Saturday, June 13, 2015

Electronic Strings

Whilst in Detroit I attended two concerts, linked by a theme of “electronic strings”.

The first was a gig for the group Clean Bandit.  It you don’t know them, they fuse together classical and dance music (but are much closer to a pop act than anything else).  I have been a fan of theirs for a while now and it was a fortunate coincidence that they were playing in Detroit.  In the UK they would have certainly sold out, but surprisingly the venue in Detroit (which itself wasn’t huge) couldn’t have been much more than half full.  Those who didn’t come missed a treat though – despite not having the guest artists there they usually work with they put on a great show that was very enjoyable.  It also made a change for me to attend an event where I was dragging the average age up (recently I appear to have been attending events whereby most other people are at least 20 years older than me!)

The second was a free concert in the evening at the Detroit Institute of Arts (well, free after you paid to get into the galleries at least!).  They put this on each Friday, and this week was Ashley Bathgate, a solo cellist.  Perhaps not what I would usually go see, but maybe I should.  There were two times listed – 7 and 8:30 – which I assumed would be the same show repeated.  I went to the 7 show which matched pieces by Bach with more modern pieces, some using computer effects such as a delay loop.  At the end I would that the 8:30 show was something different so, after getting dinner and seeing a couple of galleries I had missed (which was my main plan for that time) I went back to catch some of that as well. 

If you are interested:

www.cleanbandit.co.uk
www.ashleybathgate.com
 
However, I know I am (getting??) old, but since when is this ever acceptable at gigs?

No comments: