Best Show Ever

I believe live music can give you similar feelings to that of religous music for religous people, it's our chance to get close to the artist we love (just like religous music allowing you to get close to God) but our advantage is that we can see our God's and Goddesses right in front of us. People have always gone to see live music for entertainment, it's something that families and friends have experienced together for years watever the genre. It is also good for the artist, as there is no better feeling than getting out there and playing live but it's also where a lot of the money comes in from ticket sales etc. Live music is and always should be essential because when you go to see an artist live, that is when you truly get the product that you pay for. For me I see CD's etc as a kind of second best, you can listen through a CD imagining as much as you want that your their with the artist whilst they tell thier stories through music, but it's nothing like being at the gig and experiencing it properly, a CD is like the "dodgy Dave" that everyone knows, he'll have a go at fixing the broken pipe from the shower, but three weeks later there will be a huge leak from the kitchen ceiling. For this sections example I thought i'd show you an artist who just has to be seen live to feel his presence. The song is "Love is All" by The Tallest Man On Earth, awesome singer songwriter.

Live music also plays an important role in society alongside the entertainment industry, bands are often hired for events such as weddings, parties and even special T.V. programmes. However, it's not just special occasions that go hand in hand with live music, i am sure most of us have come across live performances in our local towns, with buskers and the like providing a sometimes welcoming ambience to set us up for our day out shopping.

  For this example, rather than showing you a clip of any old busker doing there thing, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and tell you about a project called 'Playing For Change'. This project was created by Mark Johnson and Enzo Buono and the idea behind it is to get busker type musicians from around the world and get them to perform their own version of the same song, which is then mixed and uploaded as a video on Youtube, they believe that music can help bring people together despite their background or where they come from. Here is 'Stand By Me' a song writen by Ben E King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (1960) performed by Roger Ridley and others.

  We can take a few things from this example, the first being that due to advancements in technology, live music can now be shared across the world instantly, this video has been seen over 40 million times; At what point does live music stop becoming live music? Secondly, with this example, the thought of seeing something live as in one act, at one time has to be scrapped, as we are seeing and hearing different interpretations of a song at the same time. Furthermore, this example is proof of how music is something within society that we all understand, and can be used to spread a certain message very effectively wether it is that of social, economic, or political importance, 40 million plus people may have taken the message 'Stand By Me' on board, everytime they think of that they could well be reminded of the moral behind Playing for Change's idea and choose to behave or act differently.