Via: itunes.apple.com
I instinctively reach for my phone when a notification lights up the screen.
“Don’t miss Fatboy Slim at 6:55 on the Main Stage!”
Great. I’ve come home from Miami only to have my phone think I’m still at Ultra.
I practically felt the anxious need to be punctual when it alerted me that Kaskade was playing in 5 minutes, even though I was more than 5 hours, not 5 minutes, away.
I thought the app created for Ultra was a great way to keep my DJ schedule organized to ensure I wouldn’t miss any shows that I wanted to see, but it wasn’t until I was home from the festival that the implications of technology like the app really hit me.
In the past, when a concert or music festival is over, well, it’s over.
You upload pictures from your good times and maybe download some new music that you heard, but other than being a really amazing memory, the freshness of experience just fades away.
Having notifications coming to your phone extends the shelf live of the Ultra experience. Even though I didn’t go for weekend 2, I still felt very connected to the happenings in Miami this weekend. I almost deleted the app after coming home last weekend, but something stopped me.
I didn’t want to disconnect from the experience yet.
Via: itunes.apple.com
The app became a way of linking everyone together through the creation of a small, temporary social network.
Getting constant updates even while in Gainesville is what pulled me in to watching the live stream of the event for hours this weekend.
And it wasn’t until I was watching giant robots shooting sparks and water from their arms move across the stage while Laidback Luke played that I even realized how intense the integration of technology into this music genre really is.
When you’re at the festival, you get too caught up enjoying the music and grooving with your friends to notice how much insane technology is unfolding before you. Sure, you “ooh” and “ahh” at the occasional burst of flames during a performance, but when you’re watching the entire thing from the view of the cameras, it is truly wild.
Having access to a live stream of the festival made it a social experience for millions of people millions of miles away. I sat with a group of friends and essentially watched a music festival, which is a totally new concept to me. You aren’t buying a DVD of it that comes out a month after and re-living the event, you are actively seeing the performances and witnessing the energy of the crowds at the exact moment the people there are.
This is the future of the live music experience.
We are the digital generation. This is our lifestyle; technology is what we are comfortable with. Giant robots are mixed among us and dancing on stage and it’s no big deal.
It makes sense because we are the first generation to develop right along side computers. They grew up with us. It seems natural for them to be involved in everything, because they always have been; they are a part of the everyday scene.
While our parents cringe and say, “this all sounds exactly the same” and “this isn’t real music,” we hear it differently. It makes sense to us for music to be mixed and synthesized on computers. Why wouldn’t it? We have harnessed computing power to create and design other types of art, why is music any different?
It will be tough, but I’m sure I’ll work up the courage to delete the app this week and move on from my Ultra weekend, but with the summer right around the corner, I can’t imagine there won’t be a Bonnaroo app to take it’s place on my screen soon enough.
Image courtesy of: facebook.com/UMFTV
