11 posts tagged “concert”
Hey everyone, who are your favorite bands or artists to see live?
This last Monday, Emily and I had tickets to see Sigur Ros in Portland. We decided to head down a day early and spend the night in the lovely city to the south to get away from the regular pace of life, if only for a short while. Thus, it only made sense to have a Portland theme for this week’s ‘five things’, in honor of all the things that brought us joy over our short 40 hour vacation.
1. Kennedy School - “McMenamins” is a household word throughout Oregon and Washington, signifying a vast array of great places to enjoy with family and friends — a dream that began humbly more than 20 years ago in the hearts of brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin. The siblings are now rightfully considered two of the pioneers of the Northwest microbrew and historic hotels industries.”
That’s from the press room at McMenamins.com. I wasn’t sure how to define it myself, so I figured I would let them do the work instead. For those of you who are unfamiliar with McMenamins, you simply need to do whatever it takes to encounter them here in the Pacific Northwest at some point in your life.
They have great pubs and restaurants filled with a delightful atmosphere and ambiance. They make really tasty beer, like their Terminator Stout. And they also have amazing hotels, hotels so great that one played a large role in our decision to head to Portland early in the first place. If our prospect of heading down early would have meant staying at a Holiday Inn Express somewhere, we would have passed, but when heading down early meant spending the night at the Kennedy School… that was an entirely different story.
Kennedy School is a McMenamins hotel which was a public elementary school from 1915 until 1975 (you can check out the full history here). It is hands down the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Some of its many features include classrooms converted into hotel rooms, chalkboards and all, a heated soaking pool, a movie theater (featuring free admission to paid guests), a full McMenamins restaurant, two medium size bars which serve a full menu of food, and two tiny bars which are cozy and charming.
We loved our evening there, and we look forward to heading back. In fact, Emily and I have already started the preliminary planning for our next McMenamins trips, both back to Kennedy School again, and to their other hotels here in Oregon and Washington.
2. Powell’s Books - Much like McMenamins, if you live in the Pacific Northwest the existence of Powell’s Books is already well known to you. It’s the world largest independent new and used book store, and while that might sound like too many qualifiers to be impressive, have no fear. Powell’s is overwhelming huge. It’s filled with wonderful booky goodness.
Powell’s has an impressive selection of books. Regardless of what sort of book you’re looking for, Powell’s is a great place to browse. Although, you will probably only be able to browse a few sections if you have limited time because the store is literally a city block. Emily and I spent Sunday afternoon there and bought some lovely used books cheap. Between the two of us, I finally found a tshirt there in my size, and beyond that we got Watership Down, Ender’s Game, For Whom The Bell Tolls, A Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, The Catcher In The Rye, A Widow For One Year and Until I Find You. That will lead to some lovely, leisurely reading in between school work over the next few months.
As is the case with everything here on this Portland list (with the obvious exception of the Sigur Ros concert), you need to be sure to get to Powell’s if ever you’re in Portland.
3. Horse Brass Pub - I’m not the only one who says that The Horse Brass Pub is great. Don Miller mentions it at length in Blue Like Jazz, it has been featured on Food Network and the Travel Channel as having the most authentic fish & chips in the US, and I don’t personally know anyone who has visited it without referring to it with affection later. However, this is my blog, so the fact that I love it is enough.
The fish & chips really is fantastic, easily my favorite anywhere, the beer selection is top notch, featuring plenty of beers on tap, including season guest brews, you can top those off with a delicious serving of their bread pudding (again, easily my favorite anywhere), and the atmosphere is more authentic and homey than you’re typical ‘English’ pub in the states. I actually need to stop writing about it now because the mere idea of it is filling me with the desire to head out to my car and drive down tonight!
4. Black Butte Porter - One of the beer’s on tap at Horse Brass, along with any other bar that knows what’s good for them, comes courtesy of Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. It’s a little brew known as Black Butte Porter and it’s a tasty companion to those Horse Brass fish & chips. My encounter with it this weekend was brief, but it was a highlight nonetheless.
5. Sigur Ros Concert - The concert, and the actual reason for heading to Portland, didn’t disappoint either. At first the concert was simply satisfyingly entertaining. Yet, as the show progressed the band showed us a variety of the proverbial tricks up their sleeves. Visually the show had much to offer, even without the use of any impressive video footage to accompany the show.
