Los Angeles Tech Writer

Last week I was preparing my next "power of the artist" installment, to express my lifelong awe of musicians. Then... the whole world, it seems, gasped at Michael Jackson's premature demise. So, after a slight pause and some edits, here is the entry.

About a month ago while listening to an L.A. radio station that plays "deep rock," meaning songs that aren't typical radio fare, and which you aren't necessarily sick to death of because you've heard them thousands of times, I heard a live version of Tom Petty and Heartbreakers' Breakdown. It was recorded in 1985 at the Wiltern Theatre here in Los Angeles.

Petty begins singing the lyrics gingerly, to coax the audience into a sing-along. They oblige, singing the entire first verse and chorus to the band, after which Petty quips, "You are going to put me out of a job." (This song is part of the Pack Up the Plantation album - there are YouTube videos of other night's performances of the song, but the recording included on the album is the one to which I refer. You can hear it here.)

What struck me about it is - what must it feel like to an artist to receive such an overwhelming acknowledgment, having one's song sung to him, true to every nuance, by thousands of people as one?

This got me thinking about the acknowledgment other types of artists receive, such as the painter whose work fetches enormous fees, or the best-selling author who sells millions of copies and whose readers line up around the block to have him sign their books, or the web writer whose articles receive thousands of visits per day. I pondered how these accolades might measure up.

To me, this type of "feedback" is different than being an artist performing on stage, hearing his fans singing his songs back to him. A gold record, one's name on the New York Times Best-Seller List, a high Alexa rating - to me, these are indirect acknowledgment. Although they represent the artist's wholesale appeal and are no doubt exquisite as the "pay" for one's hard work, these things may not impart the same impact as a simultaneous outpouring by thousands of people at once, as happened to The Heartbreakers in my example.

The continuing tributes, dancing, impromptu performances and other fond remembrances of Michael Jackson all over the world the past week could not better demonstrate what I am talking about, except for the sad fact that he is absent. Another example is the yearly Thrill the World dance that is performed in dozens of locations each October. I expect it will be absolutely monumental this year.

The closest experience I've ever had to that was when I was the editor of The Daily Peloton bike racing news website. During the Tour de France (which starts tomorrow) we would produce live tickers of the race each day, posting updates every minute or two. The site traffic was always so heavy that the server would inevitably crash, at least once, usually in the final minutes of the stage. The visitor traffic statistics were always breathtaking to me, and were great "pay" for the long hours and hard work. But again, sitting at my computer, removed from the visitors, the experience, although rewarding, was still an indirect acknowledgment.

My conclusion is that artists who perform live are a special breed. I am certainly not one of them, and I think neither are most of us. Perhaps they are built to withstand, and to relish, the stress of performing live in front of thousands. It's the level of game they play, and the degree of challenge they require.

And perhaps, because of their special natures, the live response of a massive audience, which would be completely overwhelming to we mere mortals, is exactly the proper magnitude for them; it's what they are built to handle and the degree of response that suits them. Big players, big game - what do you think?

Anyway, to spotlight another virtuoso from the pop-rock milieu, which was the original intention of this article: Recently I "re-discovered" the song Big Love by Lindsey Buckingham (for you young 'uns, Buckingham was part of the band Fleetwood Mac). I guess I had forgotten about the song.

I have been wanting to embed a YouTube video of his amazing guitar work on this song, but in March his videos were pulled from his YouTube channel because of negotiations between Warner Bros. and YouTube. They have not yet reappeared.

However, Gibson Guitar Corporation (check out its YouTube channel) has posted a video of Buckingham playing his Chet Atkins Gibson guitar, and below is the video of Big Love. (As an aside, my dad owns his father's wonderfully melodic 1902 Gibson acoustic guitar - now over 100 years old.)

Hope you enjoy.