Will Concerts Become Hologram Shows?
That’s the question raised by the Janelle Monae/MIA shows the other night. In the midst of two concerts, each performer was streamed holographically onto the other’s stage, resulting in a simultaneous bicoastal duet. Monae’s hologram appeared in New York to drop verse on MIA’s “Bad Girls†and MIA’s hologram appeared alongside Monae in LA for “Queen.†Unlike the dead rappers we’ve seen performing via hologram, this performance aimed more for visual affect than realism. Purists will continue to resist the trend, maintaining that projections can never replace flesh-and-blood performers, but less discerning concertgoers may still give this new phenomenon the support it needs.
