In the Round at the Austin ConcertDome

On March 8th, Lady Gaga will play the Moody Center. Tickets start as “low” as almost 300 dollars, and go up exponentially from there — row 5 tickets are almost 9,600 dollars. While the experience of seeing Gaga is surely an arresting visual and auditory spectacle, one imagines even her devoted Little Monsters struggling to justify spending the equivalent of a new phone — or a used car — on an experience rather than something concrete, or even just on bills. What’s a fan to do? When seeing an artist in person has become financially unfeasible, into that space have risen DJ tribute nights, themed exercise classes, and now, almost at the damn airport, The ConcertDome. At the very least, their Lady Gaga night will feature the music her fans love at a much more acceptable price point.  

Co-founded by Tom Yaron, also of the Denver-based “custom-produced music and curated ensembles” company Concertize, The ConcertDome (hereafter the “Dome”) is a “16-meter geodesic dome” (52ish  feet) that mostly features, so far, evening tributes to big-name artists scored by local musicians and with visuals broadcast on the Dome at “120,000 lumens of brightness” at “5K Resolution.” 

About a hundred people fit inside the Dome, and tickets can be purchased at three tiers, or “2 types of seating at 3 different levels.” In practice, this means the “core” and “floor,” inner circles of Dome offer attendees a reclining chair. These can be adjusted completely horizontally for a perfectly prone dome view, though folks who purchase the “edge” seats just get a folding chair. At the upcoming Lady Gaga on Strings show, only “core” and “floor” tiers are available, which cost $59.95 and $44.95, respectively. 

On September 17th, we went to see “Pink Floyd on Strings.” Immediately notable about the Dome, and what was pointed out later by staff, is that the acoustics inside make it so that a person sitting on the other side of the musicians but directly across from your seat can be heard as if they’re right beside you (more on this later). 

A string quartet entered and began a climb through “Shine On You Crazy Diamond" while abstract streaks and shapes slowly congealed into said diamonds and other objects. As you might expect, the quartet did not hit us with elementary or middle school Floyd in the shape of, say, “See Emily Play” or “A Pillow of Winds,” and instead performed songs from Wish You Were Here, The Wall, and, mostly, Dark Side of the Moon. Visuals varied from phosphene-like globs of muted light to big slabs of color. 

To call the images “psychedelic” works in a pinch, but simply “abstract” is probably closer. But that’s not the rule, and some of the uglier images included in “Money” (stacks of money and the rare Bitcoin floating in the air) and some godawful thing during “Wish You Were Here” had all the traces of an AI prompt struggling to approximate the cover of that album, and featured two Silver Surfer-looking dudes contortedly shaking over-fingered hands. 

I suspect AI was involved in some of the visuals, but I don’t know to what extent. A friend who accompanied us believes all of it was, and the Dome has yet to write me back regarding this and a few other questions I have (I will update if/when they respond). More irritating than some ugly wavering images, and something over which the Dome has no control, were my fellow humans, with one in particular chatting throughout every song played by the quartet.

In a typical concert sitting I wouldn’t be able to hear him at all (unless I was unluckily right behind him), but given the Dome’s acoustics my whole row was privy to him saying things out loud like “How are they going to do the orgasm part?” referring to the wordless singing on “The Great Gig in the Sky,” and, during “Comfortably Numb,” something to the effect that if he were on the sinking Titanic, he’d want that to be the song playing when they were going down, and that his last words would be, “Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb, [inaudible].” I could hear hushing from our side of the small stage, but he didn’t seem to either notice or mind.

All things said and dome (sorry), I enjoyed the uniqueness of this concert experience and the minimal take on a band frequently and correctly associated with maximalism. Light subversion of expectations are all part of it: instead of sitting or standing, we recline as far as our chairs allow. Instead of all this, we hear just four instruments played by four people. Let your curiosity guide you to at least one Dome show, and please, remember you're louder in there than you think.