Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/09/the-rezillos-play-flying-sauce.html
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I had a strange conversation with an old friend about this phenomenon awhile ago - how audiences have changed in the last 20 years or so. He talked about seeing bands at CBGB’s and other small venues, and how if a band was “on it” they got all the love. If the band was lame or weak, it’d be a hatefest; beer cups, litter, chairs, anything you could hurl at them to get them offstage. If a band was good but nobody had heard of them, you’d stand around and take it in, maybe mumble with your friends about “who the hell is this?”
My theory is that crowd dynamics like this got tamped down when the drinking age rose from 18 to 21 (and clubs started really carding, instead of what I grew up with), tamped down further when you couldn’t smoke inside anymore, and were permanently curbed with smartphone distraction.
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That’s why the all ages clubs are still the best clubs to go see bands. The cross section of the crowd is more into it and you got kids who are really into music helping to hype the crowd up.
I’ll be honest, I’m actually glad about lack of smoking now, personally. I can see how some might miss it, but I really don’t.
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I’ve seen Husker Du treated almost this badly.
My friend said that the audience wasn’t prepared to be better looking than the band. I don’t know.
It was a damn good show. I think it was $4.
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That’s horrible… Husker Du is a great band. And so cheap. the last band I saw for that cheap was Fugazi in 1995.
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Yeah, and Fugazi keep their prices low, is my understanding.
This was more like '85. My friends didn’t come in because they thought it was too much.
Boneheads. I was a great show.
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And it was Husker Du in 1985!!! Whut? What’s wrong with people!
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What’s wrong indeed.
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Perhaps the audience wasn’t interested in emoting for a lip sync performance?
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It was pretty common on British TV for bands to lip sync… American Band Stand, did it too, I think.
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They applaud at the end! What do you want from them? Some people just want to enjoy the music!
(Only sort of kidding here.)
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Felt like everyone was politely waiting for a later band. I’ve seen the same type of behavior in recent years with opening bands no one has heard of. I must confess I haven’t heard of The Rezillos so I’m not sure if in this clip they are an unknown band or if something else is in effect.
Uhhh. . . the Rezillos only had one proper album during their original run. The “compilation” is that album with some bonus cuts.
Mitch Miller was the headliner.
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Dead audiences are cool, don’t you know…
Swinging London cool:
Berlin cool:
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Some audiences see staying calm as a sign of respect while the band is playing.
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That’s very true - Top Of The Pops would often have live vocals over pre-recorded backing tracks, but most shows didn’t even go that far. It’s way easier to do a musical performance without the hassle of sound checks, or those pesky cables plugging guitars into amps. Still, I imagine after hours of watching that kind of thing, the audience might have lost their zest for it, despite the fantastic performance being put on by the Rezillos.
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that’s from “Rock - Pop”, a German TV program vaguely similar to "Top of the Pops"
Their audience always was kinda unemotional; there’s a clip somewhere of Bon-Scott-era AC/DC givin’ it large, with the audience acting the same and the clip ending in the most civilized round of applause ever recorded…
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That would explain a lot. Dude has some style.
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Same here. Did they have a Castro looking madman as an opener?
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