Was a very late night yesterday – we had rampside tickets for WWE Smackdown up in town, and it’s a good two hour each way journey. We went to a house show back in November, which was great preparation, but a live televised show had some fascinating differences.
Seeing the light rigs, cameras, mixing desks, drones, and all the people involved had an unexpected impact in terms of immediacy. I always love to see behind the curtain, to observe the processes and interactions to produce a show, and this was a treat. It’s probably not the intended treat, but I’m an odd soul, what can I say?
The biggest differences came in terms of how the flow was managed with announcements and set pieces around advert periods. The live house show had a more steady pace, whereas the televised event had definite ebbs and flows.
It was also interesting not to be able to hear the commentary (unless I were to spend my time connected to Netflix to watch, which rather spoils the object of the exercise). Needless to say, there’s been a degree of entertainment today from looking at snippets of recordings posted on social media.
It’s also been fun to spot the cub on-screen as he either reacted to, fist bumped, or ignored various entrances. The teasing has been gentle from us. His friends are very jealous.
My lasting memories have come from the reactions of performers to the very loud and vocal crowd. We sang, we chanted, we put big daft grins on performers’ faces as we drowned them out so they couldn’t get a word in. The energy of the Great British football chants seemed at times blow them away.
I may have been a little hoarse last night. We’ll see how i am on Tuesday because we’ll be doing it all again on Monday for RAW, also at the O2.
I’m interviewing prospective apprentices on Tuesday. Bad timing for someone I feel