This past weekend I went to a concert with friends. It was TSO, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, in an arena in Dallas. The music came mostly from two albums, one Christmas and one not exactly Christmas, both of which told stories.

Now, two things to keep in mind. One is that the group had already done a matinee concert, which I suspect had a lot of kids and younger people in the audience, because TSO is family-friendly. Second, they are a rock group, and rock fans are very much into audience participation. There’s a lot of fast feedback from rock audiences, and it is easily visible. (I’ve written before about rock vs. symphony, and the differences as a musician as well as audience member.)

So … The music began with a rock setting of the “Dies Irae” from Verdi’s Requiem. No, not your typical Christmas fare. But a story began to unfold, about a lost child, her dreams, and Christmas. It was NOT the story from the album, but the songs still worked with the concert story. A narrator unfolded the tale between songs, using prose and poetry both. TSO has a very 1980s-90s metal sound, classic metal as well as classical, and they are very good at what they do. They also had visual effects, pyro, drones, and CG as well as human actors on film. It was a multi-sensory show, very immersive if you wanted it to be.

The story was musical, yet visual. The two media supported each other, the images and narration putting the musical tale into a different story. And it worked beautifully. If someone did not know the album version, she’d never know that it differed from the stage tale. It was seamless, done by people who are masters of their craft, which is story telling through music and text, or images.

However, I could tell that the musicians had trouble reading the audience. I was rocking along, as was my friend, but the people closest to the stage? Appeared older, and they sat quietly. No throwing the horns, no calling out to the stage between numbers. They applauded, and probably smiled and nodded or tapped their feet, but they were not what the band members were used to reading. I suspect the feeling was mutual, because when the guitarist and violinist pointed to different groups, only a few people responded with the horns, or waving in time, or doing the usual things. I was singing along, but not out loud, because no one around my friend and I sang along*.

So after a quick confabulations on stage, the musicians shifted gears. They looked for other cues and feedback, would be my guess, because they started pointing to different areas in the audience, and getting more response. I would wager that the veterans and metal heads in the crowd let their seatmates know what to do, and what the musicians expected, and so the feedback became more obvious. By the second time people left the stage and roamed the audience, the audience response had more of a rock feel than a classical concert.

So, what does this mean for us? Rarely do we get instant feedback from readers, and it is harder for us to adjust on the fly to reader response, if we ever see it? One reason I’ve done readings at LibertyCon is that it gives me a chance to inflict, er, toss stories at a live audience and see what happens. Another is to gain possible readers who came to hear the other person, and enjoyed my stuff as well. But most of us don’t get that chance.

Posting excerpts on my blog is one way to get rapid feedback. Who comments can be very telling. If Old Hands stay quiet, and I get a lot of new-to-comments comments, I might be appealing to a different group with this particular story. New readers also ask questions that I need to answer, and that can be very, very valuable for clarifying something.

Asking for beta readers also helps, because several new-to-book people usually volunteer, and have new-to-book questions, concerns, and comments. I take those very seriously, because they might see things people familiar with the series’ tropes miss. They also ask about things that are worth reviewing for long-time readers, just to remind them, or expand on details and back story. If everyone hits a spot and responds with deer-in-the-headlights comments and more flags fly than during an Alabama vs. Auburn football game, well, work is needed.

If there’s a lesson for us in all this, it is that audiences differ, but can still appreciate our stories, and that different media can be great fun, if they support the story and don’t swallow it. The effects (lasers, flame wall, pyro, CG and video, drone swarmlet) never overwhelmed the music. It was a class in story telling, which is what we do, after all. Just usually not as loudly.

*OK, when they did “O Fortuna,” I had to sing along, because I still recall 98% of the Latin, and all the parts and volume changes. No one was going to hear me, anyway, not over that!