The other night my friend Ann Klein, a fabulously talented singer-songwriter with amazing guitar chops gave a concert in her livingroom. The audience, however, were all in our own homes. I was on my sofa. This new form of performer-audience interaction is made possible by a website called Concert Window.
And I must admit, despite some deeply held Luddite tendencies, I was charmed.
Part of the charm, of course, came from Ann herself. There were some technical glitches at first, causing Ann to have to reboot two or three times. Because Ann has a very relaxed and warm persona when she performs, it was never worrisome. Even as we watched her tuning and talking and we could not hear a thing due to some audio glitch, I somehow knew she'd eventually get it straightened out. She wasn't going to bail immediately upon the first sign of trouble.
And as she typed
Audio problems. But tech support is to the rescue. Stay with me
it was fun to reassure her with:
Not going anywhere. We love you, Ann. Don't worry. I have beer. And my sofa is comfy.
We could all read whatever our fellow audience members (and our performer) were typing. And sometimes we would get into little convos with each other, which added a fun dynamic ot the whole thing, making me feel more connected to other fans of Ann Klein.
My only gripe is that as currently configured, there is a 5-7 second audio delay so that what I'm seeing and hearing Ann do is actually long past. This puts a damper on little attempts at offering instantaneous feedback to a performer such as:
Love that lyric!
or
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Ocassionally with Ann's lyrics, I feel the impulse to sing along. And so at first I would type along until I realized that my typing was only going to be seen by Ann several stanzas after the fact. Kind of a bummer. It would be great if it could be live without delay.
Otherwise, it's great.
