Having spent most of my career marketing classical music, this past weekend was a double introduction for me to both Tony Bennett and The Roots. And while I have heard recordings of Bennett over the years, I had never seen or heard the Roots before. What a treat, then, to not only market two sell-out performances on our opening weekend, but also to experience two new and very different performances.
What I found fascinating was comparing the different ways these very accomplshed artists worked their audiences. With Bennett, the audience was very still and very quiet, basically hanging on every phrase in rapt attention. He was singing directly to them, but any response was reserved for the wild applause at the end of each number. Everything from Bennett's singing to the audience response could be summed up as a kind of Less is More. There was a lot of emotion on both sides, but carefully doled out over the evening.
Of course with Roots the whole auditorium was in motion all the time, from cheers and shouts to dancing and head bobbing. And those musicians wanted, craved, demanded total audience involvement. But of course the ultimate control was still in their hands, because the level of sound coming from the stage could always beat back and overwhelm anything out in the auditorium. So the Roots, just like Tony Bennett in his own way, were leading our feelings, our responses, our rush the way only gifted performers know how.
What great nights they were--even for a classical music fan!