The news earlier this week that Finnish music fans are legally entitled to seek compensation for sub-par live performances was greeted with envy from concert-goers on both sides of the Atlantic. Many took it as a cue to list off all their worst gig experiences, wrongly jumping to the conclusion in this Finnish idyll they could get a refund any time a band left out their favourite song or played a bunch of B-sides.
In fact, Finland’s Consumer Disputes Board later clarified that its ruling simply meant that a 50% refund policy would come into effect whenever a concert could “objectively” be deemed a “failure”. A spokesperson cited a Chuck Berry show in Helsinki during 2013 when the veteran performer was deemed to be “in no condition to perform” due to ill-health. Ignoring judgement that fans’ first reaction to a musician they admired falling ill would be to ask for their money back, it seems clear that not all cases will be this clear-cut. The problem, then, is how such a policy can be policed?
Response to live performances, unlike other consumer products or services, can’t help but be subjective. Other than quantifiable instances like cancellations, lateness and ill-health, what constitutes as a “generally agreed upon” disappointing show? These sort of issues came to the fore during a Minneapolis festival appearance in 2013 when Low sparked controversy with a 27-minute-long, one-song set, stretching out their 1996 epic Do You Know How to Waltz? to a dissonant wall of noise and concluding their performance with the wry remark: “Drone, not drones.” Many audience members felt the band owed them more from the performance, with one stating: “The expectation is that they play a certain amount of time and, a couple of songs. I’m not sure it was specifically mentioned on my ticket, but they were listed and did not play”. The band’s frontman Alan Sparhawk evidently took a different viewpoint: “It was a big show, so we wanted to do something big and different. If I was there in the audience, that’s the kind of thing I’d like to see a band do,” Sparhawk said in his group’s defence.
More recently, Britpop survivor Damon Albarn made headlines last Monday morning for having to be carried off stage following a five-hour set by his Africa Express project at Denmark’s Roskilde festival. The performance had stretched beyond its 4am curfew, with Damon eventually escorted away by a stage manager known as “Big Dave”. Albarn’s actions, for the most part, were deemed heroic by both the audience present (who are said to have been “drumming against the poles of the tent and chanting” for an hour after the curfew) and the online commenting public.
As others have noted however, it’s unlikely that the public would have been as forgiving of such artistic indulgence from, say, the likes of Kanye West. The rapper, whose name is pretty much permanently suffixed with various synonyms of “divisive” at this point, is routinely accused of insulting paying audiences by delivering “tirades” at shows and repeatedly performing the same track over and over because he liked it so much. Curiously, even when he delivers a relatively muted performance, such as at Glastonbury last month, there are even those who likewise accuse the star of egotism for not being entertaining enough.
These incidents raise interesting questions about the role of performer and an audience’s own entitlement, whether it is an artist’s responsibility to entertain or stay true to their creative impulses, as well as the subjectivity involved in perceiving such live performances. Just because we pay to see a band, are they contractually obliged to give us exactly what we want or expect? Is it sometimes not better for them to do the exact opposite? By placing consumer boards and court judges in the roles of music critics and fans, are we jeopardising what makes live performances great: their ability to at once entertain, inspire and shock?
With that in mind, here are select live music moments that probably would have resulted in a refund or two, but we’re glad happened nonetheless.
The White Stripes’ one-note show
With the band’s end clearly in sight due to well-documented tensions, Jack and Meg decided to have a bit of fun with the White Stripes’ last-ever tour during 2007, hosting a series of “surprise” gigs in bizarre locations (buses, classrooms and fishing boats included). For their stop-off in Newfoundland, the pair took to the stage at an impromptu downtown venue only to play a single note (and drum crash) before declaring: “We have now officially played in every province and territory in Canada,” and departing the stage swiftly. Luckily, the show was entirely free and, given that the band cancelled their entire US tour shortly after, fans probably feel grateful in retrospect to have encountered the pair at all.
Atlas Sound cover My Sharona for an hour
It should be public knowledge that Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox is pretty much the king of dealing with hecklers. His band even named their debut album after the kind of braindead taunts they had been subjected to when starting out. But at a 2012 show in Minneapolis with his Atlas Sound side-project, Cox’s response to a drunken request for The Knack’s My Sharona was to deliver a sprawling jam rendition of the cheese-pop staple for a whole hour. Sure, it may have annoyed a few paying customers, but you can guarantee that it miffed the heckler off a whole lot more.
Yo La Tengo act out an entire episode of Seinfeld
For their 2011 tour, Yo La Tengo decided to pack a giant wheel into their van, picking an audience member at each show to spin the game show-like contraption in order to decide the theme for the evening’s performance. Just like an episode of Wheel of Fortune, it was all fun and games, even if nobody was going home with a brand new car. During one show, the band even acted out a classic episode of Seinfeld (The Chinese Restaurant, if you were wondering). “At first the crowd relished the novelty,” reads one review of the gig-cum-am-dram recital. “But soon they became restless when they realised the band was performing the entire episode. ‘Play the music!’ people shouted.” They probably should have been thankful it wasn’t the sitcom’s much despised finale.
Death Grips replaced by CD and kids’ drum kit
One of the stipulations of the Finnish refund ruling is that a customer must not have been able to predict the eventual outcome of events. In that sense, refunds for buying a ticket to see California noise-rap duo Death Grips would be very hard to wrangle, given the group’s chequered history. However, this didn’t stop fans from angrily trashing the stage and demanding a refund when the group failed to show at a Lollapalooza pre-party in Chicago two years back. Instead of a traditional live performance, the ever-contrarian pair instead set up a beginners’ drum kit, projected a suicide note, played a CD of their album and sent a statement to confirm that “that was the show”, evoking anger and “what could it all mean?” thinkpieces in equal measure.
John Cage’s 4’ 33”
Here’s the ultimate performance art piece (well, before Marina Abramović) with John Cage looking to investigate the power of silence with his 1952 composition of four minutes and 33 seconds of complete nothingness. Writing of its very first public performance, one essay noted: “Virtuoso pianist David Tudor sat at the piano, opened the keyboard lid, and sat silently for thirty seconds. He then closed the lid. He reopened it, and then sat silently again for a full two minutes and twenty-three seconds. He then closed and reopened the lid one more time, sitting silently this time for one minute and forty seconds. He then closed the lid and walked off stage. That was all.”
Any more experiences you’d like to add to the list? Please grumble below in the comments section.
