Live Music and the Vibe
Read Time: 12 minutes
What live music do you vibe with?
How do performers and audiences co-create a collective vibe?
Why are some shows full of life while others are dull and boring?
There is something unique about the co-presence of bodies acting together in public space. Think about a face-to-face conversation versus: a phone call, video-chat, text convo, or a prerecorded talk or video.
There’s always some kind of vibe in each of these experiences. But there’s something different about live, face-to-face interaction.
You and the other person are co-present, reacting back and forth to numerous nonverbal cues: voice inflections, facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, upper and lower torso movements, natural pauses and rhythms of breath, and the general give and take of dialogue. All of this changes the nature of the vibe between you and the other person.
Or perhaps it doesn’t actually change the vibe itself. Instead, maybe it helps us become more attentive to the vibe. Attending to each other’s nonverbals attunes us to the vibe between us. The vibe becomes thicker, fuller, more present and tangible. This is a basic principle of the live music vibe.
Think of the last live, in-person musical show you attended. And I mean a good show.
What was the show, why was it good, and what role did the vibe play?
What was the vibe like? How would you describe it? How did it feel? How did it move you? How did it move through you?
What was your vibe like? What about the vibe of the crowd? The vibe of the performers?
And how did the vibe of each person and performer help provoke and produce a collective vibe?
A show of mine that stands out is Too Many Zooz at the Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia, PA. It’s a nice medium-sized city venue and the show was banging. It was also January 2020—the last show I’d see right before the pandemic. If I had known what was coming, I may have never left the building! Jokes and dread aside, it was a wonderful show to see before the world (temporarily) crumbled.
(See link at end for the Zooz website.)
The band is just three guys. Leo Pellegrino on baritone saxophone, Matt “Doe” Muirhead on trumpet, and David “King of Sludge” Parks on the drums. They classify themselves as “Brass House”—a combination of jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk, electronic dance music, and house music.
Their sound, in my humble opinion, is driven by their directed and focused improve. From what I can tell, they are accomplished, well-rehearsed musicians that come out with a preplanned playlist. But they experiment and ad-lib in real time, letting the sparks fly like a firework grand finale.
This type of musical performance mimics the vibe-at-large. By vibe-at-large, I mean the vibe that enables all other vibes. The universal vibe. Everyone gives off a vibe, but that’s different than the vibe. And that vibe is paradoxical as it involves both permeance and change, both structure and flux.
This is by no means an original insight. Numerous non-Western traditions have made similar observations—Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, various indigenous spiritualities, etc. And even some Western thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, and Alfred North Whitehead have made similar comments, albeit, for different reasons and in different contexts. Nevertheless, when I think about the vibe, I think about a seemingly paradoxical structure: an ever-present energy flowing infinitely and indefinitely, but always there, holding a rhythm, a beat, an identifiable tonality.
And these are the kinds of shows that I enjoy the most—ones that hold that paradoxical structure. Other such bands that I’ve seen in recent years include (in no particular order) Pigeons Playing Ping-Pong, Lotus, Tauk, Muscle Tough, Magic Beans, Evolfo, and Out of the Beardspace. (Many of these bands are from my general geographical region.)
When I listen to live improvisational music—whether it instrumental funk, jazz, jam bands, live electronica, or whatever—it lowers my own need for control. It’s as if I’m being invited—almost compelled—to be more present and in the moment. My mind starts mimicking the band’s musical performance: be present, mindful, attentive, in the moment. Yet, paradoxically, I am letting go, relinquishing control, and allowing my ego to recede while other parts of my being come forward.
I then experience the music as if I am part of the creative act. The band and I are co-creating the moment. And with that, the vibe itself becomes more present, more spontaneous, more alive. A symbiotic relationship starts happening. An exchange and reciprocity. I become more present to the vibe and the vibe becomes more present to me.
This same experience is then pulsating through the crowd and a collective vibe soon emerges. It’s thick, sensual, and touchable. Everyone is now lost in the moment. Both the band and the audience are feeling each other and feeling that larger thing that’s bouncing off and through our bodies. The vibe.
I admit that this kind of vibe isn’t for everybody. Some people appreciate more structured, refined, and crafted music. I too appreciate that approach to live music, as well as the vibe.
Think of world class athletes who train their entire lives to be in the zone when it most counts. Sprinters, swimmers, gymnasts, ball players. The game is on the line. It’s the last few seconds and the team needs the shot to win. A pressure cooker situation that needs sustained focus and stamina to feel, follow, and produce the right vibe.
Martial artists train for years to exert maximum effort in the most direct and efficient way. The goal is one movement in one moment.
Buddhist monks meditate for hours, days, and even years in hopes of living a life of meditation. The purpose is to be “with it” all the time.
Classical orchestras learn how to collectively anticipate and execute every note at just the right time and in just the right way. They are elegant and exquisite, embodying the highest of arts. But they are also visceral and emotional, riding and radiating a collective vibe.
Such commitment, discipline, and craft help us become more attentive to the vibe. As your craft becomes second nature, you are free to be more present to and with the vibe.
In many ways, this is what life is all about. How do you develop your everyday life so that the vibe itself becomes second nature? How do you develop an unspoken habit of moving with the vibe? How do you learn to embody the vibrational paradox of permanence and change, structure and flow?
This is one of the things that live music can teach us. For a few hours, even just a few minutes—even a single moment—it all comes together and you feel it in your bones. You suddenly remember that you are not alone or abandoned; it’s not all for naught. There’s more going on and we can learn to tap in and feel it.
I’m fortunate to have had experienced this numerous times throughout my life. I can’t recall my first live show. I’m guessing in high school some time. But at this point in my life, I’ve seen hundreds of live shows.
The biggest chunk of shows involves the jam-band Phish. I first saw them in the summer of 1993. Thirty years later and I’ve probably seen them about 80 or 90 times.
Then there are music festivals where I see numerous bands in a single weekend. The music starts on a Friday at 12-noon and the goes to 3- or 4-am. Repeat that on Saturday. (I first saw Too Many Zooz at a jam fest.)
There’s also Guided By Voices, which is a very different genre. Kind of low-fi post-punk garage rock. I’ve seen them upwards of ten times.
In my early days I was going to raves and underground clubs in and around New York City just about every weekend. I could also include some of the more memorial house parties of that time with live DJs.
One of the best shows I ever saw was the British electronic band Underworld. They did a live, nonstop three-hour set and rocked every second of it. That was 2003, I believe. Been trying to see them again ever since.
If I add it all up, I’ve seen at least a few hundred “live shows.” And the number continues, hopefully till I’m old and decrepit.
Not every show leads to an intense and ecstatic collective vibe experience. But each teaches me something about the vibe. In simplest formulation: Music is an aesthetically stylized form of sound; sound is produced through physical vibration; and that physical vibration elicits a metaphysical vibration from our bodies. It could be a local bar band, a Gods of Rock mega concert, a poppy boy band, or a Lincoln Center black tie affair. There’s always a vibe to feel and experience. May the heavens bless live music, and the vibe it creates.
Click for band websites
Too Many Zooz
Pigeons Playing Ping-Pong
Lotus
Tauk
Muscle Tough
Magic Beans
Evolfo
Out of the Beardspace
Guided By Voices
Phish
Underworld