The Evolution of the Electronic Stage and the Rave Audience
© Ariel Meadow Stallings
Lotus Magazine, 1997

Note: "Dance" is capitalized as per an editorial decision. It was standard style in Lotus Magazine between 1996-1998.

The stage is a well established institution of musical enjoyment.  Its elevated presence implies that there’s something you should really be watching while you're listening.  Lights point at it.  If you glance away you might miss something very important.  The American Music Industry is quite familiar with the institution of the stage.  The Standard Stage Format gives you something to look at ("Ooh, look at that wild lead singer!”  "Wow, that guitarist can really jump around.") and music to nod your head or mosh to.  The stage has helped make this industry successful.  It preys on the "I pay $20 to go watch them do their stuff” attitude of fans.  Meanwhile, in our little separate dimension, all of us who rave are familiar the Rave Format:  a DJ hunched behind the turntables, a few trainspotters standing around with their mouths hanging open and hundreds or thousands of people laughing, talking to God and each other, rubbing each others backs, sucking their pacifiers, having hand orgies, and, of course, dancing and dancing and dancing.  You go to Dance and to communicate with one another through the unified enjoyment of music that resonates within each of us who manage to stay awake all night and limp home smiling with ringing ears.  Not too many people stand around watching the DJ because that's not what the DJ is there for.  She's been paid to make you Dance.  If everyone is standing around as she twiddles and scratches then she's doing something wrong!

    We are experiencing a major shift however.  There is an increasingly large number of Electronica events which are stage-focused.  Some feature a DJ along with some sort of crazy accompanying performer.  Others have the actual musicians up on stage, perched behind their synthesizers and sequencers.  However, regardless of what's going on up on stage, one thing is certain:  When there's something to look at, less people are Dancing.  Does this mark the death of raving as we know it or just a split in the road of musical enjoyment?

    The American Music Industry relies on our own laziness to support itself.  The people who are the easiest to make a buck off of are those who are willing to pay to be entertained.  It’s the people who say, "Here's my money, now I just want to sit back and it's your job to make me happy," which keep the Standard Stage Format alive and profitable.  Now the American Music Industry is starting to wonder if "Electronica is the new Alternative" and they're just not quite sure how to deal with this horrifying musical evolution.  (Is disco back?  What are these “raves?”)  One thing is for sure: the Music Industry needs something new and, gosh, thousands of kids can't be wrong, can they?  Raves and Electronica provide something charged with youth to fill the hole that Nirvana and Pearl Jam left.  Music is a business and The Industry wants your money.  So, they use a tool that's always helped make them money before:  The Stage.

    In August I went to “End Fest ‘97,” a huge Rock music festival thrown by 107.7, Seattle's "Alternative" radio station.  It featured bands like Offspring, Folk Implosion and The Dandy Warhols.  There was the A Stage, the B Stage and then there was the E Stage.  Yes, the E stage, with DJ Nasir, The Crystal Method, Lamb, BT, Cirrus, Gus Gus and local favorite Sky Cries Mary.  It was exciting to think that 15,000 people would have the opportunity to be exposed to this amazing music that has touched myself and so many others so deeply.  However, the music was presented in the format that The Industry was familiar with on The E Stage.  Picture BT making his phenomenal crunchy music:  Beats pulsed through the room like we were in the belly of some enormous animal, grooving to its heartbeat...and several thousand people just stood there watching.  Just watching.  The music was inspiring, but if you stopped dancing (which many never even started doing) and just watched, all you saw was one little guy with stringy blond hair, encapsulated by machines, dripping sweat and hopping over the synthesizers.  The experience was disappointing on many levels.  To those who are used to The Rave Format, it was strange to have the music coming from someone so removed from the energy of the room.  It was strange to have the speakers behind little gates and security guards.  It was strange to be surrounded by people who weren't dancing at all.  To those used to The Standard Stage Format, it was strange to have so little to watch.  Here was a stage and nothing really to look at!  What could have been an opportunity to show many people previously unexposed to raving what it's all about instead felt like it was a disappointment on both levels.  It wasn't quite a good rave or a good show.  The people who paid money to watch didn't get much to see.  Those who wanted to hear the great music had to pay too much to be too removed from the source of the sounds.

