5 Days in Music

I attended Metro Radio Live tonight, one of these commercial radio sponsored shows that are overloaded with acts all vying for your attention in 3 or 4 songs. It's not the sort of thing I'd ever have gone to in the days BM (or before Matt) but it's an opportunity to take the kids to something while still at least having 15 minutes of something I like too - everybody wins - or so you'd think.

Once the DJ had spent half an hour shouting at the crowd to "get them in the mood" I was beginning to think I was wrong. As one after another act came on shouted "make same noise" and sang mostly pop rnb or rap over a loud and monotonous back beat, I started to seriously doubt my decision to come along. It seems to me that in a society that has such a short attention span for anything, this is the future of the music industry - 10 minutes and only play songs we already know, in case, heaven forbid someone had to actual sit back and experience something new or original.

I won't mention the individual acts because my comments about them would be pretty uniform, let's just say it's not my cup of tea!! Half way through the show, Matt Cardle performed; this is who I had come to see, the only one to be fair.  He sang 3 songs, 2 singles and the most pop friendly album track - he didn't do any of the XF songs, including the winners' single, which one imagines would have gone down a storm.

He performed on his own, to a backing track, without his guitar or his band, because that's what you do in these things - the music isn't live and the singers sing over a track, and the experience is significantly more sterile as a result.  Matt sang fabulously and played the crowd but was I the only one who thought the smile was a bit forced and didn't quite reach his eyes?

I enjoyed it, I'd be lying if I said I didn't but my overriding feeling was what is a singer from the world of, admittedly light, rock doing in this environment?  Are Tichy Strider fans really going to "get " him and given the highlight of the night for seemingly the overwhelming majority was when Olly Murs thrust his hips suggestively in the middle of one of this banal pop songs, is this really an environment that his record label should be subjecting him to?

As I drove home, my thoughts went back 5 days to a gig at Baths Hall in Scunthorpe that I was lucky enough to win tickets to.  Matt performed for half an hour, again on his own, but this time with his guitar in a one man acoustic set that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Totally at ease with the crowd and even throwing in an acoustic version of one of his old songs, Matt was superb. Only half an hour but one of the best  concerts I have been to in years. Now I'm not saying he, should do acoustic stuff particularly; I was at his album launch at Koko with a full band and he was absolutely fantastic - but fully live is clearly where he is at home and at his best - the difference in 5 days was so great you almost would think they were two different artists.

So what does this leave me to conclude? I'm not sure really - it raises questions rather than provides answers; one of which would be who are his fans? The highlight of my week will hopefully getting hold of Springsteen tickets tomorrow, many of the Matt fans I know have tickets for Coldplay and Noel Gallagher so is the pop audience really where the label should be investing it's time? I'm not an expert but even I can see they made a mess of his lead single by playing safe with the XF link - I hope they are not going to compound this by failing to market him as the artist he is - and if they do I hope Matt Runs for his Life - as fast and as far away as he can get. I'll be there, whatever.