Performance Report 2: Sideshow

It was a cool and rainy Saturday night, April 17th, 2010. I did not think many people would come to the last performance of what I thought was a minor production by the drama team here at UTD. As my wife and I approached the Comet Theater, the line of 30 or 40 people waiting to buy tickets astounded me. After we had bought our tickets and taken our seats I took some time to take note of my surroundings. It was a moderate-sized theater, seating 290 people [Manjunath], but it was packed, save a few seats near the front right of the stage (which I will touch on later). What I came to find out from Kathryn Evans, the director of Sideshow, was that this series of Sideshow performances has set the record for the most attended performance at UTD of all time. This being their sixth performance, I supposed the place must have been filled every other time (still, those front few seats were somewhat disquieting).
Before Sideshow began, I noticed the orchestra seated behind the stage, which I found unusual, since orchestras are usually seated in front and below the stage for musicals or operas. But in this performance, which was probably due to the limited size of the venue, they sat behind the stage, still visible throughout most of the musical.
As the performance started, around 8:30 pm, the stage was set with boxes of various sizes and a raised kiosk. The first musical number, which was a reoccurring theme throughout the musical, was “Say Hello to the Freaks.” A dramatic song, that serves to both introduce many of the primary characters in Sideshow, and also the setting of it. One of the characters, the Cannibal King, played by Brian Thomson, was dressed as a savage, and during his introduction in the song, he ran (on all fours) and leapt off the stage, over those few absent seats and circled back around onto the stage. A slight gasp went through the crowd, and I could see evident surprise on some of the girls seated near those vacant seats. “So I guess it was sold out,” I thought to myself, knowing now those seats were reserved for this stunt.
During many of the musical pieces, I noticed two somewhat unfortunate and distracting things. First, many of the minor performers’ voices could not reach the pitch required for their parts, and were forced to either go falsetto, or simply hit a flat note. All of the main characters (except maybe the freak-show owner) could adequately sing all their required pitches. The other feature that subtracted from this performance was the variance of volume between major and minor characters’ microphones. Many minor characters were at somewhere around half the volume of the protagonists in terms of amplification. This could have been due to the elaborate costumes and where the microphones must be located in order to suit the minor characters, while the primary performers had microphones attached to their heads. [Manjunath] In any case, it was very obvious at some points.
One thing should be clarified when I say “musical pieces.” Because this was a musical performance, almost everything was sung, even if it was not directly in a song. For example, during one dialogue, one character simply sung the word “how?” suspended over a single note for about a second, even though it did not follow any particular melodic pattern in a “song.”
Overall, the performance was put together with an air of precision, clearly seen to the audience that this was not simply thrown together, but was the product of much hard work and effort. Audience turn-outs reflected this, setting the record for attendance. The performers showed great enthusiasm and energy during their performances, which the audience responded well to (especially in the case of the Cannibal King).




Manjunath, Lakshman. Phone Interview, 4/22/2010. 2:00 pm.

Blog post 12: Rock

While rock music is one of the prevailing music cultures today, it used to be a sign of rebellion, especially punk rock, rather than today's mainstream alternative rock. Rock has elements of music which are shared with other music cultures, such as an emphasis on drums and voice. However, in Rock music, the drums are not simple hand drums, as they may be in other music cultures, but rather an elaborate set of drums typically played by only one person, rather than many people. Also, rock music incorporates technology as a mandatory part of its culture. Unlike blues or country music, where acoustic guitars and voices may suffice, rock necessitates the use of amplification, because loudness is just as much a part of rock music as the guitar. This shapes rock music performances, as I wrote about in my first music performance blog entry. Volume is key in rock music, which is why amplified voice and guitar play a major part in it, as well as crashingly loud percussion. All these things together begin to sum up this subgenre of rock. Anger, at least in today's rock music, is a common thread in the lyrics and music styles of rock. Punk music was angry at "institutions" or government, but alternative rock tends to be angry at the world in general. This subject of anger is not universal, but rather, simply a stereotype with many exceptions.

