German audiences (WAS site specific looping)

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

  I think this is just a cultural difference, Mark (referring to German 
audiences not
seeming to react until the very end of a performance).

When I was performing my one Goth song as a lead singer for the Kobe 
Underground
Festival in Japan a few years back.............they introduced me and 
then the entire band
left the stage with me standing there with a microphone and my looping 
gear with
absolutely NOTHING planned.       I improvised a 15 minute segment of 
mostly
faux industrial beat boxing and live looping slice and dice tricks and 
ended
my little 'set'  with a huge blast of fake noise that ended abruptly.

There was an amazingly pregnant pause of complete silence (with hundreds 
of japanese
goth/industrial fans in the audience staring at me).

I thought they hated it and then suddenly after an unbearable pause,  
they gave me one of the
biggest ovations I've ever had playing in any kind of musical situation.

It fucking blew my mind......especially that they had listened so 
attentively that they
didn't at all risk not hearing any minutiae by applauding too early.

I had experienced a similar thing when Worlds Collide played in Osaka 
many years back.
I ended a song with the band slamming to a halt as I hit a very loud and 
long ringing
tibetan bell tuned to E.................it took forever to finish 
ringing and you could hear a pin
drop before we got a really big applause.

I think American and British audiences can be kind of brutish as long as 
we are getting
controversial here.      I am sometimes distressed by how little 
American audiences
listen at big shows.     I nearly got into a fight at a show here while 
back by asking two
girls who were talking extremely loudly  right next to me all the way 
through a show I had
paid $60 to see.   Who was I to be so audacious as to ask them to please 
talk somewhere
else so I could actually hear the show I had travelled an hour and a 
half to see.

Actually,  I'm proud of the looping festivals because the audiences at 
them seem so
attentive.  I've heard several people remark about that quality of the 
audiences.