I went to Fleet Foxes’s concert tonight. Fleet Foxes is a Portland based band according to Wikipedia. I’ve only heard their songs once before tonight.
I don’t know much about music, but I feel their music style is a mix of rock, country and vocal. Arriving late at around 9:20pm, I heard they were playing and singing a quite rocky song. The timpani’s sound was so loud that I felt the floor was shaking. I don’t think the stereo was good enough to play such loud sound because I could hear some noise when the sound got loud.
Anyway, after settled down, I began to look around. There were 6 players. But the only sound I could tell clearly was the singer and the timpani. I saw a player keep changing instruments during the play – a cello played as guitar and played traditionally, a violin, a flute, bells, and even saxophone. But I could barely hear the cello, the violin, and the flute when the timpani was playing. I doubted if my hearing was good enough.
However, even not quite involved at the beginning, I started to enjoy the passion in the music after several songs. And I could hear the cello, the flute and the bells some time. I think these instruments were not used in a traditional way, at least not like that in a symphony. They were just making some background sound and might not even have a melody (or just that I couldn’t hear the melody). Nevertheless, when all the sound mixed together, it became an emotional harmonic pop.
Sometimes, there were three guitars (or bass? I can’t tell) playing at the same time. I didn’t know how different they sounded. More than once was I trying to figure out who was playing the melody, but failed. Nonetheless, I think I get it finally – it is not about how one instrument sound like, it is a harmony.
The emotion of the audience got quite high at the end of the concert. The players had to continue three times after the audience clapped and stood up. I felt their songs’ melody were quite similar. But I couldn’t tell if the melody was the same or just that they had same style. Anyway, I liked concerts got extended because I found my money worth more. And I enjoyed the emotion, too.
