In the opening of the Sound Opinions program, someone makes the claim, "One Great Rock Show Can Change The World!" While this is clearly hype and clearly intended to be so, it makes me wonder: Has any rock show ever changed the world?

I know a host of rock concerts have aspired to change the world -- or at least purported to aspire to that -- but has any single rock show really made a lasting difference in the world at large? The closest I've ever come to a world-changing rock show have been the local shows to pay for local musicians' health care costs, see e.g. Alejandro Escovedo.

Has a rock show ever been globally transcendent?


-- MrJM

I would say that Woodstock had a pretty big cultural signifigance, that slightly (no sarcasm here) reverberated around the globe.

I was at Lollapalooza and the Flaming Lips played. They asked us to sing really loud so there would be peace in the middle east. It's a good thing we did, cause now everything is ok over there?

It's in an interesting idea, so I don't want to seem down on it. But the topic has the potential to simply list epochal, culturally-significant shows that we probably know by heart: Woodstock, Live Aid, Monterrey, Altamont, etc. All certainly worth discussion, but it's probably hard to find examples where shows made actual, hard-line differences as opposed to simply changing "how we see rock shows" or what rock shows can "mean". But maybe I'm wrong?

It seems like the discussion would pretty quickly devolve into butterfly effect type shit, like how one Great White show significantly reduced the population of a Rhode Island congressional district and so forth.

I think rock concerts have to an extent lost their original meaning. At first they were political rallies. And their effect was greater felt because, well there were only so many bands out there people were able to hear.

Now, live music in many cases is simply a product...something to augment the shiny disc and t-shirt sales. And there are a dizzying array of niches and subgenres people have latched onto...theres no longer a mass collective experience. Of course there are still bands out there who care about art for its sake alone. And some go further and truly want to enact change. But the whole medium has undoubtedly evolved (i mean, how "rock and roll" can you be when you're paying $15 in ticketmaster rape charges? or $500 to sit front row at some arena?).

Sometimes I think that clip is a young DeRo speaking.