Thank you Kimbra. I was in the crowd that night. Your performances have always been ethereal but that night was something different. I saw the applause as something that connects between each of us, it’s something consequential in an inter-audience way, like our own little world or subjectivity colliding at the sound of the applause, sharing through a natural release of something that excites us. The release in silence, I think, is something different. On that night we were like volcanoes - and silence was not the release for our erupting gratitude for your music, your art, the opportunity of contemplation you brought us. Thank you for always challenging and questioning and bringing us a piece of your world.
Beautiful words, thank you, Kimbra. I loved the audio at the beginning of the post too. It’s so valuable to hear the inner workings of an artist. Thanks for joining Substack 🙏
Amazing Kimbra. Thank you. I loved reading about this experimental experience but I am also wondering if you could possibly release a recording of parts or the entirety of the Sydney Opera House show so we can see it also. I couldn't find and parts of it on YouTube (likely because you asked everyone to put their phones away haha) but perhaps you have a professional recording of it that you could one day release? Would be very cool to see how it all actually unfolded and not just what my mind envisioned after reading your article 🙂❤️👍🏼
Watch this space! There’s a bit of red tape related to the recordings that I’m wading through right now but my plan is to share some of the show from the Melbourne recording I have - which was executed the same way as the Sydney show - though of course being a new room and a new audience, it felt like a new kind of silence! And beautiful all the same.
This reminds me of when I went to a Deva Premal concert. She is a deeply ethereal singer, who asks the audience, upfront not to applaud in between songs. She made the reference as if everyone would be clapping after they had a orgasm, and how funny (and unnatural that would be). Anyhow- what she said, reminded me of what you said, and how nice it is not to have the applause in between the experience.
This post gives me strength as I proceed to play my first live show in over 10 years tonight. I’ve always struggled with finding validation externally vs finding it within. The approval of others is so unbelievably intoxicating and reassuring, it’s funny how that tricks us into distrusting ourselves. Your performance is like the ultimate experience that we can indeed create our art and share it in the way we truly want to AND feel proud of work... and people can mirror that back to us. The intention to stay true to yourself so that you can listen to others while you’re the one performing is truly remarkable. Listening isn’t just meant to be for music but the world around, and the audience is always inevitably part of the performance (hello John Cage 4’3) so I really love how you made it low key a collaborative performance between you and them. So then like you said, ultimately it’s not “you/them” dynamic anymore but a “we”! All to say, I SEE U GIRL, KEEP DOIN U 💕
Borders, containers and walls. You are a poet, no doubt about it. You wrote about the pace and speed of life- I wrote these- you might enjoy them. and thanks for your thoughtful stuff. Wes Parker
Kimbra, I attended your concert in Hamilton earlier this year and was so moved by your presence and invitation into the sacred and vulnerable, through your music, words and your service to something bigger. For me, can be hard plagued with self doubt, noise and loneliness but music is my refuge and guide, giving solace, strength, hope and direction. I love a quote by a Rumi mystic, God is beauty and the movement of beauty is music. Thanks for sharing your writing, your music, your joy and pain . I hear you and get the importance of your calling and it gives me the strength to do this more in my own life. Thank you
Really great written piece of art you serve here Kimbra! It so beautiful and pure, and the creative and brave idea, about silence between the songs, is just so outside the box thinking, that I almost getting goosebumps thinking being in the audiens that night. I can only imagine the contrast of the energi at the end applause. Wished being there :) Cheers from Norway
This beautiful article...your words...each strung together like a symphony, guiding me through your world. The way you bring silence into your performance, brilliant. I felt like, for a moment, I was right there on that stage with you. As an artist, you awakened what I know to be true in myself. That life observed in silence....being totally present, is where the real magic happens. Thank you.🙏🏻💖
An intoxicating read. I read (and in a sense, ‘hear’) you examining the needs each of us have for things that can at times seem conflicting or contradictory, but are as often complementary. Stillness/motion; quiet/sound; attention/privacy. We need time where we and what surrounds us are still. The planet is of course still coursing around the Sun, the Sun and its entourage, the planets and their stars, are streaking along inside the galaxy, which itself is one of a hundred billion or so others, or probably more, all exploding outward from that beginning nearly 14 billion years ago. But we can, nonetheless, be still. And at other times, we need motion, movement, dance, the feeling of acceleration, then slowing. We need quiet--time without the voices of the universe, our parents, friends, lovers, fans, and the madding crowd. Quiet in which we hear our hearts, our souls, and our very real inspirations. Inspiration--the breathing in. The complement of quiet--silence, even--is sound. Not so much noise, which is sound in chaos, but ordered sound. Voices, song, music, audible rhythms, all carrying plaintive, earnest, calls, messages, and giving us a gift of audible harmony as a lesson for what beauty not just sounds like but actually is. And of course we need, many times, for as many reasons as there are people and the innumerable heartaches, loves, joys, disappointments, and more of their lives, attention. Acknowledgement that we are, that others know we are, and that our feelings, while always our own and in some ways only our own, share much with the feelings of others, and in that sharing, we can give and receive care, friendship, love. As important is the need for moments alone. Alone is where we can feel free to pour the pieces of a broken heart out on the floor and push them around with our toes, wondering if we’ll ever recover. Alone, we can listen best to the voice of god or the divine or the Prime Mover or whatever--that voice that tells us there are bigger things than us, and smaller things than us, and more of each than can be counted. But: we, ourselves, count. Not because we’re especially good, or especially talented, or particularly this, that, or the other, but because we exist, because somehow, out of the maelstrom, we were born, we were given a soul, and by dint of that alone, we matter, for the harmony of the cosmos needs us, if just for this one performance.
