My friend Zak had this thought on his blog and I thought I would share…
My good friend Grayson Blanchette came over the other day to my home studio. If you don’t know him already, he is the towering, beast of a man that runs Swayze’s Venue in Marietta. He is normally found throwing hoodlums by their faces out the front door (security), but can also be seen playing guitar in the aggressive, melodic rock band “Have You Seen My Ghost”. He stopped by to talk over their next EP that will see the beginning of tracking in late February. That conversation led into several different topics, and this one which really caught my attention.
To reiterate the title, has social networking (via Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, etc.) made people incapable of comfortable personal interaction? If you are reading this, then I’m going to guess that a good part of your day may be spent interacting with others via these methods of communication. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not condemning this sort of networking. I’m on these things probably a good 70% of my day.
Grayson presented several examples of bands that would come play Swayzes that had an extreme lack of personal interaction with the fans that came out to see the show. Aside from sound check and their actual performance time slot, you could only find the members of the band sitting in their van watching TV or involved in “social networking”. When approached by fans directly after their performance, they seemed to be in an awkward situation as if this sort of personal interaction was never before experienced.
I’ve witnessed this numerous times in the Christian music industry as well. While the Echoing Angels’ guys can be spotted at any given time in random different locations around the venue, I’ve noticed that many times some of the other bands can only be found on their tour bus. Yeah, after the performance, you can find the band back at their merchandise table, meeting kids and signing autographs. In my personal experience/opinion, I’d much rather catch an artist in a candid environment so I can see what they are really about. I’d rather be around other artists when a spontaneous game of football breaks out or someone decides to get into some fireworks.
I could be way of base, but for me this really determines how much I follow and support a band or artist. Maybe for some people the act of waiting anxiously to see if a band is going to come out and sign autographs or not, could be why the fans continue to show up. It’s that chase, huh?
So let me know what you think!! Do you appreciate it when you run into an artist casually walking around the venue and they take the time to get on your level? Does it even matter? Would you be more apt to support their music because of that social interaction? Especially if you really weren’t familiar with their music before hand? Give us some input if you have time this week — We’d love to hear from you!
Be blessed.
Zak Jordan
Echoing Production Manager
