Audium-Theatre of Sound — Attraction in San Francisco

Where to start…

In text, the Audium in San Francisco sounds cool. The venue description lists it as, “Audium is the only theatre of its kind in the world, pioneering the exploration of space in music. The theatre's 176 speakers bathe listeners in sounds that move past, over, and under them. "Sound sculptures" are performed in darkness in the 49-seat theatre.”

You walk in and there’s a small waiting area. It’s got some abstract sounds, some odd projection, and a few seats. Everything smells like a musty unfinished basement. You walk through an angular hallway and end up in a round room with seats presented in a circle. There’s no assigned seating, you just sit wherever you want. Once everyone is seated, the sounds start and the lights turn down low. Twenty minutes, a short intermission, and then twenty more minutes.

Unfortunately, the sound isn’t that interesting and the sound quality isn’t great (or loud). The show starts off with sounds from the BART station and it only gets weirder from there. When the description says “music”, it’s using that term pretty loosely. I’m guessing that in the 70’s, this place was a lot more impressive. As it is now, I can get much more impressive sound at a movie theater, with 3D headphones, or with an Atmos setup at home. Want to really hear immersive sound? Go check out the Magnolia sound room at a Best Buy.

The abstract “show” was pretty lame. We bolted during the intermission. If we wanted to hear sounds of the BART station and feet walking in mud, we can do that at the Bay Point/Pittsburg line. Twenty minutes was all we could take. Luckily, our night was saved by a local brewery called Hammertime just a mile or so away where we were able to get a bite and a brew.

Bottom line here is: this may have been pretty special in it’s early years, but in 2019, don’t waste your time. We were...

If you were to try and turn the city of San Francisco, with all its quirks and contrasts, into an audio experience, you'd end up with something not unlike Audium. This is definitely not one for the difficult to impress. Fortunately I was in a mellow, open-minded frame of mind when I went, so I quite enjoyed it. Sitting there in complete, and I do mean complete darkness, unable to even see my hand in front of my face, was both calming and liberating. I'll confess I even found my body eager to move in response to what I was hearing, and felt safe doing so knowing no-one in the room could see me. Some of the sounds are are quite grating, the audio quality isn't actually that great, and I kept finding myself desiring a pattern to emerge in the sound, but perhaps that's the point. It's meant to challenge, and it does so very well. At the very end of the performance the lights come up slowly and just enough that you can make out the others in the room and make your way out. However, a gently melodic sound continued and we were all so mellowed by the experience that the lady from the ticket booth had to come into the room and announce the performance had ended. Funny. I'd say drink a large glass of red wine before going in as I think that will help relax into it. As others have said, I won't be going again, but I'm glad I experienced...

Out of date. The experience doesn't embrace anything new from the past few decades and seems to be holding onto sounds and feelings of the past. It is almost as if it is trying to express ideals from the musique concrète days, but refuses to use any of the new techniques that have been developed in audio engineering and music since. The experience is more about hearing a random cacophony of sounds and less about the narrative which it leaves it up to the audience themselves to make.

From the beginning to end, the audience sits in the dark for an hour which is unfortunately disturbed by rustles of clothes and jackets, squeaky old chairs, and the clicking around of the engineer switching modules. Like someone else has mentioned in their review, the bass frequencies rattle items in the room as well which add to the distraction. I found it hard to become immersed and connect with the sounds but maybe it is simply because it was just not my taste. I had much higher hopes for this but I hope they revitalize and rethink the gem of a...