Just saw Seal perform live. He did a concert of about an hour with lots of moving lights on a stage with 2 musicians who manipulated 4 laptop computers. The musicians on stage acted more as DJ than player, though one occasionally strummed a guitar and the other played pads on a small USB-type keyboard.

Seal's vocals were highly suspect in that they had TONS of effects and sounded incredibly compressed. My suspicion is that most of his performance was lip synced. He also had a guitar around his neck that he "played" for every song, though I never actually heard it.

The overall effect was ...boring! The heavy beats and monochromatic harmony was in sharp contrast to the very expensive lighting and setting. There was a total lack of anything energetically stimulating on stage. It was very much like watching someone in a bar singing Karaoke. Granted, it's slightly interesting when it's a song you've heard, or the singer does the typical theatrics of picking up the mic stand and twisting around, or walking off stage into the house for a moment.

The whole "point" of music is about the energy you get from it. I can appreciate a lot of versions of that definition because I've heard very untrained musicians make powerful music as well as world-class virtuosos. I've witnessed artists who pull tears from an audience with just their voice, and no accompaniment. I've watched an individual musician, with a single primitive instrument like a bamboo flute or penny-whistle Rock a house full of people.

Last night I saw a world famous artist stand on a stage with a bunch of technology and lights etc., in a show that couldn't have happened even 10 years ago. The technology of making sound from computer has profoundly affected how music is made, and how we "perceive" music today. This show obviously represents the trend for artists to rely on lighting and sound effects, and often on lots of dancers to make up for the energy they've lost by not depending so much on real musicians, or real musical interaction.

Modern music-making diminishes the impact of live musicians with the loops and processing & effects that live players can't re-create without a computer. Contemporary artists try to make up for it in other ways.

I was SO left with the impression that - I couldn't have cared less that I saw Seal last night. It was worse than boring. I would have much rather listened to a mediocre singer with an acoustic guitar in a bar. At least I could have trusted that what I was hearing was genuinely coming from that person. I could have known that if I felt something from the music I was hearing, that I was connecting with another human being - not with a bunch of ear candy and technological mumbo-jumbo performed by someone to CHICKEN to interact directly with his audience through music.