It's funny how you can get tired from doing nothing all day. So I woke up from a Friday nap too late to catch Nyssa's live show at Lee's Palace. Luckily, this live stream was available to watch the next day. I settled in on Saturday to give it a look-see.
This would have been an album release so the set was comprised of songs from her latest work. But in addition to numbers like Greenback Dollar, Bye Bye Jubilee and Misty Morning, there were also unreleased music (Innisfree Blues, Appetite 4 Destruction). Nyssa continued to mine storytelling songs (Go Away Evil, Full Of Love) but the focus has narrowed to snapshots instead of grander narratives. This was also the first time I have seen her play an instrument during a 4-song acoustic section with her childhood friend Zack Burgess. Her penultimate song, Ann-Margret's It's a Nice World To Visit (But Not To Live In), may be the most obscure cover I've witnessed but appropriate for 2020.
This show didn't engage me as much as previous Nyssa shows. As a relatively unknown musician, she often plays to a new crowd. Part of the magic is to watch her magnetic stage presence convert a disinterested audience. Without people there, it wasn't as fun to experience. Furthermore, this was a pre-recorded show with voice-overs, post-production video editing, and so on. This makes for a slicker presentation but at least for me, takes away from the live show aspect. I'm not in the habit of watching an hour-long music video.
I'm also feeling the equivalent of Zoom fatigue. I've been reading my old reviews of shows and even just a few years on, many only elicit a few seconds of remembrance (maybe due to my aphantasia?) There are even some where I don't remember being there at all. So frankly, I doubt these virtual shows during the pandemic will create lasting memories for me. In fact, an even more nagging question: should I even bother with actual live events once things go back to normal?
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