'The' moment of any concert

  
Music concerts of any kind are remembered for a few special moments. The(se) special moment(s) perfume the concert(s). The perfume on a person helps him/her get noticed without necessarily being seen. A gentleman, engrossed in a charming conversation, may get distracted by his olfactory sense, and tries to search the origin of the fragrance and the beauty carrying it. The same applies to concerts. These performances, without those rare moments, remain as they were: bad, mediocre, good, dazzling. The uniqueness in each of the concerts lies within the realms of those few memorable moments that enable us to retrieve, relive and cherish the spectacle again and again.

However, there are a few memorable moments that stand out wanting for appreciation. It is that particular moment, the scented one, which functions as the identifier of the concert in the catalogues of memory. While discussing about a past concert, one can reconnect to the program saying, “Oh yes! That was the moment when the frenzied crowd, dancing, reached the stage” or “you remember the concert where we were seated just besides the percussionist”. The special moments, to name a few, can be the deafening silence, a giant uproar of the audience or the respectful awe, as per the modalities of the conventions of the concert.

It is also an observation that the ‘precious’ moment at times is the culmination of a series of events; the events being nothing but the different elements of the concert like musical pieces, songs or the different rhythms for elaboration of a raga. The nature of these events can thus be thematic, rhythmic, temporal or any other. Such events, as independent entities, have no individual existence and they gain meaning only from their relationships with other events. We therefore probably tend to compare for instance the first part of the concert with the second or the third or vice verse. The first part of the concert thus may look better organised or otherwise with respect to its counterparts.

The collaborative effort among the separate events takes a certain time, paving way to ‘the moment’ of the concert.  It is probably due to this reason that the excerpts of music clips on Youtube do not seem as soul stirring as live performances. The element of time factoring in different events is crucial as much as that it constitutes the key to understand the true expression of the individual acts involved. Considering the time element, it can be said that the moment of the concert becomes metaphorically, the point, deep down in the earth, which beholds a natural source of water. The vast, natural reserve created over the ages by the patient, incessant, perpetual trickling of droplets. The special, divine, sublime ‘moment’ similar to the source of water nourishes the imagination and creative instincts of man bearing new seeds of ideas and visions.