Second best ... the Liverpool Philharmonic's opening concert as on Second Life
It wasn't until I was standing in the concert hall's central aisle, discussing the recently concluded premiere of John McCabe's Labyrinth Symphony with a high-spirited lady, dressed in a long green ballgown and emerald-studded tiara, that I realised my disaster. My suit, brand new and, well, really rather flatteringly cut, was discretion itself. Nor was the knot of my sober tie anything but neatly drawn, and no strand of hair was out of place. Quite immaculate, really. But in my hurry to reach the Philharmonic Hall, I had quite forgotten to put on any shoes.
The event was last Friday night's much-trumpeted Second Life broadcast of the opening concert of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's 2007/2008 season. From a PR standpoint, the virtual concert idea was an unprecedented triumph - can you remember another time when an otherwise routine concert announcement made the news pages of the all the main UK dailies? - and a fitting prelude to a season that will run into Liverpool's 2008 lease on the title of European City of Culture. But compared to the actual audience of some 1,200 in Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall, the audience seated in the impressively faithful and apparently quite costly Second Life replica was somewhat less densely packed.
Of the 1,000-odd Second Life users who responded to the initial announcement, only 100 were lucky enough to receive free tickets to the event. I could see only 30 or so avatars in the hall, mostly sitting and chatting quietly, though the odd one would occasionally leap haphazardly into the air, while others would crash into walls or discard random items of clothing.
The low population density, however, entailed no decrease in diversity. During the 20-minute interval, I chatted about the event to people from all over the world. A librarian from Galicia and a student from Piedmont both professed to no longer being the regular concert goers they once were. A rock music promoter from Massachusetts explained that this was his first ever attendance at a classical concert, despite having organised more than 2,000 concerts in Madison Square Garden and across the US. A Japanese lady, who also had never before attended a classical concert, professed to be there for reasons of work: the company she represented had significant investments in Second Life, apparently.
For my part, I'd had more luck. After hurriedly flying, quite literally for once, into Philharmonic Hall, I had finally managed to get some kind of murky image of the actual Liverpool Phil warming up. The sound, too, was coming through loud (I had plugged my laptop into the television) and, if not quite clear, then with sufficient clarity to allow me to suggest a viola player re-tune his A string.
Contrary to some reports, this was not the first "live" concert in Second Life. There are in fact numerous live concerts, happening at all times of day that the nine million or so adult avatars (the average age of the SL user is 32) populating this virtual world may enjoy. But this was the first event of its kind, with a real, first-rate professional orchestra playing to a virtual audience who could attend the event without travelling, paying or even getting dressed - in real clothes at least - and who would listen to and watch the concert without interference from the bronchial reality of late-summer real-life concert audiences. Moreover, in a twist that gave the virtual event a significant advantage over the real concert, avatars of the conductor Vasily Petrenko and one of the composers, Kenneth Hesketh, would later be in the bar, mingling with the audience and answering questions.
In terms of simulating a real-life concert, Second Life clearly has some way to go. Projected on a virtual cinema screen on the stage of the SL Philharmonic Hall, the visual relay was a nice idea. I suppose one day, each musician will have their own avatar, complete with full range of blank, resting expressions for the percussionists. The sound, more important, was at least good enough to find the new works by Hesketh and John McCabe exhilarating and interesting. Doubtless, a simple internet audio relay would have allowed for better quality, and neither of these even bears comparison with an old-fashioned VHF transmission on Radio 3 or some such.
It was the much-vaunted community feel of Second Life, whereby an event is marked more by its fostering of a kind of virtual being-together than by the actual quality of what is currently on offer, that was in many respects the main victor on the night. After Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances had reached their explosive conclusion, as the real audience whooped and whistled back in Liverpool, I struggled in earnest to get my avatar to whistle, clap and shout "Bravo!". And I did feel a strong sense of camaraderie, as if we 30 or so assemblages of bad graphics and haphazard, time-delayed gestures had nonetheless been bound together by a musical experience that, however technically compromised, was still ennobling, still powerful.
But you need a decent computer to get the best out of Second Life. As the audience made their way upstairs to the bar, I struggled to my feet, stumbled over a few seats and crashed into a wall, prompting my machine to go into long overdue cardiac arrest. My second life had been cut cruelly short.
To others, my avatar was no doubt slumped helplessly over a pile of concert programmes. To me, well perhaps I'll check on him some day, but that's enough for now. The questions I had prepared for Hesketh, I might as well have carved them on a stone tablet. Maybe I'll send him a letter in the post.
