Technology has given music some very futuristic glimpses recently. We’ve seen simultaneous holographic performances, 360 degree interactive concerts, and a ream of creative interactive music videos, but a Warped Tour band has carved a small niche into music performance history with thanks to an IT giant.
“Let’s make history,” says Ricky Reed – frontman of Californian rock-hop band Wallpaper. (stylised with a full-stop) – before charging onstage to a crowd of hundreds, adorning an expensive piece of Google kit.
Playing at the Vans Warped Tour as it checked into Phoenix, Arizona, Reed and Wallpaper. became the first-ever band to film a first-person live music video using Google Glass, the internet search titan’s futuristic piece of cutting edge tech that features an in-built display with recordable camera and microphone, all set inside a normal(ish) pair of glasses.
Performing their song ‘Last Call’ live in front of the Warped Tour audience, Reed wears a pair of the Google glasses as he stomps around the stage singing and hyping the crowd up before eventually heading down to the barrier to offer a first-person rock star’s eye-view of the show.
As Mashable points out, the band reportedly have “deep ties” to the technology community and were able to get access to the high-tech specs in California. As Ricky Reed writes in the band’s blog, they headed to “Googleplex” while on the American leg of the Warped Tour.
“We sit down with a lovely host named Svetlana and are presented with Wallpaper.’s very own Glass,” writes the frontman. “We tour their campus, taking pictures and making dumb videos. It is an exclusively utopian future for us in that moment: perfect weather, well manicured landscaping, a beautiful tour guide, and the technology of tomorrow to capture it all with. We. Are. Stoked.”
Following a few days practice, Reed took to the stage to film the first-ever Google Glass performance, allowing fans to enter the eyeballs of the frontman as they perform ‘Last Call’ the first single lifted from Wallpaper.’s new album Ricky Reed Is Real, released through Epic Records this week.
Wallpaper.’s history-making Google Glass performance spells out some interesting potential for the future of live performance. So while arena rock audiences will be used to video displays of cameras strapped to guitars, drummers, and all manner of instruments, the functions of Google Glass – especially its recording features – allow for some interesting possibilities.
Of course, the Google tech isn’t exactly cheap, or widely available, meaning that only the top-tier bands would even consider implementing it into a live show (or risk destroying one in a crowdsurf), but again it certainly allows for expanding dimensions of the concert experience.
Picture watching U2 walking on stage to an audience of thousands through the eyes of Bono and The Edge. Or how about a set from Metallica that you can purchase online and watch through the eyes of the band, swapping between bandmates as they traipse through pyrotechnics and guitar solos. A music festival as seen through the eyes of its headliners? It seems that Wallpaper. have opened a very intriguing Pandora’s box for music fans.
