StephenG wrote
Aubs no i was not serious, i was using a very subte form of wit - some call it sarcasm - to prove that there is always the exception to the rule - so you do not have the dress the part to match the music you play.. as some have said, if you good enough, you can wear a school boy uniform and play a hello kitty guitar in a heavy metal band.. people will still admire you if the music is good enough
Hammeron made a valid point elsewhere - the audience have their expectations. My problem with Angus Young is not that he wears a school boy costume, but that he STILL wears a school boy costume. It's a getting a bit silly now isn't it? He's not a kid any more. Does he even have hair under that cap?
BUT
A lot of people want to see Angus Young in a school boy costume. They might not think it an AC/DC show if they didn't. For all I know Angus is sick of prancing around in short pants, but he's trapped now.
Really I'm in the same camp, broadly speaking, as Tonedef. I want the music to be great and who cares about the rest. Or so I say, it's not quite that simple.
Nick Drake went on the road in the late 60s. He could play, he had great material. He tanked, and very badly. Not just because a large number of people didn't get what he was doing, but also because there was no stage craft. He just got on stage with a guitar and played. It wasn't enough.
Somehow you have to build a connection with the audience. It might get easier when you've established a reputation and got yourself a faithful following, but even then you've got to keep things going.
You can never get away entirely from image and presentation. There has to be some of it. Maybe in the world of classical music you get an audience that is more inclined to just listen to the music and who cares about the rest. But I bet that they'd feel a bit uneasy if the orchestra looked like they just walked in off a beach, the conductor was in chinos and a check shirt and there were no flowers for the soloist.
But check this out
Martin Carthy, in the basement of the King's Head pub in London in 2008. My photo. I was there and it was a performance I will remember for a long, long time.
Or this
That's 2010 in London. A posher venue (the Royal Festival Hall), Carthy again (in the rather unfortunate shirt) and a bunch of other great musos putting on a fab show and not much in the way of show biz. Not very... errr... sexy though is it?
So I think it can happen, in some genres and in front of some audiences. But the average audience member at a Martin Carthy show might think something a bit dodgy was going on if he wore, say, a studded leather jacket or a nudie suit.
