Hatsune Miku is a popular vocaloid performer. I heard about vocaloid singing (and Hatsune Miku) a few years ago. I have never listened to vocaloid music previous to this concert. I decided to attend one as I find the concept intriguing. This concert was held at the Warfield.
I have not attended many conerts. I am trying to remember the last one I attended; probably more than a decade ago now. I believe the last was either "A Perfect Circle", "Nine Inch Nails", or KMFDM (can't remember which was last). Whenever I am at a concert, I am always struck by how similar concert experiences are to religious ones. People reaching towards the heavens, putting their hands up, sometimes clossing their eyes and letting the feeling of the moment capture them.
I am not a religious person. Similarily, at a concert, I have trouble "letting go" and getting worked up with the crowd. I try to, but I often fail. Anyway, enough about me.
This concert was similar to any other concerts in that the people in it were experiencing a "spiritual" communion with the singers and with each other. The fact that the singers were entirely artificial, with voices digitally stitched together from (1 or more, not sure) human singers seems to make no real difference. The love of the singers, music, and genre was real.
Having said that, the music really takes some getting use to. For the first 10 minutes I was thinking little more than "Jeesus, this shit is atonal and the voice is just horendous". I was putting on a good face because I wanted the people I was with to have a good time (and they did) but I was internally thinking "Gaaaawwwdd, this is awful". The sound grew on me after a half hour or so. I don't think it is music I am going to listen to in a non concert setting, but it does grow in the context of a live showing.
I think the whole idea of worshiping Idols that have never existed is probably the next stage of things. Already, most comercial bands are 90% fabrication. Really just companies with a product looking to maximize market share and future earnings. When you see a Katy Perry concert, you are mostly seeing the decisions and work of the huge number of people who go towards fabricating that image. Yes, there is an actual 'Katy Perry', but she is just the human form of the Platonic ideal of a Katy Perry. That ideal is a fiction created by a huge number of people. This is the next logical step; why bother even maintaining the fiction of a real personf?
Actually. Yes. Immensely so.
At first I was feeling kind of nervous and disoriented about the fact that the singer was artificial. However, you start to tune in on the fact that everyone around you is ecstatic to be here. There are no posers here, nobody looking to make a scene. No pretentious ass from your local theater district. These are people who are embracing something that is, to put it bluntly, rather (totally) dorky. And they love it! They are doing it because they love the music, the character, the sound, whatever. It is refreshing to see people enjoying something so much.
It may have been the glow stick "orchestration" (I got pretty good at it). It may have been the screaming crowds that just couldn't get enough of one act after another. It may just have been the chance to see people I know who are usually very reserved belting their hearts and souls to songs that I can't even follow (all Japanese). I don't know, doesen't really matter. I enjoyed myself; would go again.