Once the band got to the second to last song in their initial, pre-encore set, my enjoyment needle pushed past content and into euphoric. The last two songs of said set were celeberatory and uplifting. Whereas most concerts tend to allow the act to grow larger while the audience at times shrinks away into becoming a mere cheering track, during the last song before the encore, it was as if everyone in the room got bigger somehow. It was marvelous. =)
1. The National and Menomena @ The Moore Theater:
On Friday night, Em and I got to go see Menomena and The National at The Moore Theater here in Seattle. We had a really great time. I thought I’d missed my best chance at seeing The National since they’d been here fairly recently and I was too busy to free up an evening. I was pleasantly surprised when my friend Luke, who also attended, let me know they were coming back, and that Menomena was opening for them, a fact which is an unnecessary but welcome bonus.
As I’ve said before, I love The National more every time I listen to them, and they certainly didn’t disappoint live. Menomena and The National both put on a great show. It was a lovely Friday evening and a well deserving part of this week's five things.
Sadly, much of what once made the Soul/R&B sound great has perished in the wake of the ridiculous pop trends of the late 70’s and beyond. Even greats like Stevie Wonder and The Temptations lost their minds and went the way of overproduced, heavily synthesized silliness. What was once a proud and powerful force in the world of music has for too long been turned into music that is barely fit to listen to in an elevator.
The vacuum left behind by these musical giants after their fall from grace has at times been filled with talented individuals who were able to capture something of the old magic and combine it with current pop sensibilities. Yet, for every moderately talented group, there has been busloads of “no talent ass-clowns” who get paid to make the same song again and again, taking an insubstantial, but dance-worthy, baseline and covering it with mediocre vocal talent and mindless lyrics about sex and romantic relationships which barely reach a junior high maturity level.
For far too long, we've been without the timeless ballads and soulful lyrics of a young Stevie Wonder. The soulful pleas of David Ruffin and the Temptations were nowhere to be seen. The body-moving, soul-lifting power of James Brown could only be found by tuning into an oldies station.
Fortunately, during my lifetime, a talented group of men and women have finally taken it upon themselves to fill in the sizable gap left by past greats. The men and women I’m referring to are those who make up what is known as the Neo-Soul genre. The most popular manifestations of this genre are Alicia Keys and John Legend, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg.
If you are at all interested in this genre but haven’t gotten into it yet, I highly recommend picking up Raphael Saadiq’s new album, The Way I See It, released last Tuesday on Sony BMG. The title of the CD itself sounds more like a Marvin Gaye album than today's typical R&B fare. CD's today are more likely to be called something imaginative like Sweat or Shake That Ass or some other similarly mind-numbing possibility.
Saadiq’s CD is at times the postmodern incarnation of everything that was good about the sound and songwriting of Stevie Wonder or Smokey Robinson, and he moves and carries himself in a way that emanates the effortless sexuality, charisma and charm of David Ruffin or Marvin Gaye. I listened to the CD four times through... and that was just Thursday afternoon.
Some might feel it rests too much in emulation and fails to move forward into anything new, but personally I'm not looking for perfection, just something that seems worth listening to. I recommend checking out the CD, as the very name of the Neo-Soul movement (as well as the genre it points back to) implies, it’s good for the soul!
You can see a music video from the CD here. It isn't the strongest song on the CD, and the video isn't terribly exciting, but it works.
3. Magic Numbers:
For those who don’t know, magic numbers refer to sports standings, and are the numerical representation of how close a team is to clinching a spot in the playoffs. The best way to explain how the number works is to use an example. A team in first place in a division, the Cubs for instance, have a magic number that gets lower and lower as the team moves closer and closer to clinching their division, something the Cubs did over the weekend. Once the magic number reaches zero, it is mathematically impossible for another team in the division to catch them.
Continuing to use the Cubs as our example, a magic number goes down in two ways: when the Cubs win, and when the team closest to the Cubs in the division, in this case the Brewers, lose. So, for every Cubs win, the magic number goes down by one, and for every Brewers loss, the magic number again goes down by one. The magic number can never go up, so it is always the best representation of how close your team is to winning the division, or clinching the wild card.
The equation to figure out what a magic number is can be figured out pretty easily, it is the total number of games in a season, minus the number of wins for the first place team, minus the number of losses for the second place team, plus one. So, if we were to use the Cubs record on Friday, it would be Total number of games in an MLB season - Cubs wins - Brewers losses + 1 = Magic Number!, or, 162 - 92 - 69 + 1 = 2!
I love watching magic numbers, as each draws closer to zero and we see the playoff picture come into clearer focus, my baseball loving heart fills with excitement and anticipation. Also, when a team your rooting for is in first place it is fun to know just how close they are to clinching a coveted playoff spot. So, for me to watch the Cubs (2) and the Dodgers (7) move closer to winning their division is exciting indeed.
