In the last 2 weeks I’ve been to two house concerts here in NYC.  Perhaps I should call them “Apartment Concerts”, but I’m seeing a real trend here in people getting back to the idea of pure inspirational music listening.

I love this concept and I love this trend in music.  I’ve felt for far too long now that audiences are slowly losing the ability to simply sit and listen to music and enjoy it for what it is.  Instead, more and more hoopla seems to be needed to stimulate the listener.  I enjoyed the novelty of Pink this last year at the Grammys singing upside-down while hanging from a trapeze, but c’mon now really…

I fear that the real basic problem here lately has been that there is a diminishing quality of music to listen to and so artists have to add additional value to their live acts in order to hold their audiences who have grown to expect light shows, ridiculous costumes, gargantuan sets and fireworks to stay interested.

Whatever happened to a great singer, a great band and a great song?  For me, when those 3 elements come together, that’s enough to make me stand up and scream in excitement.

I’ll take the Dave Matthews Band over Lady Gaga any day, although I admire her abilities and musicianship.

So I welcome this new trend in music performance where people open their homes to friends and musicians and in intimate settings songs are sung and people sit close, experience the visceral electricity of up-close-and-personal and simply enjoy good music.

In both experiences I had the chance to be thoroughly entertained by twp Watchfire Music artists – the first, a true house concert on the upper West side of NYC in a brownstone parlor with about 45 people in attendance with Lisa Redfern and her mate, Randall Williams.  The audience ran the gamut from babies to little ol’ ladies and everyone had a ‘swell’ time listening to the great harmonies and fancy pickin’.

The second house party was just last night at the 90^th birthday party of legendary NY vocal teacher John Mace.  Held high up overlooking Central Park in the penthouse apartment living room of Betsy von Furstenberg, an American radio, television, film, and Broadway actress, the evening featured songs sung in tribute by many of John Mace’s students over the years.

These “students” ranged from Broadway stars, recording artists and classical concert vocalists and included Tammy Grimes, Broadway’s Virginia Sandifur and WFM’s own Jenny Burton who deftly knocked the paint off the ceiling of Betsy’s livingroom.

I couldn’t help but notice, as each vocalist got up and sang his or her tribute to their much cherished teacher, how totally comfortable each singer was in their singing skin.  I was in the sure hands of totally gifted pros all evening doing what they do best and simply shining and giving back their talents to their great teacher.

Again, the intimacy of the experience was one of the keys to the fascination of the evening.  We sat in their laps as they touched us with their tributes and experienced them each — up-close-and-personal.

We’re going to start recreating the vibes of this experience here in NYC just off of Times Square starting next fall with an exciting new WFM concept called The Watchfire Music Listening Room.  We’ll be doing it nightly and webcasting it through our site and broadcasting it also on WFM Radio.

I’ll have more to tell you in future posts as this idea develops.  In the meantime, look around in your own city or community for this exciting new trend in music listening.  And if you can’t find one, throw one yourself!

The music industry has always been full of concentric circles.  Here is one that is returning once again to its time-honored tradition.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.