Two weeks ago featured the annual public flogging of the Canalside concert series lineup, and as usual, it was hilarious, disappointing, and sad. Yes, a lot of the online hate is from angry and lonely people, but it's also instructive to see where people's minds are with regards to free concerts in downtown Buffalo, and what I saw was not encouraging. For my part, I believe that a free concert series that lures you downtown twice a season is doing a good job, and for the last few years that's definitely been the case, with this year featuring a fine line up that's frequently damned interesting. But haters are going to hate, and that's just the way it is, even though it tells us more about them than anything else. Music fans will find shows to get excited for, ditto for music fans who know how to use the Internet, and the casual free music fan is in for a real treat this year. Boring people and fans of boring music? They've been left out.
Late last week also gave some sectors of Buffalo a scare when it was announced that Dipson Theaters was parting ways with the North Park Cinema, triggering panic that our area was losing it's only art cinema and a vital landmark. Thankfully local entrepreneurs stepped forward and not only will the North Park remain open, it's going to get an update and a polish, but for a while there things were bleak. Actually, things are still bleak for the North Park considering Dipson hadn't turned a profit there for five years even though it's consistently voted best theater in Artvoice's "Best of Buffalo" poll. There apparently isn't a big audience for art films in Buffalo, even though the North Park's programming isn't that out there. The North Park and art cinephiles certainly got a reprieve, and perhaps upgrades and this close call will fill those seats and make it a genuinely profitable enterprise. I hope so, but the fact that the North Park was in this situation in the first place is not encouraging.
There's been some talk of a cultural renaissance happening in Buffalo, and compared to where we were a few years back, I think that talk has merit. That's also true about the local food scene, which has seen a number of exciting developments these last few years. But the "buy and eat local" thing hasn't quite caught on in Western New York, and local culturals which are actively pitching themselves to tourists are still waiting for locals to take advantage of what's available. Something's always missing in Buffalo, and unless it's for the Bills or Sabres, what's missing is us. Why is that? I submit to you that it's because while Buffalo itself is getting interesting, a lot of Buffalonians however are not.
Yes, anecdotal evidence is mounting that Western New York has a lot of boring people calling it home. Adults who dine out on chicken fingers and eat at chains. Wuss rock on 97 Rock. The plight of the North Park. The local popularity of mainstream country music... and most damning, the fact that $5 tickets for the Flaming Lips and $10 tickets for MGMT aren't moving all that fast. Now hopefully WNY's legendary walk up business will pick up and make those shows a success, but I'm not so sure. Yes, Artpark is a genuine pain in the ass getting out of, but those prices are a ridiculous steal, and the fact that WNY is currently giving these shows an undeserved "meh" is kind of pathetic.
So yeah, I'm thinking that a lot of folks in WNY just aren't all that interesting, and because they're not interesting they're not interested in what's going on in our area, and that's a problem for a region trying to get something going again. That's a harsh assessment but I'm throwing it out there for discussion's sake because something has to give.
How is WNY sleeping on MGMT? How?
Maybe the lack of buzz about the MGMT show has to do with the fact that they've only mustered 4 or 5 good songs across 2 albums. Granted, they're amazing songs, but few and far between nonetheless.
Look on the bright side, everyone dies eventually. Please play "Livin' on a Prayer" at my funeral and pause the music at the "OHHHHH"!
Wait, people are boring because they DON'T like MGMT? Think you've got it the wrong way round there...
"But the "buy and eat local" thing hasn't quite caught on in Western New York"
Really?
Man, tickets for MGMT and the Flaming Lips are not selling super fast.... you'd almost think that they were two bands who haven't had hits in 5 & 10 years respectively, playing a really large venue in a small, economically depressed minor-market city in the middle of a recession. Crazy.
So people should go to concerts just because they're affordable? I go to plenty of concerts in Buffalo - what is more annoying than being in a half empty venus is a packed venue where half the people went because it was cool to be seen and/or affordable, and then spend their time loudly talking to their friends and talking on the phone.
I was shocked to see MGMT at such a large venue when it was announced. Shelf life is short in the music industry. Very few bands have longevity. MGMT's big mistake was Congratulations. People are not lame for not wanting to see a band perform live songs off an album they can't get into, regardless of ticket prices.
Some of the commenters make valid points. I saw Flaming Lips 2 years ago I believe at Artpark and it was a good show, not great. My wife loved it, and I'll be going again, but if she hadn't loved it, I wouldn't go. They've put out 2 difficult albums, and it sounds like this new one isn't very pop either. I saw MGMT a month ago in Geneseo, and I'll also be going again, but their music is kind of starting to sound the same. The other day it occurred to me that Tame Impala's new album is better that MGMT's recent work. MGMT and the Flaming Lips just aren't blowing minds. All this said, it's a good summer for concerts in Buffalo. I think sales for MGMT and Flaming Lips will end up being alright.
MGMT has gone way down hill with Oracular Spectacular, and Congratulations is like the worst thing I ever heard.