I enjoy things even more to see the unexpected success of the Rays this season, it does my heart some good. They’ve never had even moderate success thus far in their short existence, so to look at the standings and see that they've already clinched a spot in the playoffs, and their magic number to win the division is 7 (not counting the conclusion of tonight's games) is stunning!
Anyway, magic numbers are a fun way for a baseball nerd like myself to get deeper into the game I love.
4. My iPhone:
There really isn’t anything that needs to be said. After two weeks with my iPhone, it’s everything I thought it would be. =)
5. Yankee Stadium:
I sit here in my living room as I write this, and watch with a full heart as, on the other side of the country, Yankee Stadium wraps up its storied career as the premier venue in sports.
Plenty has been said about how important Yankee Stadium is, not just to baseball, but sports in general, so I won’t go into great detail about how remarkable it is. What I will say is that it’s been pretty important in my life. You don’t have to know me very well to know about my passionate love for all things baseball, and Yankee Stadium was where I fell in love.
There are so many remarkable moments and memories I have as a lifelong Yankees fan that I will cherish for the rest of my life. My first baseball game was at Yankee Stadium, as Don Mattingly hit one out and the Yankees beat the Royals. I remember my first playoff game at Yankee Stadium, where Scotty Brosius hit the game winning home run and the Yankees beat the Rangers, and where Don Mattingly made an appearance before a screaming, electric crowd, and Mariano Rivera came in for the save to the sound of Metallica's “Enter Sandman”, a key part of what is still the most thrilling ritual I’ve ever witnessed in sports.
I even felt more connected to the games I watched on TV when they took place in the cathedral of baseball I’ve known so well. That trademark bright blue padding surrounding the field, that beautiful aerial view, the short porch in right field. As much as the pinstripes, they were always there to remind me of how special Yankees home games can be, and of all the great memories, frustration, pride, affection and enjoyment I’d found in being a Yankee fan for all these years.
I’m definitely excited about the new stadium, it looks beautiful and classy, carrying over not just the best of this Yankee Stadium, but also what Yankee Stadium was before the refurbishment of the late 70’s. That will become a special place as well in time. New memories will play out there.The fans will create an electric atmosphere again, the organization’s careful attention to tradition and history will make the ghosts feel at home, and the players will still step onto the field wearing pinstripes 81 times a season.
Still, while I've found some peace letting go of the old Yankee Stadium, there is definitely a part of my heart that will always stay in that hallowed place, and that will break when it is finally torn down. The best way I can think to describe it is as if the house you grew up in were torn down. Like your parents or your grandparents moved out of a home you thought you’d be able to visit forever. You thought you would bring your kids back and tell them stories from the house, but now it is gone and your children will never know it, you will never be able to visit the places of memory anymore.
So, with the coming demolition of Yankee Stadium, it’s as if part of myself will be torn down as well.
Goodbye old friend. I’ll always remember you.
1. Rock the Bells
So, last weekend Emily and I went to The Gorge to take in the glorious music festival known as Rock the Bells.
It was amazing! To see the hip hop acts that were the heroes of my youth performing live on stage for the first time ever was a wonderful thing. The primary reason we were there was to see A Tribe Called Quest (more on them later), but there was plenty more to enjoy as great performances were offered by the likes of De La Soul, The Pharcyde, Murs, and Mos Def (a Hip Hop artist many white people tend to enjoy).
It was a great day full of energy, fun, and quality hip hop that just reaffirms my conviction that people like 50 Cent and The Game shouldn't be allowed to record music, or at the very least a clearer line should be drawn between what would properly be referred to as hip hop, and what should be referred to as rap.
The only sad part of the day was that some of the acts didn't make it to the final show, so we weren't able to enjoy performances by some artists we wanted to see... like MF Doom for instance.
Yet, all in all it was well worth the cost of admission. I just hope they have a great lineup again next year!
2. A Tribe Called Quest
Tribe didn't invent hip hop, they weren't the first act to create an organic fusion between jazz and hip hop, but they just might have been the first artists to reach the pinnacle of each. Wrigley Field is so beautiful and perfect that its as if the idea of baseball itself, the best of what baseball can be, took on the physical form of a stadium... that's what Tribe is to hip hop. They're the incarnation of hip hop, of all that hip hop can be, or should be.
