Standing out in (front of) a crowd
I don’t go and see as many gigs as I used to perhaps, but I still see a good couple every month, and therefore can tell that the show which Gonzales put on tonight was top notch…
Firstly, you get the superlative musicianship… great talent all round in a band who obviously practice a lot. But they know that it’s only part of the requirement… they work hard at the actually showmanship (or stagecraft, if you will)…
First of all, there’s a presence on stage as they all wear identical stockbroker shirts, ties, braces and grey slacks…
Then, of course, there’s the ‘roaming round the audience’ that Gonzales undertakes instead of playing his biggest ‘hit’ called ‘Let’s Groove Again’…
Then there’s an ‘internal monologue’ section (where the spotlight selects band members in turn, playing their ‘thoghts’ over the PA), an onstage bust-up between him and the band, followed by a couple of solo piano spots, then an onstage reconciliation… it’s like the weirdest musical ever written, and even though I’m not a musical fan that’s meant to be a complement…
The driving force behind it all is just how much thought, effort, practice and time has gone into entertaining the audience… it raises the bar for most other gigs you could think of, that’s for sure…
So imagine how much better it is than the majority of so-called ‘branded content’… the stuff that brands are producing as entertainment are nothing mor ethan mere distractions compared to an event like this.
And because the content is being put on by a ‘brand’, the audience probably demands that it’s 10% better than it would have been had it not been branded…
…but the rewards for the brands that goes that extra mile will no doubt be huge. Come on people, put on a SHOW…
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