February 4th, 2011
For anyone who has been in a small coffeehouse and seen an angsty teen band with their Marshall stacks turned up to 11; or seen an acoustic artist they love trying to open for a huge crowd that doesn't care, you will understand that certain venues and certain artists don't always mesh properly. It doesn't help the fact that our culture has turned every single concertgoer into the ADD ridden 8 year old version of themselves. I must have missed the point when everyone who paid 20 dollars to see a show just stood there texting their friend who was most likely standing right next to them.
The Cannery tonight was packed, which gave me really high hopes for a show where the audience and the artist would sync up for a night of shared enjoyment and music. This really wasn't the case.
The first artist I managed to see was Anya Marina. I never expect an audience to fully simmer down for an opening act at a large show, but Anya definitely had a few fans in the front half of the room. Her song "Satellite Heart", which was featured on The Twilight Saga: New Moon Soundtrack, was very well received. I heard a girl next to me, who after talking through almost her entire set, say, "wait a second, SHE sings this song?" Rounding off her set with a cover of T.I.'s, "Whatever You Like", which seemed to be a crowd pleaser - not a surprise. Her sound at times made me wonder if that is what Sia would sound like if she went on stage with only a hollow body electric guitar. Her fans definitely enjoyed the set, but for a huge portion of the room it seemed as though she came and went without much notice. At this point, I had to hope that it was because everyone else in the room was a hardcore Joshua Radin fan.
Then out came the man of the hour to a warm reception from an almost entirely female audience. There were a few things wrong with the show, but none of them had to do with his playing, his songs or his band. I get the feeling that, had I been sitting with 40 other people watching this in a cafe, I would have been mezmorized from start to finish. However, the crowd showed no change from the ADD precident that had been set at the start of the night. It may have had to do with how poorly laid out the Cannery is; I stood near the back at the start and could barely hear anything. The stage faces out towards a chunk of the crowd and then the room doglegs to the left where people's views are blocked by poles and trying to hear the band becomes a chore.
The set itself went up and down from sing a long songs such as, "Brand New Day", which had almost everyone paying attention, down to soft acoustic songs like, "Closer". When it became hard to hear you could tell the hardcore fans were the only ones listening. The highlight of the set was definitely when he brought out 3 local kids, from a school they had been working with that day, to play live on stage for their first time ever. They all accompanied him and his band with acoustic guitars. The end of his set, however, was confusing. He unplugged and came into the audience to play his last song. It was really only audible to about 30 people while everyone else was looking around wondering what had happened; and that was it. The set was over and it took people a few minutes to figure out that it had ended with no encore.
I don't blame him for not having an encore. If anyone was to blame for ruining the potential of this show, it was the audience. Fans that go to shows need to realize that they are just as important as the artist in creating the energy in the room. Tonight was definitely a case of artist and venue not meshing well, but from what I could make out Joshua Radin seemed to play a solid set for those listening.
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