EMOTICONCERT

The old popstars quickly died out; they just couldn’t keep up. The likes of Dylan Miles or Calla had too much pain, too much baggage or at least, they couldn’t keep it under wraps. What the people wanted was pure euphoria and the former titans of the pop world (who would have easily sold out not three years ago) just couldn’t deliver. The old guard of producers similarly dismissed the new technology as a gimmick but, by the time they realised this fad wasn’t going away, the music industry had left the moguls in the dust.

The fans however embraced this new era of music, partially due to its accessibility. Anyone could get the feeling from any new streamed track and even some of the old ones were being retrofitted with the capability. However, aficionados would tell you that those recordings felt ‘canned’. The real experience was live.

This is what sealed the coffin on the previous generation of pop artists; they could manufacture the feeling in the studio, through careful rehearsal and editing, but most of them just couldn’t hack it live. When an oldie performed on stage, all that was beamed to the audience was a depressing cocktail of nerves and self-doubt drowned in adrenaline (although oldie performers did retain a niche following with fans who craved misery and melancholy).

The new music required a very specific sort of performer, not necessarily one who was always happy (although that helped), but someone who could control their thoughts and feelings, at least for a full set. The advice to all rising stars seeking mainstream appeal was minimise your psychological baggage, or learn to suppress it on stage. For those that mastered the trick, the gates of global stardom were opened.

To ‘connect’ at an emoticoncert, you simply had to take the unique code on your ticket and think it into your Neural Portrait Implant. The implant would connect to the concert app and you would be tuned to the same frequency as the singer’s transmissions. You would feel everything the performer felt, without restriction. Unfortunately, the transmitters had a limited range, so you really did have to be there.

It’s nearly impossible to imagine either side of the experience unless you’ve felt it yourself. A common description is that when the artist performs, it becomes a near-spiritual event. There is an unfathomable reassurance in knowing that every one of those thousands of people is with you, connected to you in the purest way. In return, the singer is given an experience of humility and gratification like no other. Nothing will connect you to others like opening your soul and sharing your most intimate feelings, even if it is only a performance.

People are truly changed after their first emoticoncert. They leave having experienced commonality with a crowd of strangers and a deeper knowledge that, of all the differences between us, we all feel in exactly the same way.

ANAX.