Ripping off the audience
Mariah Carey’s little tricks are indicative of a far wider malaise:
After keeping the crowd waiting an hour in Sydney on Thursday, fans were relieved Mariah Carey was less than 15 minutes late to her Melbourne show. Can’t Take That Away (Mariah’s Theme) … was an early highlight, and one that the big-haired, short-skirted songstress never matched during a 75-minute set.
Criminally, Carey herself was on stage for less than an hour, regularly exiting while back-up dancers failed to thrill during lengthy interludes, and a two-song guest spot was performed by Trey Lorenz, who also duetted with Carey.
The sparse backing band, too, was merely perfunctory, and the stage – instruments perched atop lilac blocks – was more Rock Eisteddfod than multimillion-selling artist … It was a shame then that she chose to waste the precious little of her performing time with frequent, odd exchanges with the crowd.
There was talk of one city being “granted” an extra song which another city didn’t get. FFS – whatever happened to artists gelling with their audiences, giving more, the audience responding and a good night out had by all? “Odd exchanges” with the audience – that was how it was termed. Choreographed interaction to a script.
One comment:
“Fans may have left feeling short-changed” – That surely has to be the biggest understatement of the night. Given the criticism surrounding her first two shows you would have thought that more effort would have been made to put on a worthy show. All around me on the second tier in the diamond section the audience left quite clearly disappointed and disgruntled at what was clearly a poor value for money performance.
Firstly, the music was too loud making her voice inaudible at times, there was no engagement with the entire arena (lets face it most of the true fans were at the back given the $349 floor ticket price) and what disappointed most was the quick rush to finish the concert at 11pm (no encore) because of the local licencing laws in regards to loud music.
As a regular concert goer I was expecting much more from Mariah and from my night out but I left bitterly disappointed.
It’s not a new thing, of course – Chuck Berry was notorious for meanspiritedness and there was that Betty Boo lipsynching scandal many will remember. However, I still maintain that the spirit of our age is greed, which means taking more and giving less and the effect on wellbeing is slowly corrosive and destructive.
The bottom line is that there are those who like this howling hyena, seeing her as “talented” and fair enough – they paid out big money to see her. They had a right to expect far, far more. Busy schedule or no busy schedule, each one of those audiences on any one night was there for her – surely she could have given in return.
Filed under: History & Culture, Music, Politics & economics
I hope that the next time madam tours down under (or up over for that matter) that people with $349 to spare (YIKES near $700 for a couple!) will find something better to do with it their money, EG go to the local karaoke bar , or patronise some local artist singing/playing in a small venue, buy their CD, feed home grown artists instead of these synthetic corporate horrors.
Couldn’t agree more.
Unlike real value for money performance by Ken Dodd in his ‘Happiness Show’ I saw last year, started at 7.30 interval at 10.00 finished just before 1 in the morning went home hoarse from laughing a real star.
Like others of her ilk, she is called a ‘Diva’. Gordon Bennett. Much of the entertainment industry is just a huge rip-off. And there will always be dorks willing to shell out ridiculous amounts of money to watch/listen to (hah! as if)/gyrate and scream at talentless nonebrities. The industry has always regarded the audiences as ‘marks’.