Snapshot One: A few years ago, I attended a concert by
Johnny Lang and Buddy Guy. While Lang’s performance left me in awe, a different
memory has lingered just as strongly. When Buddy Guy finished his first song,
he said something along the lines of, “Where’s the f****** crowd?” Within minutes, audience members were
shouting the f-word back at him. When Guy left the stage and began to work the
audience, his speech, songs, and actions were full of innuendo – and once
again, the audience responded in kind. It was all part of the stage show – Guy knows how to work a
room – but I’ve never forgotten how the entire mood changed when
Guy gave the audience permission to interact with him in a certain way by
establishing what was appropriate. He didn’t have to tell them they could; they
rightly inferred it from what he demonstrated. [1]
Snapshot Two: I once attended a soccer game in Costa Rica
between two teams with a long and intense rivalry. My friend who took me,
thinking himself funny, bought me the jersey of the visiting team to wear. “Oh,” he noted, “don’t be surprised if people
walking past you say insulting things.” Indeed, that’s exactly what happened. I
wore a visiting rival’s shirt to a rivalry game; what else should I expect?
Snapshot Three: I saw a documentary that included some
scenes from a music festival a few years back. A band introduced a song by
saying, “There’s only one rule tonight: there are no f****** rules!”
Shockingly, fans swarmed the stage, and the band had to stop while security
enforced that particular rule. Limp Bizkit (“Break Stuff”) and Rage Against The
Machine (“Killing In The Name”) have seen similar incidents at their concerts
when fans went ahead and acted out what the band sang.
Snapshot Four: Last week, one of Mac Miller’s fans came up
to him and said about Miller’s girlfriend, Ariana Grande, what Miller says all
the time about women – specifically, how great it must be to “hit that.” If you
are wondering why that fan thought it was appropriate to say that, just check
out some of Mac Miller’s lyrics. Or not. The message matters.[2]
