Tag Archives: Gwen Stefani

Music, self publishing

Commentary on Camera Policies at Concerts

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Here’s and interesting article I got from the NIN twitter feed.

nineinchnails RT @rob_sheridan: CNET has a nice article up about open camera policies at concerts, with some comments from me: http://bit.ly/1HVAlO

I’ve been to NIN and Gwen Stefani concerts with the everything goes camera policies and to a Bjork concert where I was trampled by a large security guard on her way to kick a fan out of the concert for having a camera phone out of his pocket.   When the camera policy is loose, the audience is more engaged and, in general,  having more fun as they make memories and share their experience with the world in real time.  With respect to the Bjork concert, I really didn’t appreciate being trampled and I would have liked to, at least, have taken a picture of myself and my husband at the event to mark the occasion.

To be honest, whenever I see an artist demand a no camera policy, my gut tells me it’s because the artist knows the show isn’t that good and doesn’t want footage leaked that will discourage potential customers.  Any reasonable person knows, regardless of the image and sound quality, NOTHING beats the experience of actually being at the concert.   I applaud those artists that understand their audience and understand cameras are for admiration, adoration, and commemoration and not piracy.  Not only that, with some clever marketing, fan generated media can be made into some nice personalized merchandise for the artist to sell back to the fan.  Example:  HP and Gwen Stefani collaborated with fans to make personalized concert books.  It was a win-win-win solution!

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Wind it Up! Gwen Stefani Concert in San Diego

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Last night Gwen Stefani made her “Sweet Escape Tour” stop in San Diego.  It was truly a special event because all the proceeds from the show were donated to the victims of the recent San Diego fires.

This is the first concert that I’ve gone to in 5 or 6 years since I went to see Bjork’s Vespertine Tour when it came to the Hollywood Bowl.  At that time I thought it was pretty cool that Bjork introduced her system administrator as part of the band ;p.  This time, the experience was very different because the glow of cigarette lighters and the like were replaced with the glow of digital camera and cell phone screens.  Wow!  I forgot to bring my camera (I was so sad), but I’d say nearly everyone else in the arena had some so sort of way of taking a digital image or video.  This was truly amazing because recording is not always allowed at concerts.

I think the show lasted about 1.5 hours (we missed Sean Kingston, the opening act — we were not very sad about that) and within in that 90-minutes, there was lots of singing, dancing, costume changes, set changes, and direct interaction with audience.  Gwen Stephani really puts on a good show.  It was also nice that she left the dancing to her dancers so she could concentrate on singing (Her dancers were really good.  It was obvious that some of them were former gymnasts).  The show itself was very audience participatory.  We were encouraged to get on our feet to dance and sing.  I’m a sucker for a sing-a-long and bass, so I had a really good time singing and doing my little Jen-dance.  I sung my voice out by the end of the concert and I’m still feeling the effects of the loud singing today.