There they formed a rebellious spectacle, crowding into shops and loudly shouting bits of political theory, to the amusement of some onlookers and store employees and the irritation of others.
The area has supplanted Chinatown and Bergamot Station as Los Angeles's center for cutting-edge and conceptual art; on weekends, the funky-spectacle crowd comes for the Sam Durant and Sharon Lockhart openings, and stays for drinks at Mandrake.
By the end of the '70s, in the wake of "Star Wars" and the Corman-esque "Jaws," a new era of blockbusters was dawning in which lavishly budgeted spectacles crowded out lowbrow, low-budget drive-in and grindhouse fare.
That visual side of things may be the next frontier in an art form with exciting sounds to offer but a spectacle — a crowd of musicians in formal garb — that, though austerely elegant, can seem dull to 21st-century audiences.
Resisting the temptation to indulge in easy spectacle and crowd-seducing muggery is probably nearly impossible.
In some pageants, the staged presentation or dramatic storytelling is completely preeminent over simple spectacle and crowd-pleasing display.
"Yes, he is a director of spectacle and crowds, but they are genre films of a certain weight, painted on a bigger canvas in a way that makes them land more substantially.
Fleur de Sel is one of a new breed of intimate spots around town where pedigreed chefs turn their backs on spectacle and crowds to stay behind the stoves.
In fact, the very spectacle of crowds surging into the streets and overwhelming decades of accumulated power in the hands of a highly centralized, American-backed government seemed an antidote to the despair of past years — carnage in Iraq, divisions among Palestinians and Israeli intransigence and the yawning divide between ruler and ruled on almost every question of foreign policy.
Staged on the rooftop of the Republic Liquor store in downtown LA in 1987, the filmed performance became a city spectacle, attracting crowds as radio stations notified people of the event taking place – though as we hear in the video, some radio presenters warned fans not to go as it was "not one of those delightful neighbourhoods".
Christopher Muther from The Boston Globe reviewed the concert in House of Blues and said "The combination of song and spectacle was crowd-pleasing and exhilarating.