The best of hip hop today looks back to Tribe for cues. Even Kanye, when asked about the pressure of releasing a sophmore album after such a highly successful first album, pointed out that when he creates an album it shouldn't merely be judged against the litmus test of his own albums, but against the greatest albums hip hop has ever produced and the first example he listed was Tribe's "Midnight Marauders."
For my money, while some match the genius perhaps, no album will ever surpass the amazing cocktail of genius, inventiveness and fun of "Midnight Marauders," and its immediate predeccesor, "The Low End Theory."
So, it was amazing when the lights went out at Rock the Bells, and with more power and volume than ever before the base line from Bugging Out filled my fortunate ears. At the beginning of every new song I thought I might explode from joy, or spontaneously burst into flames as the titans who saved me from trash music as a child performed at the top of their game on stage before me.
No other musical act has been with me as long as Tribe has. When I went through the common youth group practice of feeling guilty and getting rid of all my music that wasn't Christian, or that contained cursing, Tribe alone survived. I loved those CDs so much that apparently I was willing to risk the eternal fate of my very soul to continue my relationship with them. No other artist has stuck with me that long, no other act would have been listed as one of my five favorite bands were you to ask me at 11, 16, 21, or 26.
So, when Tribe took the stage, it was a lifetime of enjoyment and appreciation coming to fruition. We would have gone home happy if they'd been the only act that night, and if you ever get the opportunity to see them live, saying I highly recommend you do so is obviously a huge understatement.
3. Seven Pounds
So, #3 will actually be much shorter than it should be. I wrote at length, twice, about Will Smith's next film, Seven Pounds but VOX sucks, and as has happened far too many times before on VOX... but never on blogspot, I lost everything I'd written. If it weren't for the fact that I'd miss my wonderful neighbors, I think I'd have been gone a long time ago to a blogging site that doesn't erase everything you've written if you are unexpectedly moved to another page, and where the creators are familiar with a feature known as "autosave"... or any save for that matter which didn't require you to publish you entire post as hidden periodically.
Anyway, here is the shortened version of my thoughts on Seven Pounds.
On Wednesday, I got the chance to be a part of the first real audience to see the film thanks to my friend Austin. We got to see the film in its current form, which will no doubt change some between now and the film's release date in December. It was fantastic.
In my opinion, it was the strongest performance in Will Smith's impressive career.
As an aside, if you ever look for a sign that the shadow of racism still touches our country, just look at Will Smith. Think honestly about how often he's discussed as the biggest movie star in the world... doesn't happen that often does it? Sure, he's given credit as a box office power, even as a megastar, but it's still not as much as he actually deserves. Outside of Wild, Wild West, the man is immune to big box office bombs, and he has the longest streak of consecutive $100 million grossing films ever (and in addition to the 8 in that streak, he has 4 more films that would fit into that $100M category, one of those in $300M territory). If Will Smith were white, there wouldn't even be a conversation, it would simply be understood that no one draws people to the theater more effectively than The Fresh Prince, but he isn't white, and thus he often doesn't even make everyone's short list. So, if surveyed, I bet many people probably wouldn't even guess that he's done things at the box office that Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson and the like have never done.
But, back to the film. I won't go into details about the plot so as not to spoil anything, suffice it to say that Smith stars as a man who is crippled by guilt over a past event. What I will say about the film is that, to use some critic cliches, it's emotionally gripping, powerful, and engaging. It pulls you in and doesn't let go, and at the end I found myself wishing I could stay in the rich world I'd been introduced to, continuing to witness the lives of these characters.
Smith shows off an impressive combination of both range and depth in the film that he doesn't often get credit for being capable of. The film is also impressive in that it enters the realm of the morally gray that most big Hollywood films avoid like the plague.
Anyway, the gist of what I'd like to say about Seven Pounds is that it gets my wholehearted seal of approval, you should all go check it out when it comes out December 19th.
4. Lost
Not too long ago, I never would have expected to see myself writing about Lost in a "five things" post. I absolutely love the first season, but became completely disenchanted when the second season came and it became clear that many of the hints and mysteries of the first season were being abandoned and changed, or at the very least that the writers had changed their minds about quite a bit. For me, as I've written here before, mysteries just aren't fun if there isn't actually an answer. What's the point in trying to figure out the solution to a riddle if the rules and key points of the riddle might just change midstream.
Yet, even though we were not as into season two, Blockbuster online gives us the ability to rent DVD's with no risk, so we decided to give the show another chance and watch season three, and boy am I glad we did! The narrative seemed to finally be settled, at least on the key points, and the writers seem to have a fairly clear idea where the audience is headed again... and it's great! My hope is that it was a similar season two slump, along with the writer's strike, that led to Heroes being awful last year, so that it too will have a similar resurrection for season three.
