artists in the age of AI

I went to a concert last weekend

At First Avenue in Minneapolis

Nation of Language

The band is a trio—a keyboardist, a bassist, and a lead singer

Their whole set was tight

The lead singer was endlessly entertaining

Such stage presence

He emceed the performance well

So sincere and grateful

At one point, he mentioned that he was so elated to be performing at this venue

First Avenue

Prince’s club

A highlight of the band’s tour

The space is famously posh and well-designed

Good acoustics

Good sound

Good lighting

The stage is raised such that there is not a bad spot in the house

A screen lowers to play music videos before the show and between the opener and headliner

A renowned local musician DJs this music video selection

Every element of the space is thoughtful, careful, pleasurable

It is not a repurposed old movie theatre

It is not a bar that hosts bands

It is a music venue specifically designed to host acts that cannot sell out the Target Center

For its purpose, First Avenue is sublimely suited

A musician’s dream

Anyway

Nation of Language’s performance is awesome

The lead singer is so captivating, and is also a good singer

Annunciates

Grounds his voice

Dances the entire time, moves all over the stage

And I really admire all this, especially

Because I know being a professional musician is one thing I cannot do

I love music

I like singing

But notes and scales confuse me

Absolutely overwhelms me

And the older I get

The more I hate singing in front of people

This doesn’t really bother me

I have other talents

Other things come easily to me

That don’t come easily to others

I love to go watch musicians perform

While I do

I often think about how much they have to practice

Calloused fingers

Strained vocal cords

Brains so full of notes and lyrics and chord progressions

And whatever else musicians might think about

I don’t know

When I took guitar lessons, I never practiced because I could never get the tuning right

While I watch music, I also think about

How the performers have to stay in shape, too, to play their instruments the whole show

How now they get to tour around

Stay in hotels

See different cities

How now they spend every other waking hour of their day

Making sure this hour of live performance goes well

I think about how many little gigs they probably played

To spare audiences to get here

Now they get to look out on rooms

Full of people who know the words to their songs

Of course, the First Ave audience asked Nation of Language for an encore

Standard procedure

A strange ritual

And the band obliged

They played three more songs

(just the right amount of encore)

Ended with “That Fine Line”

I think

I don’t even remember what song it was

But I do remember that the lead singer messed up

I don’t know how exactly

Probably missed a verse?

Or mixed up some lyrics?

He stopped mid-song.

The keyboardist played louder, indicated where they were, and sang the right lyrics loudly to try and help the lead singer get back on track

The bassist came over from across the stage to play

So, the bandmates sort of held the singer in his mistake and brought him back to finish the song

And I could tell that this mistake

Or something like it

Had maybe happened before

I thought

About my own writing

My first book just came out

And I made the mistake of reading it a bit

After it went to print

And I found some minor errors

Freaked out for a few days

Imagined I might become an ostrich

Put my head in a hole for the rest of my life

And I turned to AI writing for a moment

Because I thought it might help

For certain things

Thought maybe the robot voice would be more appealing or correct or something

But I quickly turned back to my own voice again

Because I decided

I don’t want to watch artists lip-sync their songs, so they are word-perfect or pitch-perfect

I want to watch people live their dreams

Imperfectly