Performance Report 1 - It's a Small World After All

Introduction/Time and Space
On April 2, 2010 Laura Thao and her assistant Kyle performed at Central Market in Fort Worth, Texas. The atmosphere was very laid back. The music wasn’t the main focus of this event, but more of a type of background sound. This event took place outside on a patio where people were eating, talking, and drinking while their kids played. There was a child’s playground right next to the stage, enabling the children to sit on the ledge right behind the performers, almost as if they were on stage themselves. This greatly showed how laid back it was. Though most of the patio was open to any type of bad weather that may occur, the stage is covered with a roof.

Audience
The majority of people were families. This event allowed the parents to drink and have a good time catching up with one another while their kids also got to play with other children. Not everyone was listening, but those that were sitting closer to the stage seemed more attentive. Right in front of the stage, little girls and boys were dancing to the music, causing the musicians on stage to smile at them occasionally. Most of the crowd would applaud after each song, especially those in the front. There were lots of kids, running around, dancing, screaming, but no one seemed to mind. It was a very chill environment. The adults could bring their own beer; some were even spilling it all over the place. It was interesting to me how though the people may not have seemed very attentive, I did get several looks from people, as I was by myself, carrying around a notebook and taking notes. I assume that they were just curious of what exactly I was doing there and taking notes about.

Performers
The musicians on stage, Laura Thao the guitar and Kyle on a drum, seemed very relaxed. They were not a popular type of music style, but more of a folk music To match the audience, the performers were also very relaxed and comfortable. The guitarist, who was also singing, asked at least a couple times, if the audience could hear her, and to my surprise, they crowd responded quite well. Laura was wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt and Kyle was wearing a long sleeve, plaid shirt and white cargo shorts. It was neat to see the performers somewhat interact with the audience, whether it was asking them if they could hear well, or just responding to the children’s dancing, singing, and sometimes screaming in the space in front of them.

Music
Laura stood and played an acoustic guitar while singing and Kyle sat on a cube-shaped drum that he would beat with his hands. The music had a very Western style to it. Each song had the same, single chorus, with two or three different verses in between. In the third song, she used a plucking technique. Together, they created a monophony, as the guitar just provided a single melody with the drum accompanying at certain pulses. She sang a pretty high pitch, probably more of a soprano tone. There were parts of several different songs where she would not sing certain words, but instead, emotional sounds. For example, in one song, she might “mmhmm” and another, she would “yahoaaa”. Laura swayed and moved to the music in a very smooth fashion, as if to get a better feel of the beat.

After the first three songs, she explained that they were more romantically inspired, while the next few she was about to sing were focused more on the Creator. The next few songs were either about the Lord’s love, how His grace wipes away our mistakes and sins, and the praise He deserves. Some of the song titles were “You are Made New” and “To Your Name be the Glory”.

Conclusion
I had originally planned to hear the Fort Worth All Stars play, but I happened to arrive in time for them to be on break (as I found out a couple songs in) while these two were performing. After she began talking about God’s love and correlating her songs towards her relationship with Christ, I decided I was going to talk to her after the performance, maybe as an interview or maybe as a Christian sister. Either way, I just felt the need to talk with her afterwards. As I walked near her, she said “I remember you!” as she looked at me. It turns out, I had met her last summer at a Baptist camp at UMHB in Belton, but because of her new haircut, I had failed to recognize her. I was shocked for the rest of the weekend that we had just happened to meet up at some random place. It’s a small world after all!