Dancing to Live Music

why doesn't anyone do this anymore? when did they stop? do they still do this anywhere else in the world?
i mean i like a good dj as much as the next guy but isn't it alot more fun if there's a band playing? i mean i've seen a few weirdos busting moves but only once maybe twice has it ever approached that critical mass where you don't feel weird joining in and lettin' loose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk

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i'm curious as to if there's anyone around who would prefer dancing to a dj set rather than a live band. because it definitely has some serious advantages over live music, i just doubt whether any are really good enough to justify its current monopoly on the thing that people dance to.

Dancing on a grassy slope strikes me as no easy feat (pardon cringe-inducing sonic pun).

are we distinguishing between 'jigging to the beat', 'dancing' and 'violently moshing' here

yeah, dancing.

does jumping up and down count as dancing in your book?

i love that clip so much

xp yeah, why not. so long as these jumps are sufficiently boogalooe'd, we don't want a room full of straight-legged bastards hopping in place now do we?

Suggest ban

(xpost) cue "white people dancing" joke...

indie rock jokes galore

rock music is hard to dance to

i think it's just a critical mass kinda thing, people don't want to dance because no one else is dancing, but usually if you can get five to 10 people dancing then other people loosen up and are more willing to dance. the trick is getting the first few people going.

otm

absolutely. Brian Wilson at the Bridge School Benefit a couple of years ago was the closest to a mass dance party I've seen in a long time...I remember looking around at all the smiling dancing people and thinking, man I wish more shows were like this. I wanna go back to the olden days where people went to shows to dance. Then again I'm kind of a dancey person, I tend to dance at shows whether anyone else is or not. Most people aren't that way inclined...I'm sure olden day people were all like, 'ugh I'm so sick of dancing, I wish I could I could go to a show where everyone just stands around"....

'olden days' = I guess I'm picturing the 50's. Insert appropriate decade/timeframe.

i think it's just a critical mass kinda thing, people don't want to dance because no one else is dancing, but usually if you can get five to 10 people dancing then other people loosen up and are more willing to dance. the trick is getting the first few people going.

absoulutely, but where have these first few people gone? have we all become shy? are we not dancing because we're listen more intently? or has live music changed, become less danceable, as a result of... i dont know, the perceived superiority of dance clubs and music played there as dancing material? as much as i may love dance clubs, there's something communal and engaging about dancing to live music, whereas too often the club attitude can just be a noncommital, blasé pose.

People are still dancing to live music, just not as many are dancing to rock. Plenty of people still dance to go-go, zydeco, old-school funk bands, various african styles, various Latin styles, etc.

And jamband rock ain't my thing, but I think folks are still dancing to that. As for other genres of rock, and Samos's has music changed argument, when I saw Pylon in New York City back in 1981 I think at a music seminar associated event, most folks were too cool do anything more than nod their heads.

absoulutely, but where have these first few people gone?

I am shy, but I always tended to be one of those people anyway, because I am less shy about dancing than I am about conversation, overall (or I can't resist dancing as easily as I can resist talking?). And I have gotten old and sickly.

(Switched public library PCs due to bad hygeine odor--possibly someone's breath. Continued. . .)

And I had moved on to dancing to Latin music.

I don't know what goes on at most music shows these days. Generally if I go out at all, I go to shows where there will definitely be dancing or concerts where almost nobody would want to dance to the music involved.

Actually, a lot of times people don't dance that much at live salsa shows, I guess because they figure they can dance to the music any old time, but they don't get to see the bands live that often, if that makes sense. (I still tend to spend a lot of time dancing during those shows.)

yeah that argument i guess is ok... einh, i don't know. it's one to thing to stand and watch if the music is not danceable, or if there's something really engaging about the performance. but it's not like you wouldn't see them if you were dancing, and the majority of bands aren't that much fun to look at for an entire set. i just can't imagine like take two people at a show, one who danced and the other who stood and watched attentively, and afterwards the non-dancer was like "aw man, you shouldn'ta been dancing-at one point the guitarist made this face-dude you woulda loved it."

Lots of dancing at the Juan Maclean show earlier this year (and I must say, it was really really fun).

yeah, i can imagine that being a great time. hercules and love affair got a full band to play their album live and it was mindblowingly sweet.