Keepin’it real? Life, death, and holograms on the live music stage

Definitions of live music and “live” performance have expanded to accept digital screens, sounds, manipulations, interventions—and even musicians—as valid parts of a live concert. Today electronic instruments, voice-altering technologies, screen projections, and sampling software are taken for granted aspects of the mise en scène of the live music stage. As audiences and performers become comfortable interacting in virtual worlds and with digital conventions, the boundaries for “live” performance are shifting not only to include DJs who play digital samples in real-time for a large audiences but also virtual performers like UK band, the Gorillaz, who headlined Glastonbury in 2010, without any human bodies on stage.