Jacob Collier — There Is No Audience | GulleMan Official Website

Jacob Collier is the personification of music, charisma and inspiration.

Yepp, that’s a big claim. And if I was religious, I’d say that Jacob Collier might be the Jesus and this is his second coming.

Nah, seriously. What happened is that yesterday I fell into the Jacob Collier rabbit hole. Again.

And that usually begins with the perfectly reasonable intention of watching one short clip and ends considerably later. And yet again, tears went down my cheek and that was it. End of scrolling. Almost like being ripped out of your current bubble and forced to endure something, that I can only describe as deepest emotions based on music, made from just human beings, lead by the most charismatic being that ever existed. Jacob.

Lucky me to have first hand memories from a concert I was lucky enough to attend, back then. Already then I found myself wondering about his perfect pitch ear, his understanding of harmony, his voice and his ability to move between SO MANY different instruments ….! Normal people need a lifetime to master one instrument. But he has mastered an unknown number of instruments in his young age already. Amazing.

I make music myself, so there is also the occasional uncomfortable awareness of just how much I don’t know. With Jacob, however, that awareness rarely feels discouraging. Mostly, it makes me want to try something. That’s pure inspiration.

The best music teacher, as far as I’m concerned

When I call Jacob Collier the best music teacher in the world, this is what I mean. Not somebody who can deliver the most technically complete explanation, but somebody who can make people care enough to listen, then feel comfortable enough to join in. Whether he is facing a few people around a piano or an enormous crowd, he seems able to make music feel accessible without making it less interesting.

The WIRED film (or see the embedded video) in which he explains harmony at five levels is a good example. He moves from a child to increasingly experienced musicians, ending with Herbie Hancock, and by then he is asking questions himself.

Perhaps that is why these encounters move me. Nobody needs to arrive already knowing the right vocabulary. There is something to hear, something to try, and their response matters.

The biggest choir in the world — and you’re right in the middle

I have managed to see Jacob live once, and the experience left me with a thought that still seems the most accurate description of what happens: there is no audience.

There are people who bought tickets, obviously, and a stage with musicians on it. But when Jacob begins conducting the crowd, those apparently sensible distinctions become rather less useful. Different sections receive different notes; simple gestures guide their voices, and a room full of people becomes a changing, many-part harmony.

Describing the mechanism doesn’t explain the experience, though. The sound is no longer something coming from somewhere in front of you. It surrounds you, and your own voice is somewhere inside it, contributing something small to something enormous. It feels like the biggest choir in the world, and you are sitting right in the middle of it.

I can imagine that among all these people having bought a ticket weren’t aware at the time, what they signed up for. Expecting to attend a concert and ending up within the world’s biggest choir with goosebumps all over you. Imagine this!

And people don’t complain, quite the opposite. People actually wanted to do it, be part of it and enjoy this perfect moment, that is so rare in this world, these day.

I will say, no one who attended, will ever forget a Jacob Collier concert. Proof me wrong! 😉

The closest comparison I can think of is Freddie Mercury, particularly his call-and-response with the crowd at Live Aid in 1985. There was that same extraordinary feeling that the people out there were not merely receiving a performance; they belonged to it.

Different musical approaches, certainly, but something recognisably similar in the relationship between the person on stage and everyone else.

Watch: Freddie Mercury and the Live Aid crowd

I cannot think of another musician who has made me feel quite the way Jacob does, except Freddy. Of course.

Different notes, without having to become different people

I think this touches something I have gradually (meaning: by ageing) come to value more and more: being part of something without having to stop being yourself. I don’t want a world in which everybody thinks like me. Apart from anything else, I would eventually have to listen to my own opinions all day, and even I have limits.

What interests me is whether we can remain different while becoming more attentive to one another. In that very room, there is a practical reason to listen. Somebody else is holding a note different from yours, and the relationship between them is what makes the sound interesting. Agreement, in this particular situation, does not require everyone to become identical.

That is my idea of peace in a very small and surely subjective form. Not to claim that a concert can resolve the world’s conflicts, but this experience of strangers cooperating willingly, without needing to know each other’s entire history first. Even better, this cooperation is in form of singing! Who sings cannot fight. Have you ever seen a soldier singing during duty? So in my little universe, this makes sense. For a few minutes, it feels like Jesus enters the room, everybody sings and there’s peace.

An unexpected comparison from an atheist

This is where my admiration produces a slightly awkward thought. I am an atheist, and yet watching Jacob gather people, fascinate them, involve them and bring them closer together occasionally makes me think:

This is rather how I imagine Jesus.

Not as a historical assessment, and certainly not the supernatural part. I mean the human figure I imagined: someone whose presence makes people curious rather than afraid, who can teach without humiliating, and around whom strangers begin to feel less like strangers. An unlikely comparison from me, admittedly, but there it is. Besides, at least they share their initials 😉

I don’t know Jacob personally. What I know is the work he shares and the experience I had in that concert, and both have left me with an enormous affection for what he does. His abilities impress me; his apparent delight in letting other people participate is what reaches me.

I love this man, and seeing him again as many times as possible is an item on my bucket list that will never disappear.

I want to be in that enormous choir again, hearing the voices around me while adding my own, remembering how natural it can feel to belong among people I have never met.

There is no audience, because we are all taking part.

About Jacob Collier

Jacob Collier is a British singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and educator. He first attracted widespread attention through his multi-layered YouTube performances, which led to mentorship from Quincy Jones.

His debut album, In My Room (2016), was recorded, performed and produced by Collier himself. His subsequent four-part Djesse project expanded into collaborations across musical traditions, while his concerts and teaching have made audience participation a defining part of his work.