Under the lights of the old amusement park, we waited -- tense and quiet. The stage was strange. Here was a grand piano, toy pianos, and even a bike wheel.
Cage walked out at exactly 2AM, didn’t say a word, and slammed a piano key. It wasn’t music, just loud, random noise that hit the crowd like a punch.
At first, people looked confused. Then, the crowd broke. A woman screamed, and a man dropped to his knees, covering his ears. People started crying, laughing, and shouting. They didn’t care anymore. It was like they couldn’t hold anything back. Some grabbed the toy pianos and cans, joining the chaos. Everyone was moving, touching, losing control.
By the time the sun rose, it was a mess of bodies and noise. People were sweating, crying, and shouting into the early morning air. The sounds faded away, and the crowd slowly drifted off, changed forever.
They didn’t need to say anything -- they all knew what had happened.
The problem with classical music is it’s lost its connection to the streets.
Nowadays, the underground acts never get a shake. I remember going to warehouse parties in Detroit where the Arditti String Quartet showed up, and everyone went wild. Multiple women got pregnant that day. The next day, a fist fight broke out at a Stravinsky show.
But now, only rich people make it in the classical world, and audiences no longer have their wild abandon.
Classical music is tame now. Where is our generation’s Paganini?