Anyway, this evening, I have decided to jump on the Coachella bandwagon. For those of you not in the know, check out this completely accurate and not at all staged article here.
Most are posting and watching the video of a Tupac hologram. Now, call me old fashioned, but surely the point of going to a festival is to see live music or dj sets? With real people? I know a lot of you will be reading this and thinking 'whaaaaat, dat shit is sick yo!' and yeah, it's great, he's dead but he's still performing on stage to a crowd? madness. But I'm not sure that this isn't just transparent money-making (in more ways than one), allowing music moguls to feed off his name through some clever graphics and pre-recorded songs.
It's a weird tainting of the music business. Technology seeps into the way in which music is edited and shared with the masses. It's brought us auto-tuning, Justin 'baby-faced girl from Youtube' Bieber (who's followers call themselves Beliebers?! Locate your puke points now) and, when auto-tuning and Youtube are combined, something beautiful..like this I'm sure many will remember this delightful gem.
Obviously, it has it's benefits. With people able to share their music in just a couple of clicks, it's never been easier to access whatever music you want, whilst Twitter enables us all to follow our musical idols and find the latest tracks and songs by our favourite artists. But it also means that the deluded masses are able to share their talents too. I'm not really sure if I'm ever going to get to Friday again without 'Friday! Friday! Gotta get down on Friday!' popping into my head like an annoying pre-weekend chant.
So, as someone who does not get along with technology (I haven't had a properly working phone since my mobile phone career began way back in the early years of secondary school, and laptop history has hardly been simple either), I'm not looking for holograms to entertain me at festivals. If I wanted an image rather than the real thing, I'd watch a video on Youtube.
The point of festivals is more than just seeing live acts. It's a completely different and immersive experience. In the same way you have the arcadia stage which is essentially a theatrical show, the Tupac hologram was there to entertain and bewilder. I almost shit my pants when I saw it for the first time, so I can't imagine what it would be like live when i'm tripping balls.
ReplyDeleteAs a one-off I thought it was brilliant. But if we start getting worldwide hologram tours it would be taking it all a bit too far. Record labels milk dead stars more than enough and you're right, people should wake up and realise they're paying £££'s to stare at a computer projection.
Moral arguments aside, the detail of the hologram was stunning and the duet with Snoop gave me a semi.
THUG LIFE YO.
What I mean by live acts is seeing things that are real, not an image projected onto a stage. It's like going to a theatre production only to watch the show on a projector screen. It's not exactly the thrill I look for when I go to a festival.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it was clever, and innovative, and I'm sure an unforgettable experience for those who were there, but definitely shouldn't become a regular occurence. Next they'll be doing hologram shows of Michael Jackson, Hendrix, Marley, all the greats, just to make some extra dollar. To the fans, it's a fitting homage to an inspirational artist, but to big labels, it's yet another fad that they can make money out of.