    I can't say it was all bad.  Gus Gus was outrageous and Cirrus knocked me off my Nikes!  The more intense acts like the Crystal Method actually did get a lot of people dancing and if even one person who'd never heard the music was touched by it then I'd say the event was a success.  I talked to Cirrus after their show and asked them how it felt to be making Dance music up on a stage.  Stephen, who was in a wheelchair from too much jumping around with his guitar, explained to me that "If people weren't Dancing, we'd get up there and say, ‘Fuckin' MOVE!  Start Dancing!  If you're just here to watch then you're here for the wrong reasons.’  We make DANCE MUSIC, it's for Dancing!  Nothing slower than 120 beats for minute.  Nothing that has less energy than the future.  We don't want to play for people standing there watching, nodding their heads."  I asked Aaron, the bassist and DJ for the band, if it would bother him if everyone was completely ignoring the stage.  He looked outraged and explained that, "as long as they were going off and jumping up and down and having a great time," he wouldn’t care at all.

    The members of Cirrus are aware that they're in some ways breaking an established Electronica mold.  Renee, the vocalist and percussionist, told me that, "In the beginning of this show people weren’t moving around too much and that's usually the reaction we get cause Steve breaks out a guitar, I get behind the drums, and they don't know what's going to happen."  People seem to be wondering to themselves watch or Dance?  "But then as the music goes and picks up momentum then they get into it."  Stephen clarified, "We get on stage and people are like, 'What is this?  A Rock band?  What's up with the guitar and the drums?' and then as soon as we get going people are like, ‘Okay, it's all good, it's all good.’"  Renee nodded and concluded, "People have never seen musicians with instruments with this kind of music.  It's brand new."  So, as I shared a smoke and thanked them for their time, I had to question some of my own assumptions.  These guys had good intentions.  They want Dancers to do their thing and Dance.  So why were they up on a stage separated from the crowd?  Just because they had instruments?  The separation of a few feet really knocks the exchange of energy that exists between the dancers and the performers, whether they be DJs or musicians.  The stage acts as a dividing line between revelers and musicians.  When The Industry puts people on stage, it instead creates a situation where the talents of a few are provided to the appreciative masses at a cost, payable to The Man.  This cost is not only monetary, but also an attitude.  When people just stand and watch the performers, they also passively accept the belief that they themselves are not worth being watched.  The performers become glorified, but only at the expense of the overall egalitarianism and unity of the event. . You know those fans who stand at the base of the stage reaching for their favorite Rock star’s ankles?  What they’re reaching for is that moment of the euphoria you experience every time you catch a hard groove in front of a speaker.

    The danger of The Stage doesn’t come from the artists performing on it, but rather the audience’s reaction to it.  Our own devout involvement is the base of our community.  Raving is an interactive activity which necessitates engagement and participation.  "Vibe" represents the cumulative efforts of each person in the room to add to the experience and create an environment which they enjoy.  Ravers focus attention on each other (not a star up on a stage), thus giving everyone a sense of ownership and pride  A party can have all aspects of its production perfect, but if the vibe isn't present, then the event has failed.  Courtney Reimer's intelligently written article "Knob Fiddling and Trainspotting" which appeared in Seattle's The Stranger addressed this issue.  In her discussion of the "awkward state" of Electronica, she spoke to Marco Collins, "One of Seattle’s most notorious radio personalities."  Marco explained that part of the joy of Electronica is that, "the show isn’t on the stage, the show is in the audience.  Dance music makes the audience the star."  Reimer concluded, "This would explain the inversion of the typical concert paradigm, in which the Rock stars are dressed to the nines while their adoring fans adorned in yesterday’s T-shirt and jeans.  With Dance culture, the crowds are often better dressed than the performers.  This shining-star-less structure is not accidental... the anonymity [of the performers] is representative of the philosophy which buttresses the genre."

    In this age of mass media, where the convictions of the few are conveyed to the believing many, it is imperative that ravers think for themselves and protect what is ours:  Our ability to entertain ourselves and each other.  How many times have you been to a party that gets busted, only to find the evening more than salvaged by an impromptu celebration in the parking lot?  All you need is one good stereo and the joy and enthusiasm of a few people who truly love the music.   Doubtless someone will have glowsticks to do a light show, someone else has their pockets stuffed with candy to provide the condiments, and dancers who get tired have each other to watch and talk to.  Marco Collins said it right: We are the stars!  Ravers are unlike music enthusiasts anywhere because our own enthusiasm is an intrinsic piece of the experience.  We don't just applaud, we Dance for hours, scream at the tops of our lungs, pile up on speakers, encourage each other, learn from one another and create a whole community of support, creativity, and, yes, entertainment.  We should celebrate the evolution of Electronica and understand that the stage allows a crossover, a format of comfort for some to access music that they are unfamiliar with.  But watch out!  MTV's “Amp” and the major record labels' sudden interest in Electronica is Uncle Capitalism pointing his finger and saying:  "I want YOU, little raver."  It is imperative that not a single one of us forget our own power to be the star.  If we forget, then we fall into the trap of buying someone else's vision of our own dreams.  So turn your back to the stage, close your eyes, and Dance.