Last week my band played a gig in Sheffield, which was
riotous, sweaty and proved to me that underground DIY punk music isn’t dead, it
just went folk-punk.
But something happened after our set which (conveniently)
sets up something that’s been in my head for a few months now.
A young punk (I think a University student) came straight
up to me to offer feedback on not only the set, but the make-up of the
band. This is just after we’d played our
last song, as the applause from the welcoming audience died away, just as I was
taking off my guitar, with all my body choked full of adrenalin, this guy started
explaining to me how the band could work better. I couldn’t focus on his, or what he was
saying. It barely registered. I changed the conversation to DIY venues. He felt that Wharf Chambers in Leeds was “too
far down the rabbit hole”, by which he meant, to left-wing (I think).
The fact is, I have often felt that we as artists need to
be quicker to find honesty in conversations.
Too many times have I seen a poet, actor or musician and felt they could
have been better, if they changed a line, did a different poem, sorted out
their introductions, slowed down, sped up, looked for the humour, used the
mic. Whatever. Likewise I have learned for someone to point
out the obvious in my work and sets.
This is a question of ‘quality’, a definition loosely set
by a collective consciousness. Problem
is, how do we grade art? The Clash’s
London Calling is a high quality album to me, but probably not to a classical
music fan.
So often, standards are set by a collective conscious,
but that consciousness is dictated by people in power, reviewers, funders,
programmers, professors. The gatekeepers
of culture. And your gig-goer or
theatre-attendee doesn’t always factor into this grand scheme.
So if it boils down to opinion, we should be ready to
offer some thought on the art we have experienced. That’s what this guy was doing, he just did
it at the wrong time, too forward, too
So when is it the right time to offer constructive
feedback? When that person is in the bar
afterwards, chuffed with their performance?
Later on, through the de-humanising social media which lacks the subtly and
nuance necessary to offer feedback?
In my experience, this guy should have waited until a
break between future bands, because actually his points were fair enough. But I kinda felt accosted, I switched into
Friendly mode rather than being able to properly acknowledge his feedback.
But if we’re ever going to improve what we share, we do
need to share our thoughts afterwards.
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