Dallas Don’t Dance: Culture Talk

Live music is everything. There is seldom a cultural pastime so consistently enjoyed that it can withstand boundaries of time or location. Concerts, big or small, have the unique opportunity to be etched into history. For example, the world flipped on its axis when Micheal Jackson premiered the infamous moonwalk at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in 1983. Or, Queen at Live Aid in 1985, literally pulverized the stadium with the chants from “We Will Rock You.” Even in recent memory, the Pop Princess herself VMA's performance of “Slave 4 U” influenced Halloween costumes and sexual awakenings for the next twenty years. 

 Artists give their all on the stage to deliver a worthwhile performance. As the audience, the only thing we have to barter with in the face of this dedication is full fledged participation. Granted a time machine, we could go back at any point in history to see not just enthusiasm, but hysteria from the droves of people in the audience. But recently the audience has broken the pact, we sit there lacklusterly as the talent writhes on the stage waiting like a dog for a crumb of reciprocation. In the past month, I’ve had the pleasure of attending shows from Boiler Room, Sweat Tour, Zack Fox and Kaytranada, all of which have bred similar results. So who’s at fault? Why is it that Dallas won’t dance? 

There is no better place to be after a four month relentless rampage of bratiness, than a Charli XCX and Troye Sivan concert. Charli teased the occasional remix song, or gave the crowd a throwback to the prebrat days with “Vroom Vroom” or the collaborative track with Sivan “1999.” With each song and emphasis on performance, it became abundantly clear that the right people were made famous. Charli and Sivan both approached everything with the tenacity of a highschool theater kid that got their big break. They commanded the stage, strutting, dancing, and donning the occasional outfit change. The party princess persona is no media tactic, Charli is every bit unhinged as she appears to be. With the right crowd, that approach should have felt like a drunken club night, and for many (especially those that followed the show with an allnighter at the gay club) it did. However, by the time the encore rolled around unfortunately the crowd was all partied out. Charli played her definitive hit maker, “I Love It” and the reaction to the ultimate throwback was nonexistent, even for those in the pit. Charli threw her hands up watching the crowd as if to say, “Are you serious?” Sivan joined her soon after, attempting to bring life back into the pit but they’d apparently signed a DNR. 

For the Sweat Tour, I’d originally tried to place fault on lulls in energy due to the size of the venue or even the intensity of brat’s commercial success raising too high of a bar. However, Zack Fox suffered from a similar effect in one of the smaller areas of South Side Ballroom. Fox’s set was seemingly designed to center around Black nostalgia. He mixed gospel, 90s RNB, and for lack of a better phrase, Southern twerk tracks. Between his own set and openers like BoyBlk and Liv.e, there was objectively something there for everyone. I’m personally unfamiliar with Fox outside of his comedic Internet personality and appearances on Abbot Elementary so most of the mixes were new to me. Known or not, the unspoken rule stands, when you hear The Percolator– you shake what you got. Unfortunately without exaggeration, the only time the crowd as a whole was visibly animated was during Fox’s fan favorite track “Whatz Up Whatz Up” by Playa Poncho that also played at Boiler Room New York. After the categorical stiffness of the Dallas show, Fox took to his Instagram stories to explicitly state the concert etiquette from the rulebook. “I love when I can tell someone had no other agenda than shaking their booty around erratically like a freak …if you do not fit the description let’s have a dialogue about making space for those who do.” Ouch.

There can be no conversation about dance music without giving flowers to the man who has remained a cornerstone of the intersection of house/RnB/hip hop/funk. Kaytranada earned his place on everyone's summer playlist by being an artist that is able to move seamlessly through various genres. His show at Toyota Music Factory was the spacial best of both worlds between a venue like American Airlines Center and South Side Ballroom. The crowd ranged from older to younger, date nights to group hangs and the diversity in the crowd is bound to breed hopeful results. Unlike other talent, Kaytranda made his intentions for the night explicit before the first beat even dropped. The show was a dance party, and they needed to dance. Whether the night’s refreshments had a paralyzing effect, or the majority was just too cool, the directions were ignored. After it became apparent that most of the crowd preferred to be glued to their phone, Kaytranada took to making multiple comments on stage like “Y'all aren’t moving enough for me” and even continually begged the crowd to participate by repeating, “This is a party.”

 So if concerts are a party, when did we all start behaving like wallflowers? There are droves of people at the most anticipated shows of the year who seem to only attend to bank their social capital. Perhaps like our grandparents continually suggest, phones are the issue, the image of being an intense concert goer on social media may be more appealing than the performance itself. On the other hand, every vibe is location based. Charli’s Los Angeles crowd suffered from participation paralysis whereas in New York, the party girl was well within her element. So what kind of energy is Dallas emitting that encourages such latency? The city is full of creatives in various industries who are dedicated to having a good time, as a collective we have to make that reflect on the dance floor.