Took a date last night to see a performance by a folk artist named Cosy Sheridan. It was a fun night at a fun show with a really fun person. The show was upstairs at the Dungeness Schoolhouse, an old – you guessed it – schoolhouse, reminiscent of the middle school I went to all those years ago.
The artist, Cosy, is a talented songwriter, storyteller, and performer. She does a lot of narration between songs, and is very funny as well as a fine guitar player in the fingerpicking tradition of someone like Leo Kottke. She has video of performances of some songs on YouTube, such as “Multiply Pierced”, “The Botox Tango”, and “Love the Life You Made”. Look her up on there and have a listen! We really enjoyed the show, and I am actually going to a songwriting workshop with her tonight to see if I can learn some new things about putting songs together.
Live music has gotten to be out of control where the bigger acts are concerned. I used to love to go to concerts when I was younger. The whole experience is so all-encompassing of the senses but the people are the problem. Used to be, back in the day, it was a tribal-type communal thing – it was pretty cool. People would be there, sharing things (!), flying Frisbees around, and respecting the space of others while waiting for the lights to go out. The last big show I paid to see was Ozzy and Metallica (with Cliff) in the 80s. We had front row seats and had to fight to keep people behind us.
It is so different now, though. First is the price of tickets. I will not pay that much money. Also, the artists I like now are usually playing the clubs so it is usually cheaper and the people are not assholes. Working all of the concerts I did when I did stage work kinda got me burnt out on the whole crowd scene as well.
These small shows with the incredible artists are really something cool to attend. The intimacy of an artist in a small place with 50 people is so much nicer than being one of 20,000. These artists are the people who are out there working their asses off to put on a great show for a lot less money than what they should probably be getting. For them, though, it is not about the money. It is about entertaining people. Go support them!
