Splendour In The Grass and its associated ‘sideshows’ are all but done, which wouldn’t be news (because it, like, happens every year) except that this year ‘people’ have been talking it up as the ‘best’ festival line-up Australia has seen for *insert age- and experience-appropriate timeframe*. I didn’t go to Woodfordia (gag). I did, however, see a few of the ‘sideshows’ thanks to the generous folk at Street Press Australia and the generous promoters and publicists they make out with, and, for some reason, this year’s far-reaching range of Splendour bands has triggered a bit of an existential questioning of the reasons bands do what they do and why people want to see them do it. It goes a little something like this.
Why do bands perform at all? When it comes to festivals and events as big as Splendour, money and audience scope are perhaps the most obvious (and cynical) answers to that, however there’s a reasonably ‘natural’ path to becoming a band ‘popular’ enough to get on a festival bill. Band writes songs, band performs songs, people like songs, people like performance, band performs songs to more people, more people like songs and performance, festival. Granted, there’s a whole lot of ’industry’ wankery in between and multiple variations, but that’s the general procedure. So, then, the question posed at the festival level is the same at the house-party level. Why do it at all?
It would seem there are perhaps two clear answers to this: because bands want to ‘express’ their ‘art’ in public and because bands want ‘people’ to watch them perform. These two statements are not the same. A person may feel the selfish need to ‘express’ themselves regardless of who is watching/listening because the act in itself gives them ‘personal satisfaction’ or ‘catharsis’. Alternately, a person may only receive this satisfaction if they have an audience to ‘respond’ to their performance. They want to ‘entertain’.
These two answers are also not mutually exclusive, however the degree to which a band prescribes – consciously or not – to either side has rather large ‘ramifications’. In the first instance, the ‘work’ or ‘ideas’ are inherently more valuable than the performance itself. Think of bands you have seen who quite obviously do not care whether you are there or not. I am thinking of Pixies. You may mutually not care whether the ‘personalities’ of the band are present. There may be aspects of the performance outside the songs that you ‘appreciate’ as audience (Kim Deal’s smiling mug; Frank Black’s obnox mug) but, for the most part, it is the songs or ‘work’ you ‘connect’ with.
In the second instance, it is the performance that is more valuable. A band’s ‘personality’ or ‘technical ability’ may be so tied to their performance that it overshadows the ‘work’ to no great detriment to ‘appreciation’ by an audience. This is often said of ‘rock’ bands whose playing is ‘impressive’ or whose ‘stage manner’ is entertaining. I am thinking of Foals and Florence & The Machine. This is also often said of ‘pop stars’ who cannot sing and have bad songs but have ‘endearing personalities’. I am thinking of Scissor Sisters.
In this second instance, a band’s ‘career’ will generally not last long without at least some appreciation of their musical output. However, it has been seen many times how long a band can ride on performance and ‘personality’, to the point where, by now, the question must also be posed: have we fully entered an era in music whereby performance is ‘acceptably’ valued as much as the ‘work’ itself, or indeed is valued as ‘work’? I am thinking of Lady Gaga. (No, she was not at Splendour; that was Luke Steele.)
I realise there are no lines, let alone blurred ones, in any of this, but the train of thought is thus: bands perform for themselves or for others; either motivation is capable of eliciting a response of ‘connectivity’ or ‘appreciation’ by an audience; therefore the debate over ‘style vs substance’ is redundant; therefore Scissor Sisters are as ‘culturally valuable’ as Pixies. All right, back to the beginning…
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