We Made This Together: How Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! Foresaw changes in the live concert experience brought about by digital technology and social media

Fox, Neil ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2959-2877 (2015) We Made This Together: How Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! Foresaw changes in the live concert experience brought about by digital technology and social media. In: Popular Music and the Public Sphere, April 10, 2016, University of Chester, Chester, UK.

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Abstract / Summary

The 2006 film of the Beastie Boys' concert at Madison Square Garden carries the credit 'directed by Adam Yauch'. This is a somewhat misleading credit because the film is constructed entirely from footage shot by audience members and edited together by Neal Usatin.

It doesn't mark the first time bootleg footage from major concerts has been used in commercial releases. The 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD release includes a large proportion of bootleg material alongside professionally recorded footage. However it may mark the first time that audience members were commissioned by an artist to provide content for commercial release. This assignation of responsibility for content authenticates a previously assumed ownership of live music events. Audiences at live music events are both the consumer and in a certain regard the author of their own experience.

The Beastie Boys' film further complicates this authorship by providing viewers of the film with a collection of individual points of view. It is not a unified presentation for a mass audience but instead is a piece of work that seeks to attain a level of authenticity by somewhat democratising the capturing of the performance.

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