Post 11

One cannot sum up a music culture in just 200 words. So I will just focus on one or two major aspects of Gullah music culture.
First, because of the focus of the culture to span the Atlantic and keep African traditions valued in America, the Gullah music culture is very rhythmically based. "Rhythm: everything's about rhythm. And It's about celebrating Gullah culture," says Queen Quet, a (possibly the) spokeswoman for and believer in the Gullah way of life. Gullah music has a heavy emphasis on percussion, as shown in the video, with over a dozen vibraphones being played simultaneously while others around dance. These rhythm and dance aspects of the Gullah go hand in hand. In the videos, we don't see any music without dance. It is said in the first video that the rhythms come from the mixture of the Gullah dialect with the English dialect learned in America. This brings me to my second focal point about the Gullah culture. That is, their history and their music culture are inseparable. In fact, their history and all parts of their culture are inseparable. They have such a rich heritage that they feel extremely important to maintain. Because the Gullah history involves slavery in America, they easily confront the issue as part of their life, just as African traditions are part of their life. The influence of these beliefs and traditions on their music culture runs deep because it is the foundation of their very way of life.

Music Performance Report - Muse!

Attending a rock concert is a unique experience. The sheer volume of the event is enough to make it memorable, but rock bands typically go the extra mile to the point of complete sensory overload. On the evening of Wednesday, March 17, I attended a performance by the Brit-rock band Muse that fit the description. To give you an idea of the popularity of Muse (if you have not heard of them), they recently came in number 2 on the chart of most sold songs on iTunes. (Hathaway) That is to say, their music is very popular.
The concert was held at the Fort Worth Convention Center. Before the doors opened, the line to get in wrapped around the building. Energy was high, as the crowd consisted of mostly young adults ranging from 16-25 years of age, many wearing Muse t-shirts or other band shirts and paraphernalia. When the lights dimmed, indicating that Muse was about to begin their performance, the entire arena was packed. The Fort Worth Convention Center arena seats 14,000 people (City-data), and there were even more fans down below in the “pit.” The audience roared to life as the music began, standing from their seats, shouting, whistling, singing along, and clapping to the beat of Muse’s opening song. A few men in the pit even took their shirts off and began rocking out.
Although there was always a significant amount of noise coming from the crowd throughout the concert, there was also a noticeable flux of energy depending on what Muse did on stage. For example, at one point, giant balloons shaped and colored like eye-balls were released into crowd in the pit, causing a great deal of excitement as people bounced them to different parts of the crowd and popped them, sending confetti flying everywhere. At the climax of one of Muse’s songs, Mathew Bellamy (the lead singer/guitarist) burst one of the balloons with his guitar as he struck the final chord of the song, sending confetti showering down into the crowd, and giving the crowd an explosive vigor.
Because the concert happened on Saint Patrick’s Day, many people in the audience wore green. The members of Muse did not don anything particularly festive. The only homage they paid to the holiday was that, between two of their songs, they randomly burst into an Irish jig for about 30 seconds before abruptly beginning another song.
Apart from the music itself, Muse put on quite an extensive show on stage. For starters, their first piece they performed was played with each of the three members standing (or sitting in the case of the drummer) on three separate pillars that were actually giant screens which flashed images, words, and streaming video of the performance itself (as seen in the first video). As the concert progressed, the pillars lowered into the stage and the bassist and singer were free to roam (as seen in the second and third videos). One might say that fans come to the concert as much for the music as they do for the lights, energy, and the overall look of the performance.

(These are actually videos from the night I saw Muse)


A Muse concert is an accurate picture of what the modern day rock concert aspires to be: high energy, fun, loud, showy, and of course, sold out. Whether you like the music or not, everyone should attend a Muse concert at least once in their life. When I left the concert with acute tinnitus, dazed from sensory over-stimulation, and smelling of second-hand tobacco and marijuana smoke, I knew I had shared in a one-time event, and I felt a deeper part of a music community.




"Fort Worth: Convention Facilities". City-Data.com. April 1, 2010 .

Hathaway, Josh. "iTunes Chart Watch: Muse Debuts at #2, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys Topple Miley Cyrus". BlogCritics. April 4, 2010 .