crowd at one of the numerous festivals held in the United Kingdom every summer: Some other lucky sod who got to go to the show uploads a video. I have spent hours trolling the site to find a live version of a song that isn’t shaky, or worse, subjected to the cameraman’s sing-a-long as he causes each viewer to join him in his whiplash cinematography.
But when the concert is held on a day I had to work, or when I am thousands of miles away, YouTube is a decent substitute. Over the past few years the quality of the music videos posted has slowly improved as professional set-ups post videos they’ve filmed. One can even watch a whole concert in segments. And while it may not feel the same as being there in person, I have definitely gotten chills while watching a Youtube video.
A perfect example of high quality concert footage that eased the pain of not attending a show for me was the case of Blur’s much lauded reunion at Hyde Park in 2009. The band was not only touring together for the first time in a few years, they were performing with the original line up. As the video above shows, some bands just get better with age, and it is obvious that Graham Coxon has been practicing his guitar work in the eight years he spent working on solo albums (which I highly suggest you look into) apart from the band. While Damon Albarn, Alex James, and Dave Rowntree have aged, Blur is still as energetic as ever.
One of the benefits of this footage is the quality. It is pristine HD, and it truly captures the feeling of being in the crowd while allowing views that the audience would never have been able to attain otherwise, such as a shot of Dave playing drums from behind his drum kit. I oftentimes return to the video so that I can not only enjoy a song I really love but also feel as if I am one of the thousands waving my hands and singing along on a muggy July day in London.
This is just one of the many, many videos on YouTube that shows a band in their best light albeit performing on a stage, in a club, or even in a bathroom, as was the case for the band Grizzly Bear in 2006.
Although many of my peers can be found in the comments of YouTube bitching about corporations taking over the site, or how a band has deteriorated in quality since their last overproduced single, I argue that we should ignore those sentiments and instead focus on the fact that for no cost, we are able to peruse thousands of videos by our favorite bands. I would also like to think that one thing we can all agree on is that while we’d all rather be in the crowd, for those nights when we can’t, YouTube will do just fine, thank you very much.