How connected?

I went to see Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge Amphitheater in Quincy, Wash., this weekend with my friend Kyle and his girlfriend. I’ve dreamed about going to this venue ever since falling in love with the band at SPAC (in Saratoga, NY) in high school.

The Gorge is everything I ever could have thought. It looks down into this wide open canyon and the stage seems entirely out of place. In a DVD, Dave Matthews actually says something to the effect of “I feel bad making noise in such a beautiful place.”

I wish I had pictures, but I forgot to put the battery back in my camera after charging it. I’m an idiot when it comes to that kind of stuff. Sorry. (These pictures from the Web will have to suffice.)

We went for two nights and sat on the lawn on Saturday and in the orchestra on Sunday. From the lawn, you can’t really see the band all that well. You can make out the figures on the stage, but mostly you just watch the big screens if you want to see what’s going on.

That got me thinking: How close are you to the band when sitting on the lawn? I don’t mean physically. I mean, how connected are you to them? Sure, they are in the same proximity and you can tell that they are standing there. But you couldn’t even be 100 percent positive that Dave Matthews is in fact the man at the center of the stage.

I started to compare this sensation of doubt to Twittering. Dave Matthews has a Twitter account and fans can send messages to him, which he actually responds to. I tried this a few weeks ago. No response. Still, he responds sometimes. Obviously, Dave might not actually be the one Twittering on his account. But if I believe he is, which I do, and if I were to receive a response from him, how connected to Dave would I be after getting the response? Would I be more connected to him by exchanging messages on a Web site or looking at a shadowy version of him from atop some hill in Washington state? I’m really not sure.

A few weeks ago, USA Today released a poll saying people use social networking sites for narcissistic purposes. Duh! Social networking is a form of constant communication and isn’t most communication somewhat narcissistic? Someone is usually sharing something about themselves when communicating, which focuses the attention on that person.

The question really is how connected do you feel to someone you communicate with via social networking? Obsessive tweeters are dubbed over-sharers for a reason, aren’t they? What do status updates and bulletins reveal? Sometimes the connection feels really personal. But then you realize that a million people could be reading that same message, even if it is directed toward you.

So what about that connection from the lawn? How connected can you be to the dark figure playing his music under the night sky? Even when you hear the intro to the song, the one you’ve always wanted to hear live, start and feel like it is being played for your benefit, the rest of the crowd screams, too. All connected? Or all equally distant?