Slean In

Although musicians continue to offer live streaming on Facebook and Instagram I haven't tuned in since the early weeks. The low-quality audiovisuals made them more frustrating than enjoyable. I made exceptions for Molly Tuttle as her phenomenal guitar skills still shone through. I had tickets for her Toronto debut as opener for Hiss Golden Messenger last November. But she cancelled at the last minute.

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to try again with Sarah Slean's second home concert on Zoom. It seemed like the preferred platform for the various paid concerts. There were a number of positives about this experience. First, more than a third of the 540 attendees had their camera on. Zoom handled that well (at about 25 people per page) and it was interesting to watch other people during the show. At a live event, you wouldn't have this view unless you were up on stage. Second, fans were listening from all over the world. Most of these locations an indie performer like Slean would (or could) never tour be it a small town in Canada or a faraway place like Uruguay. As such, many attendees were thrilled to be (virtually) there. Going forward, artists should offer these concerts as part of a tour since there's obviously a demand. As for myself, I satisfied a yen I've had way back in 2012 as I waited for a late start. I finally "astrally projected" myself to a live show while lying comfortably in bed. I wonder what other people thought of my prone position since no one else (at least on camera) did the same.

The main downside was the audio. Slean had a professional set-up with several high-quality mics, patched equipment, and even 3 cameras. But Zoom was likely built with audio quality as a bottom-tier feature. It made sense with laptop mics to compress that audio signal and dedicate the bandwidth to video. This was better than IG streaming from a phone but nowhere near what a program like OBS can do with that set-up.

Since this was a request show, a lot of the songs were from Slean's early catalogue including Book Smart Street Stupid, California, and John the 23rd. There were some newer cuts like Cosmic Ballet and Get Home. Before she played the encore Universe from her debut EP, Slean jokingly asked if no one liked her work since 1997. There were anecdotes about her recently deceased grandmother, the old but cherished piano, and dating in the mid 2000s. After she covered Butterfly, she surprised fans by talking about hanging out with Brian Bell while Weezer was recording Pinkerton just down the hall.