For a moment, you’re suspended in space and time. The lights are flashing, the crowd is roaring, the musician is playing the song you know and love; you feel your friends’ excitement as palpably as rain drops on a hot summer evening, and for a brief moment, you notice yourself amongst a sea of people as though you have stepped outside the limits of your own body. And then the bass drops, and you find yourself dancing and singing the words to the song as loudly as your lungs will let you. When the concert ends, you’re left with pure euphoria, promising your friends and yourself to return to the scene as soon as possible.
Needless to say, I went to a concert last weekend. I saw Quinn XCII and Chelsea Cutler at Radio City Music Hall with a few friends, and can now proudly check off “going to a concert” off my post-pandemic bucket list. If the post-quarantine blues have been lingering around for you or you feel suddenly thrust into a new normal that doesn’t remotely resemble what you pictured normalcy to feel like (I swear I’m not projecting), I highly recommend finding a live music show and imbibing the impeccable vibes.
As I thought about my satisfaction with my Saturday night, I began to wonder about the different elements that had left me so euphoric. Concerts are truly carefully curated exhibitions meant to fulfill a soul-satisfying craving left by the modern human experience. There are a myriad of factors to be taken care of: sound engineering, marketing and sale of tickets, merchandise, costumes, playlists, venue, and so much more. But the element that stood out most to me was the artistic presentation. The colors and imagery had a subtle, but significant impact on the reception of the song, attention to lyrics, and sentiment. As I began to notice the colors of the lights flashing, beckoning me to sway with the artist or jump up and down or belt out the lyrics, it became indubitably clear to me the purposefulness with which these choices had been made.
I first realized the impact of the imagery on the screens when Chelsea Cutler sang the lines “Anything, anything that you want, that you want that I got, that’s for you” from her song, You Can Have It. The intimate implications of the song matched perfectly with the color contrasting squiggles that moved slowly down the screen, bringing an intoxicating yet perfect understanding of the mood generated by Cutler’s lyrics. As I watched the different shades of orange, red, and blue make their way down the screen in an imperfectly repetitive fashion, singing the words to this beloved song, it dawned on me we were all singing to our lovers (real, imagined, or yearned for) with the same emotion. Later, when Quinn XCII sang about his wife and two dogs, he didn’t care if we were distracted by the cute puppy montage playing above his head, because he wanted us to feel and share the same love he felt for them. When he sang about how far we’ve come, the imagery of water in the backdrop reinforced our intrinsic propensity to forge ahead stronger with every wave of new beginnings.
The impact of the lights and their colors was a little more subtle but hard to miss once initially observed. As Cutler closed her act, the lights flashed a brilliant pink and blue which came together to form purple. A little deductive reasoning immediately explained this choice: Cutler performed with two other bandmates, a keyboardist and guitarist. The blue and pink would have been for both of the bandmates and they came together to form a cohesive purple light that represented Cutler herself. Thus, three colors that contrasted but allowed for representation of the three musicians on stage suited the dramatic close perfectly. Similarly, when Quinn XCII and Cutler sang together, the color scheme shifted to orange and blue: complementary colors that allowed the artists to distinguish themselves on the same stage. However, at the conclusion of their song, another color, yellow, was added, as they pointed to the audience and included the listeners in their performance.
It’s not every day that we can decide to go listen to our favorite artists serenade us with the songs that have gotten us through some of our happiest, and saddest moments with friends and strangers who congregate together to remind us all that we share something in common. It’s an amazing experience to be cherished, especially because it comes packaged in all the right lights, colors, and visuals that make for an ephemeral yet memorable experience. I hope that you, dear reader, get a chance to experience something that makes your soul a little lighter soon, be it a concert, play, Broadway show, or art exhibit that reminds you of all our humanness, and the amazing things we can do with it. If you get the chance, try to think about what made it special, and you might be able to discern a few things that make it even more beautiful.
The Doodling Duck is an Opinion culture column written and created by Pooja Rajadurai to discuss art as it relates to pop culture, trends, and students.
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