NOTHING MATCHES THE SORCERY OF A LIVE SHOW
It always starts the same way.
A disembodied voice asks that you turn off your cellphone; that you refrain from taking pictures. Coats are arrayed on seats. Four rows down you see someone you know. You wave that special wave that seems to be reserved for such occasions; the wave that says, `Well, what were the chances?!”
People settle in. The room darkens. There may be the skirlings of an orchestra warming up. Perhaps a velvet curtain rises. A solo performer may, without ceremony, take centre stage. And then it begins. Entertainment. Live. Netflix can serve up a thousand options, but nothing duplicates live entertainment.
I expect that a full-court press of artists and technicians should produce television that might hold my attention — the series, The Crown, is impeccable on so many levels — but when the performance is live? When the suspension of disbelief is taking place right before your eyes? When the singer has you in the palm of his hand? That's sorcery. I don't think there's a higher art form than live performance. It marshals all of the disciplines and I include neurobiology and alchemy in that list. It's Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold.
Do you remember your first rock show? I do. I'm standing on the floor of the Pacific Coliseum. The arena is full to the rafters. The band is Bachman Turner Overdrive. I look up at the thousands of faces and am overcome by the realization that this is a hometown band performing for a hometown crowd. I wasn't a big BTO fan, but that had nothing to do with it. It seemed to me that something marvellous had been achieved that evening. Vancouver had succeeded on the world stage. At that moment, I felt that anything might be possible. We might be hewers of wood and haulers of water, but we could knock it out of the park when it came to the most tertiary of products: entertainment.
Roy Orbison made me cry … which is only fitting, I suppose. Late in his career, I saw Orbison perform his colossal hit, Crying, the recollection of an encounter with a lost love. In the manner of Bizet's March of the Toreadors, the song drives toward its heartbreaking climax. When he concluded, Orbison seemed undone by the process. The audience, as if one body, surged to its feet. Mine was not the only tear-streaked face.
Tom Cochrane, Canada's finest singer songwriter in my humble estimation, manipulates an audience with his stellar material. Life is a Highway never fails to get everyone on their feet. Big League, a howling dirge describing the arc of a father's ill-fated dreams and now freighted with the anguish of the Humboldt hockey disaster, sees that same audience lay its head on one another's shoulders.
Want to know what it's like to go 20 rounds with Tyson Fury? Go to a Springsteen concert. Relentless! I've been to Springsteen shows that closed out a third hour. I'm a shameless fool for Little Red Corvette and thoroughly embarrassed my daughter when she took me to what proved to be Prince's final concert in Vancouver. When Ed Sheeran sings “place your head on my beating heart,” an arena renews their wedding vows.
But an arena isn't necessary for this magic. I've spent autumn evenings listening to fado singers at Kino on Cambie Street as they poured themselves into their material like Scheherazade. A harpist, a cellist and a mandolin take the stage at East is East and dinner becomes something more.
Perhaps you saw Betroffenheit, a co-production between two of Canada's most renowned theatre artists — choreographer Crystal Pite and playwright/performer Jonathon Young? Harrowing only begins to describe Young's portrayal of his despair following the death by fire of his only daughter. For the first time in my life, I understood what addiction represents.
COVID-19 is denying not only audiences but the artists among us these moments of enchantment and enlightenment. Right now I crave not just distraction but something more; something that connects us to one another. I crave the moment an audience rises to its feet in deep appreciation of the training, the collaboration, the intention of the effort. I can hardly wait for the house lights to dim and to hear that disembodied voice again.
Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist who lives in Vancouver. Her garden is her major distraction during COVID-19. She writes on The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun.
This week's question for readers: Is there a particular live theatre, dance or music event that looms large in your memory? What was special about it? And what are you most missing now?
Phobias? Got one, or have you had to deal with other people's phobias? So what is it?
■ I'm an open water swimmer so no thalassophobia. Instead it's lepidopterophobia, fear of moths. Creepy. The fat and furry ones are monsters!!! I'm afraid of one flying at me in my car while I'm driving. I think I would accidentally drive off the road desperately trying to escape its flapping wings. Rationally, I know these creatures are harmless but my amygdala response wipes out any logical thought. A therapist said something flew at me in the crib when I was pre-verbal! There's a moth infestation in Vancouver right now. My own little horror film: smoky skies, a pandemic and MOTHS!!
Ann Naymie
■ As a child growing up on the Prairies, I developed an extremely unfortunate phobia. I was terrified of grasshoppers! Every summer, as the days grew hotter, I could hear their coarse, raspy sounds as they lay in wait poised to spring suddenly out of the grass to assault me. Some summers, they were everywhere — their grotesque little bodies came in various sizes and colours. I especially loathed the large plump green ones. My greatest nightmare was of having one spring out and get tangled in my long hair, or (Horrors!) land down my neck. Outdoors, I would walk far out of my way to avoid encountering one — a virtually impossible task. Even today, I count the absence of grasshoppers as one of the many blessings of living on Vancouver Island!
June Hall
■ Just reading about your MRI phobia gave me heart palpitations! I think it is a perfectly normal response — as is my “phobia” about dead birds and mice. But blood tests? Snakes? Spiders? Bring them on!
Jan Mansfield