How much artist talking is too much at concerts?
CELINE Dion spent 15 minutes introducing a song, prompting a fan to shout and beg for some music. Bob Dylan didn’t utter a word. Surely there’s a middle ground, writes Cameron Adams.
HOW much talking from singers is too much at music concerts?
During her recent tour of Australia, Celine Dion — one of the few modern singers who sell tickets on their vocal prowess — gave a 15 minute monologue to introduce a song. Yes, 15 minutes.
During his Australian tour Bob Dylan didn’t utter a single word to audiences. Not hello, not goodbye. Nothing.
There must be a sweet spot where musicians find the balance between onstage banter between songs and rambling dialogue that sends people to the bar quicker than “Here’s five songs from my new album” and deathly silence.
Dylan fans know what to expect from Dylan (they’re happy he’s actually facing the audience on this tour) and they know Celine loves to talk. A lot.
But short of the person who shouted “PLAY THE F**KING SONG STOP TALKING ABOUT IT” during Celine’s Melbourne show, how do you tell a superstar to STFU? Or the opposite?
Dion’s lengthy monologue involved her explaining, in graphic, painstaking detail, how she came to record a song for Deadpool 2. It started with a letter the movie’s star Ryan Reynolds sent her, then detoured into a kooky, extended yarn about how she thought he might have wanted her to act in the movie. She then shared her thespian prowess with the crowd, including how she can make her eyebrows move on demand.
On her second night in Melbourne she went slightly off script when she accidentally hit her knee adding another two minutes to the marathon story she’d dusted off each night. By the time the Deadpool song, Ashes, was played she’d spent three times longer talking about the song than the song’s actual running time.
Would you rather have heard two extra songs by Dion in that 15 minute nightly gabfest where her band were literally twiddling their thumbs waiting for her to finish? Or are her slightly bonkers chats (she proclaimed to John Farnham “You are contagious!” — meaning his personality, not his medical status) all part of the fun and personality fans were coughing up to $400 for (and those weren’t even the front row VIP seats).
Make no mistake, talking to the audience is an art form. It can win a crowd over instantly. It can give us context about the song about to be aired. It makes you feel part of the show.
On his final Australian tour, George Michael was so good in Melbourne that we forgave him calling us “Sydney” five times. Worded up at interval, he tried to say he was giving a crew member called “Sidney” a shout out. Nice try!
On her first (and only) Australian tour professional non-singer Britney Spears spoke only to say “hello” halfway through her shows — the only moment the technicians needed to switch her microphones on each night.
Robbie Williams has great banter — even if it’s as rehearsed as a stage musical, with the odd local reference thrown in — and artists like Pink and Kylie may have huge productions which run like clockwork due to all the different moving parts but they schedule bespoke talk breaks each night to bond with the audience.
Katy Perry tried this on her latest Australian tour, which seemed to involve thinking her British accent would pass as an Australian one. It ruddy well did not. In Melbourne, Chatty Cathy, sorry Katy, got grumpy when the Katy Perry lookalike she pulled up on stage told her imitating her at birthday parties wasn’t actually that lucrative. We’ll let the fact Perry’s tour was selling budget tickets for $50 for most shows slide.
Plus Perry didn’t come on until 9.30pm, her average audience member is aged nine, and her frequent five minute talk breaks meant more time their parents were waiting with folded arms outside in the cold.
Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney have a brilliant trick — they read out signs fans hold up, requesting everything from a song to a hug to an autograph on their body they’ll later get tattooed. But these men play for hours at each show, so they’re entitled to natter a bit. Hearing Paul McCartney talk about John and George you’re reminded you’re watching a living legend talking about his mates and how lucky you are to be born in a time when this can happen.
Last year’s Sia’s ultra-arty, super-theatrical show saw her singing live, but hidden up the back of the stage underneath her trademark wig. Awkwardly, Sia didn’t speak at all between songs, instead showing prerecorded visuals on the screens. Fans had to wait until the very end of the show for her to say thank you and goodbye.
Listening to Adele talk, and swear, adds a whole other level of seeing her live and makes her instantly relatable — as does her habit of leaving personal notes for the people in the very back row. John Farnham loves to bust out dad jokes, but never in lieu of a wall of hits.
On her tour last year Stevie Nicks took more of a Storytellers approach — playing a swag of rare or unearthed material, and a handful of hits, that tied in to an admittedly fascinating story about her work with everyone from Prince to Tom Petty. Again, she’d talk about a four minute song for up to eight minutes.
These kind of chat-song-chat-song shows probably work better in a theatre than an arena or, particularly, outdoor shows where pickled punters are just waiting for Stevie Nicks to play Fleetwood Mac hits back to back, not some lost song from 1978 with more backstories than a week of episodes of The Voice.
Other times speaking on stage can be educational. Ed Sheeran took time out of his stadium tour to explain that no, he wasn’t using backing tapes but rather offered a technical explanation of how his loop pedal worked.
The Dixie Chicks released a documentary called Shut Up and Sing when the less, er, progressive members of their audience hated them being political and just wanted the songs.
Shannon Noll may have heeded that advice when his non-PC rant after his becoming beer can bait was recorded and shared online way more than any of his latest music has been.
At least he was going off script.
The opposite of all this was on the horizon — Olivia Newton-John was selling tickets for a “conversation” show later this year, where ticket buyers are warned she won’t sing a note, just discuss her life. Despite only being announced earlier this month, the event has mysteriously been cancelled. Maybe she realised that people pay to hear singers sing.
Cameron Adams is a News Corp national music writer.
Originally published as How much artist talking is too much at concerts?