When I think about concerts I think about one of the concerts in the One Direction “Where We Are” movie. I remember when I watched this I wished I could’ve gone to this concert. One Direction was a worldwide famous pop boyband. In this film, they performed at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy. The performers dressed casually, not in your typically matching boyband outfits, and the audience dressed casually as well. Throughout the concert, the members of the band would take some time to interact and talk to the crowd as much as they could. Due to the size of the stadium, they couldn’t interact with everyone but in the film, you can see them try to talk to people farther away than just the first few front rows. As a One Direction fan, this didn’t really surprise me because I know this is common for them to do, and this definitely matched my expectations. This concert compared to The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky is completely different. Stravinsky’s concert had way fewer people, but most importantly his concert had people who went in with expectations that weren’t fulfilled by the end of the night. Something that One Direction didn’t do, the fans had an expectation and they gave it to them always.

The concert I attended was a Laufey concert. She considers her music style modern jazz, and her music is often soft and follows a slow tempo. The performance took place in Bowery Ballroom in New York city. Because her music caters to a younger audience, the audience was cheering loudly but not to the point where they were yelling but everyone was excited. I decided to attend her concert because I discovered her music during quarantine and related to a lot of it. During this time, I also wanted to expand my music taste from just regular pop. Laufey’s music is slower and gives off a chill vibe compared to my music before, which was often fast tempo and very loud. She is the reason why I decided to get more into jazz and now I love jazz.  

Because her audience is a much younger group, the audiences’ outfits followed a certain aesthetic like chic but although it was chic, it was still very casual such as long flowy skirts, crop tops with soft colors, jeans, etc. The fashion at her concert is what is considered popular nowadays with teens and young adults. Bowery Ballroom is a mostly standing hall because there is limited space, and it was packed with her fans. While Shes performing, the audience is swaying to the melody of her song. Laufey doesn’t really use a call and respond but the whole time the audience is singing along. Nothing really surprised me because the vibe of fans fit her music. It’s not hype music to where you can jump and yell but it’s a nice melody with the crowd singing along and cheering when she performs her songs.  

I chose to focus on the Khalid concert. While they are both popular artists striving in our modern day, their vibes are very different. Khalid’s music does follow a chill vibe but its more of an upbeat melody. In Khalid’s concert, he used a call and response with his audience while Laufey mostly sang and smiled at the audience. In Laufey’s concert, her audience swayed to the music and sang on pitch but for Khalid’s concert, his audience members did sway to the music too but there were more cheers before and during the song while Laufey’s audience tended to cheer before and after the songs.  It is clear that despite them being current popular artists, the genre really affects the way the concert plays out and the audience reacts.