I'm not a fan of the lineup for the Harbor, but to be fair they try to appeal to a broad group of people. Its not just us 20-early 30 something gen Y folks that read Buffablog that these concerts are supposed to appeal to. Your dad might love some of this stuff. Thats the way these free shows are supposed to be. Get people from all walks of life to the city. Cut em some slack
I think Cliff actually made a pretty decent point about the majority of people in the Buffalo-Niagara region not really appreciating or taking advantage of cultural assets/opportunities... but by couching it in an article about the shows at Art Park, it seems the commenters just turned it into a referendum on MGMT.
The Flaming Lips are one of my favorite bands and I'm not going to the Art Park show. As someone that doesn't have a car getting to Art Park via public transportation is not a game I care to play (honestly it may as well be Mars). I'll wait until they play a show in Buffalo because that's where I live.
As for the Canalside thing, it's all personal preference. To tell someone they should or shouldn't be let down by the lineup we ultimately got ignores that people are different. You're not going to appeal to everyone.
Personally I was let down. For what it's worth I have no plans to lead a mob to the Buffalo Place offices and tell them about it.
Tell Craig Finn until he writes another album on par with Separation Sunday that he sucks for me.
Anonymous commenters are boring too. I particularly enjoyed the theme that Buffalonians are actually so ultra with it that they're not down with passé stuff like MGMT and the Lips. Yep, that's it.
Thanks for the comments folks. Stay hydrated.
I think a lot of these complaints are really just issues related to Buffalo being a very small city. It’s not NYC or Toronto – it’s a minor metropolis with only 250k people, and so the number of “cool” people is scaled down accordingly. I don’t see why the discussion has to go any farther than that. Complaints like this always just come down to “why aren’t there more cool people in Buffalo who like/do/buy ‘cool thing X’”, and the answer is simple: Buffalo is a small city with only 250k people, so there are proportionately fewer “cool” people… end of story. You could write this same article about Terre Haute, Indiana making the same complaints – there aren’t enough cool record stores or art cinemas or underground comics shops or whatever – and people would be like “yeah, obviously… this is Terre Haute, Indiana.”
Artpark is a big venue – like 4000+ capacity. So expecting MGMT to sell it out is expecting about 1.5% of Buffalo’s total population to be big enough fans of MGMT to drive to an Artpark show, and it’s not crazy to think that’s maybe a little unrealistic. Plus, the last time the Lips played Artpark a couple summers ago – for a helluva a lot more than $5 - it was a huge crowd. Were Buffalonians supercool then, but got somehow way more boring over the two summers in between? Or could it have to do with something other than a change in the relative boringness of the average Buffalonian? (Like, maybe that the Lips have been putting out tremendously difficult & uncommerical albums in the last few years and thus fewer fair-weather fans want to come see them.)
Or to refer to your other example of the North Park theater (which I don’t know where you get that that’s the area’s “only art cinema”) – nobody was as upset about the North Park possibly closing as I was, but at the same time, with the Amherst, Market Arcade, Eastern Hills in the suburbs, and Movieland (which gets a lot of the arthouse fare once it’s done playing on the Dipson screens), the fact is that the North Park might just be one more indie screen than this pop-250k city can economically support? I don’t think that’s the craziest notion to consider, rather than concluding that Buffalonians are boring, uncultured zombies.
(Plus, I think a lot of the issue with Dipson dumping the North Park has less to do with than there not being a big enough audience for “art cinema” in Buffalo than it does with shortsighted business practices on Dipson’s part, particularly the fact that they never wanted to spend the money to upgrade it to a digital projector, which limited the films that could be shown there. I’d argue that there’s actually a bigger audience for art cinema in Buffalo than in lots of cities 3 or 4 times Buffalo’s size, which don’t have the number of screens dedicated to indie/arthouse stuff that we do, much less successful repertory stuff like the Buffalo Film Seminars or the Screening Room, but that’s another discussion.)
And the people crowding chain restaurants and mainstream country music concerts (oh, those provincial BOORS, right?) are primarily from the suburbs, so I think you’re mixing apples & oranges and maybe creating a little bit of a strawman there. Like, yeah, obviously most of the people from Clarence who are packing into the Outback Steakhouse on Transit Road are not going to be listening to Oracular Spectacular on their way to see To The Wonder at the North Park, but… so what?
I just feel like I’ve been hearing people complain that Buffalo is too provincial or not “cool” enough or whatever since I was in college, when I would meet kids from NYC or who would come up to Buffalo for college and make fun of the subway or the fact that there’s no skyscrapers, and I would just be like “yeah, we don’t have any palm trees or hash bars or Eiffel Towers either... and?” I just don’t get how that’s front page news. Buffalo is a small, economically depressed postindustrial city of 250k people - move to NYC or deal with it. The whole non-argument just absolutely puts me to sleep.
Dude got a helluva lot of good discussion going...if that's what it takes to get folks riled up about (almost-)local tunes, then slap my ass and call me soporific!
PK nailed it.