The Harry Potter Alliance

By Matt Maggiacomo

September 20, 2009

Whomp The House Tour 3: The Virtues Of House Parties

If I was asked to put together a list of my top ten favorite shows of all time, one might expect me to include all of the biggest ones: LeakyCon, Prophecy, Wrock Chicago, the Yule Balls, Wrockstock, and so forth. Certainly, those shows would be among the first to come to mind; the big shows have an inherent sense of excitement and importance in everyone’s memory, and they’ve helped shape me as a performer and as a member of the wizard rock community.

However, after touring extensively for two years, I’ve had the opportunity to play a variety of shows, with audiences ranging from literally 1 to 1,000, and venues ranging from fancy hotel ballrooms to backyards and unfinished basements. One of my favorite shows of all time happened just a handful of months ago in Carrollton, Georgia; the show was set up by my friend Hope and it took place in her friend’s living room. There were about 15 people in attendance, and I’d guess that half of them were more accurately classified as curious friends of the host than wizard rock fans. Justin and I have played many shows like this during our house party tours, and most of the time it’s an awkward experience and we have to search fairly hard for the silver lining (which is something we make a habit of doing at all of our shows, lest we forget how lucky we are to be touring full time).

What made the Carrollton show different is that we didn’t even have to try to get the audience into it — even the newbies were rocking out. Everyone was standing within a matter of minutes, dancing their butts off and singing along, and they continued until our show was over. We are accustomed to house party audiences being tame and feeling awkward about making too much noise; on the flipside, we’ve had many house party audiences who were more concerned about the “party” and not so much about the wizard rock itself. While we can find the value in almost any show, we didn’t have to search hard to find it in Carrollton.

I guess that show has become the model of what a house party show can be — the fully realized potential of a show. It makes me wonder what truly makes a good show “good”: is it the bands? Is it the ambiance of the venue? Is it the quality of the performances? I would dare to say that the success of a show depends as much on the audience as on the bands. We can play our hearts out (and we always do), but if the audience is bored or distracted, we sense it right away and it can sap the energy out of our performance.

To me, a show is more than just people playing music in the presence of other people; it’s a collaboration between everyone in the room. If everyone’s equally engaged, the experience is motivating and invigorating and inspiring. This is why I love house party shows — that collaborative energy and enthusiasm is more profound when the room is smaller and there’s no stage or PA system separating musicians and fans. So, yeah. Wrock Chicago was great. Wrockstock is always awesome. But the best house party shows have a charm all their own, and they have just as much potential to be meaningful and significant.

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