I got to take my daughter to the Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009 stop in Nashville last night and have been thinking about it all day long. Mostly I’ve been thinking about how great the show was. Really. No it wasn’t the most indescribable musical event in the history of the world, but it was thoroughly engaging, professional, high quality and entertaining.
And isn’t that what it’s about
For a period of time in my younger years in the music business, I toured with Charlie McClain. Her husband, Wayne Massey – himself a star, toured with us as manager and as part of the band. One night on the bus, we were all sitting around lamenting the prior year’s success of Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart” (look it up, he’s the dad of Miley Cyrus and this silly song was a HUGE HIT!).
After many comments and laughs, Wayne stopped us and said something I’ll never forget. He said “boys, never forget it’s the entertainment industry. You can talk about music, talent and creativity all day long, but that song caused millions and millions of people to lay down their hard earned money to buy a copy.”
And he’s right.
Now, that doesn’t mean you have to do whatever it takes to get millions and millions of people to buy your stuff. What it DOES mean is that no one will do ANYTHING unless they see value in doing it. And in the case of music and the arts, the value is in the entertainment.
And the Jonas Brothers were hugely entertaining. They sang and played very well, their band rocked and the stage/lights were nothing short of amazing: 30 foot rising platforms, rotating stages, four different elevator platforms for the band, multiple floating screens with complete video coverage, flying light trusses and lasers galore.Oh, and two water cannons and rain.
Yes, it rained on stage. Beautifully I might add.
Check out the stage here.
One more thing: the guys did a fantastic job of connecting with the audience. They spread themselves out all over the stage, sang TO THE PEOPLE, and bantered back and forth like pros. Which is saying something when the overall response to everything was SCREAMING! They also tackled topics like Nick’s Diabetes and life in general with a message of hope. Nice.
They were entertaining.
