Pretty Much Pop #11: The Live Music Experience

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:12 — 46.2MB)

Surely tech advances make it unnecessary to ever leave the house, right? Why go to see live people doing live things live?

Dave Hamilton (Host of Gig Gab, Mac Geek Gab, and Mark's old drummer) joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to discuss what's so damn cool about live music (and theater), the alternatives (live-streamed-to-theaters or devices, recorded for TV, VR), why tickets are so expensive, whether tribute bands fulfill our needs, the connection between live music and drugs, singing along to the band, and more.

We touch on Rush (and their tribute Lotus Land), Damien Rice, Todd Rundgren, The Who, Cop Rock, Bat out of Hell: The Musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the filmed Shrek The Musical, and Rifftrax Live.

We used some articles to feed this episode, though we didn't really bring them up:

• "Nielsen Releases In-Depth Statistics on Live Music Behavior" by Dan Rys
• "7 Predications on the Future of Live Music" by Jason Donnelly
• "Live at Home: how to see concerts every day without leaving your couch" by Noel Murray
• "Broadcasts Of 'Live' Theater And Opera Are Terrific In Their Own Way" by Maureen Dezell

You know Mark also runs a music podcast, right? Check out Erica doin' her fiddlin' and singin'. Listen to Mark's mass of tunes, including an embarrassing one written and recorded with Brian from maybe 1991. Here's Dave singing and drumming some Badfinger live with his band Fling, and here's Mark live singing "The Grinch."

Thanks to Jeff Hawley for fill-in mixing/editing on this episode.

This episode includes bonus discussion that you can only hear by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This podcast is curated by openculture.com.