4 Gin&Ts later, I stepped into that iconic venue waiting for my fav artist, ready to party. Instead, I ended up grapplling with all the urges to clap most of that night. It was awkward (try holding back the orgasm next to feel what it's like) but fun, and I loved it. You are a truly unique artist Kimbra. Thank you for that magic performance. And also thank you for the surprise visit to Adelaide two months later - icing on the cake
Quick question. Did you forgo the encore? Just curious. I’ve always thought the encore was a weird concept by teasing the audience at the end of a show. That said, if you have yet to delve into the Fluxus movement that Anna was a part of as regards the expansion of what music and art is, isn’t, should or shouldn’t be, it behooves you as the format of this concert is flirting with those concepts. The piano piece you reference is the epitome of Fluxus! This touches my heart as I was in an Avant performative musical comedy act in the 80’s and early 90’s called Meatballs/ Fluxus. The drone piece with the mission statement wakes up some old sensibilties in my currently creative stasis. I absolutely love this route you are taking!
Thank you Kimbra. I was in the crowd that night. Your performances have always been ethereal but that night was something different. I saw the applause as something that connects between each of us, it’s something consequential in an inter-audience way, like our own little world or subjectivity colliding at the sound of the applause, sharing through a natural release of something that excites us. The release in silence, I think, is something different. On that night we were like volcanoes - and silence was not the release for our erupting gratitude for your music, your art, the opportunity of contemplation you brought us. Thank you for always challenging and questioning and bringing us a piece of your world.
Wow, what you have said here is so stunning! Thank you for your bravery to step into that space with me. I will also never forget it.
Beautiful words, thank you, Kimbra. I loved the audio at the beginning of the post too. It’s so valuable to hear the inner workings of an artist. Thanks for joining Substack 🙏
Very happy to be here!
Amazing Kimbra. Thank you. I loved reading about this experimental experience but I am also wondering if you could possibly release a recording of parts or the entirety of the Sydney Opera House show so we can see it also. I couldn't find and parts of it on YouTube (likely because you asked everyone to put their phones away haha) but perhaps you have a professional recording of it that you could one day release? Would be very cool to see how it all actually unfolded and not just what my mind envisioned after reading your article 🙂❤️👍🏼
Watch this space! There’s a bit of red tape related to the recordings that I’m wading through right now but my plan is to share some of the show from the Melbourne recording I have - which was executed the same way as the Sydney show - though of course being a new room and a new audience, it felt like a new kind of silence! And beautiful all the same.
Sweet, looking forward to seeing it! 😊
Gotta I wondered the same!
This reminds me of when I went to a Deva Premal concert. She is a deeply ethereal singer, who asks the audience, upfront not to applaud in between songs. She made the reference as if everyone would be clapping after they had a orgasm, and how funny (and unnatural that would be). Anyhow- what she said, reminded me of what you said, and how nice it is not to have the applause in between the experience.
