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Copley Square concerts could very easily become a new habit. Saw half of Maia Sharp's set (really good) and all of Mike Doughty's (fantastic) yesterday... the concerts are nestled in this grassy area, a little crowded but not too bad -- I was close enough to the stage to watch guitar fingerings (with the side effect that my left ear will never be the same), and it was an absolutely beautiful day, and really nice on the whole.
Then off to hear Speakeasy at the Middle East -- as usual the sound setup there made me a little sad; the upstairs room is not a huge space and I imagine there's only so much you can do (and the sound tech was definitely walking around the room and listening and balancing actively the whole time) but it seems like the solution they use every time (the only solution, probably) is to up the volume on everything until it can compete with the drums, which imho ends up just being way too much for the room and hurts the band's sound. Last time I saw Speakeasy there one of the things that set them above the just-okay bands was their use of varying dynamics; they didn't seem to do that quite so much this time, but were still good, especially the second half of their set.
Shakespeare on the Common on Wednesday was pretty good too -- I was sort of disappointed that they reserved a whole lot of space in front of the stage for sponsors of the performance, most of which wasn't even filled up, so we couldn't get all that close to the stage. :/ But they did a good job -- ( I'm cutting half a sentence here because it's hilarious and if you plan to see this I don't want to ruin the surprise ) -- and it must be tough logistically to figure out how to stage a performance like that on a limited budget, outside, in such a way that it can be repeated nightly for three weeks. I thought it was pulled off well.
Then off to hear Speakeasy at the Middle East -- as usual the sound setup there made me a little sad; the upstairs room is not a huge space and I imagine there's only so much you can do (and the sound tech was definitely walking around the room and listening and balancing actively the whole time) but it seems like the solution they use every time (the only solution, probably) is to up the volume on everything until it can compete with the drums, which imho ends up just being way too much for the room and hurts the band's sound. Last time I saw Speakeasy there one of the things that set them above the just-okay bands was their use of varying dynamics; they didn't seem to do that quite so much this time, but were still good, especially the second half of their set.
Shakespeare on the Common on Wednesday was pretty good too -- I was sort of disappointed that they reserved a whole lot of space in front of the stage for sponsors of the performance, most of which wasn't even filled up, so we couldn't get all that close to the stage. :/ But they did a good job -- ( I'm cutting half a sentence here because it's hilarious and if you plan to see this I don't want to ruin the surprise ) -- and it must be tough logistically to figure out how to stage a performance like that on a limited budget, outside, in such a way that it can be repeated nightly for three weeks. I thought it was pulled off well.
