Some of the 200 guitarists
Somehow I ended up sitting in the front row even though I arrived when the seats were nearly all full. The stage extended around three sides of the seating area tho. A percussion group opened it up, performing in the walkway between, and it was interesting as it created a third space, and placed the audience and performers in the same viewing position.
Oh but the guitars! Rhys Chatham conducted from the (obscured) bandshell stage to four section leaders, who then led roughly 25 [corr., approx: 54] guitarists each. It was a sight, but then I had to close my eyes. The first part just straight melted and it was like listening to giant headphones on a water bed - better, even. I did not even feel that I was hearing it, more as feeling. Each guitarist appeared to be hooked up to their own amp and the sound moved about, sometimes one at a time, building up to all at once in sync. Then it went delicate, barely plucking singular strings, and it was like a garden of tiny flowers opening. Through all this Chatham is directing in what looks to be a self-created visual language. At one point he holds up a paper with a giant asterisk on it but otherwise it is mostly frozen gestures. The second movement began sounding like Growing (or should I say it sounded like Growing was inspired by it? I never know how to be proper with such references.) And it was like movements of light over space. My eyes are closed.
It all ends in a climax that vibrates the earth and men behind me stand up with their arms in the air as tho they have found god. Can it even be described as dense? It is beyond that; beyond "wall of sound," beyond (melodic) noise, beyond independent senses (synesthetic, even?) it was an experiential composition - it never could be recorded to be played back. (Unless each performer was separately recorded and played back on two hundred cd players!)
Liquid Liquid was tight! A police officer asked me to move from where I was dancing tho and I asked him where I could dance and he said not anywhere! I walked around to another area and found a better space to move. LL is three (3!) percussionists and one bass player! They still got it, good.
3 comments:
i think saying it sounds like growing is right. you can compare something without implying it's influence, which is one of my main pet peeves w/ music writing. how can you know an influence unless you ask, you know?
sounds like it was an awesome show. weird that the cop wouldn't let you dance! you should let him borrow footloose on vhs.
Thanks for the great writeup of the performance. One tiny correction - there were 216 people in the orchestra, so each of the four section leaders was directing roughly 54 musicians (not 25)...
ah! thank you anonymous commenter! That was some late-night math in action...
Ben - agreed!
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