This post gives me strength as I proceed to play my first live show in over 10 years tonight. I’ve always struggled with finding validation externally vs finding it within. The approval of others is so unbelievably intoxicating and reassuring, it’s funny how that tricks us into distrusting ourselves. Your performance is like the ultimate experience that we can indeed create our art and share it in the way we truly want to AND feel proud of work... and people can mirror that back to us. The intention to stay true to yourself so that you can listen to others while you’re the one performing is truly remarkable. Listening isn’t just meant to be for music but the world around, and the audience is always inevitably part of the performance (hello John Cage 4’3) so I really love how you made it low key a collaborative performance between you and them. So then like you said, ultimately it’s not “you/them” dynamic anymore but a “we”! All to say, I SEE U GIRL, KEEP DOIN U 💕
Borders, containers and walls. You are a poet, no doubt about it. You wrote about the pace and speed of life- I wrote these- you might enjoy them. and thanks for your thoughtful stuff. Wes Parker
https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/time
and this about silence- https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/how-precious-is-silence
Kimbra, I attended your concert in Hamilton earlier this year and was so moved by your presence and invitation into the sacred and vulnerable, through your music, words and your service to something bigger. For me, can be hard plagued with self doubt, noise and loneliness but music is my refuge and guide, giving solace, strength, hope and direction. I love a quote by a Rumi mystic, God is beauty and the movement of beauty is music. Thanks for sharing your writing, your music, your joy and pain . I hear you and get the importance of your calling and it gives me the strength to do this more in my own life. Thank you
Did you get compensation for the Genesis commercial? Sounds like your work.
Really great written piece of art you serve here Kimbra! It so beautiful and pure, and the creative and brave idea, about silence between the songs, is just so outside the box thinking, that I almost getting goosebumps thinking being in the audiens that night. I can only imagine the contrast of the energi at the end applause. Wished being there :) Cheers from Norway
This beautiful article...your words...each strung together like a symphony, guiding me through your world. The way you bring silence into your performance, brilliant. I felt like, for a moment, I was right there on that stage with you. As an artist, you awakened what I know to be true in myself. That life observed in silence....being totally present, is where the real magic happens. Thank you.🙏🏻💖
An intoxicating read. I read (and in a sense, ‘hear’) you examining the needs each of us have for things that can at times seem conflicting or contradictory, but are as often complementary. Stillness/motion; quiet/sound; attention/privacy. We need time where we and what surrounds us are still. The planet is of course still coursing around the Sun, the Sun and its entourage, the planets and their stars, are streaking along inside the galaxy, which itself is one of a hundred billion or so others, or probably more, all exploding outward from that beginning nearly 14 billion years ago. But we can, nonetheless, be still. And at other times, we need motion, movement, dance, the feeling of acceleration, then slowing. We need quiet--time without the voices of the universe, our parents, friends, lovers, fans, and the madding crowd. Quiet in which we hear our hearts, our souls, and our very real inspirations. Inspiration--the breathing in. The complement of quiet--silence, even--is sound. Not so much noise, which is sound in chaos, but ordered sound. Voices, song, music, audible rhythms, all carrying plaintive, earnest, calls, messages, and giving us a gift of audible harmony as a lesson for what beauty not just sounds like but actually is. And of course we need, many times, for as many reasons as there are people and the innumerable heartaches, loves, joys, disappointments, and more of their lives, attention. Acknowledgement that we are, that others know we are, and that our feelings, while always our own and in some ways only our own, share much with the feelings of others, and in that sharing, we can give and receive care, friendship, love. As important is the need for moments alone. Alone is where we can feel free to pour the pieces of a broken heart out on the floor and push them around with our toes, wondering if we’ll ever recover. Alone, we can listen best to the voice of god or the divine or the Prime Mover or whatever--that voice that tells us there are bigger things than us, and smaller things than us, and more of each than can be counted. But: we, ourselves, count. Not because we’re especially good, or especially talented, or particularly this, that, or the other, but because we exist, because somehow, out of the maelstrom, we were born, we were given a soul, and by dint of that alone, we matter, for the harmony of the cosmos needs us, if just for this one performance.
Or something like that.
4 Gin&Ts later, I stepped into that iconic venue waiting for my fav artist, ready to party. Instead, I ended up grapplling with all the urges to clap most of that night. It was awkward (try holding back the orgasm next to feel what it's like) but fun, and I loved it. You are a truly unique artist Kimbra. Thank you for that magic performance. And also thank you for the surprise visit to Adelaide two months later - icing on the cake
Quick question. Did you forgo the encore? Just curious. I’ve always thought the encore was a weird concept by teasing the audience at the end of a show. That said, if you have yet to delve into the Fluxus movement that Anna was a part of as regards the expansion of what music and art is, isn’t, should or shouldn’t be, it behooves you as the format of this concert is flirting with those concepts. The piano piece you reference is the epitome of Fluxus! This touches my heart as I was in an Avant performative musical comedy act in the 80’s and early 90’s called Meatballs/ Fluxus. The drone piece with the mission statement wakes up some old sensibilties in my currently creative stasis. I absolutely love this route you are taking!
.
Thank you for sharing!
thank you for lighting this torch, towards the caves and bonfires we once knew, and the act of sharing simply exuberance manifest
It’s primal isn’t it!