After watching season three on DVD we plowed right on to season four in HD on ABC.com. I know most people have already made up their minds on the show one way or the other, but for those who haven't, the show is vast in scope (even if it is on an island), it's well acted, for the most part is filled with strong storytelling, and it has reestablished itself in my heart as my favorite show on network television.
Now if only I didn't have to wait until early 2009 for season five. =/
5. Football
Football season is back, and I missed it more than I thought I did. Granted, it's pretty easy to miss when your favorite team is the reigning champion and you got to watch them overcome a team that many thought was unbeatable in remarkably dramatic fashion.
So far the season has been entertaining, and this weekend looks to continue that trend. Outside of seeing my Giants play again, which always fills me with both excitement and anxiety, the game I am looking forward to the most is the Cowboys vs. the Eagles on Monday Night Football. Both teams looked fantastic last weekend and seeing them square off should be a good time. Plus, there's the added drama because of the history between McNabb and T.O.
Anyway, not much to say there, I'm just really glad that NFL action is back.
Alright, the moral of this story thus far is that I suck at keeping up with a daily posting theme. Yet I will push on even so. Now that orientation week is over I should be able to keep posting with daily regularity. We'll see.
Today's reason as to why I love Seattle is a new revelation as of last night. A glorious gift the universe offered me as the point continues to be hammered home that this is the place I've been called for whatever mysterious reason. You see, for the rest of my life, Seattle will forever be the place where I was able to witness, for the very first time, the glorious experience of seeing Muse live.
Last night, after a brief purgatory of sitting through Juliette and the Licks and dealing for a few moments with the drunk guy in front of us who appeared to have pooped in his pants, it finally happened. After years of waiting, after missing them by mere inches so many times before, I was finally present for the painfully beautiful assault of sight and sound that is a Muse concert. I can't really imagine what it is like to create something as beautiful as Muse does on a near nightly basis; combining the elements of beauty, the joy and the sadness, the elation and the rage, the pain and the pleasure that comes together to make life what it is.
After the years of anticipation it would have been impossible for the show to exceed my expectations, and yet every so often the impossible comes to pass as it did last night. Light and fury, remarkable musicianship, intensity of stage presence, laughter and mourning, all a concert can be at the best of moments.
The best moment was probably the back to back punch provided by the songs 'Invincible' and 'Starlight,' with a heavy emphasis on 'Invincible.' The video montage that accompanied the song making clear the reality that as one humanity would discover the invincibility that comes with peace. The montage nearly brought us to tears as we witnessed the best and the worst that we do to each other, the footage changing from the beautiful to the ugly as the music shifted to its climax, powerfully setting us up to feel the punch and understand just how sharp the point really is.
If you hate loud music, avoid Muse in concert, my ears will probably be ringing for days (thanks in no small part to how amazingly close General Admission Standing Room tickets allowed us to get). However if you can take loud music but don't like Muse you should still take any opportunity to see them in concert, you just might be converted.
So, from last night forward, Seattle will always have a special place in my heart as the place where my pilgrimage toward Muse finally found its fruition.
This has nothing to do with the trip, but I wanted to share this with everyone right away.
Thanks to a phone call from my wonderful, amazing, smart, thoughtful, stunningly handsome friend Brent, I found out that MUSE IS PLAYING IN SEATTLE IN SEPTEMBER!!!
Finally, after all this time they will finally be where I am! YES!!! Life is so much better than it was 30 seconds ago.
The lights finally went down at Radio City. It was 8:30. A full thirty minutes had passed since the promised 8:00 start time. I suppose with no opening act the proper measures have to be taken to create the appropriate anticipation for the start of the show, not to mention the accommodation that must be made for those who wrongly assumed there would be an opening act. Opening acts provide adults with an excuse to stand in the absurdly long lines that they might pay the absurdly high prices for a beer or a martini (although at Radio City Music Hall the martinis are known as 'Rocketinis' and come with odd light-up drink stirrers). The delay provided the needed drink buying time for those who spent 60 bucks a ticket to spend the majority of the night drinking, certainly this is something they could have done somewhere else at a much lower cost, a bar for instance.
Anyway, as I was saying, the lights finally went down at Radio City. The only light to be seen in the now dark music hall was a dozen or so candles scattered in various spots across the stage. A shadow scuffled across the stage in the darkness to the piano at center stage. The shadow cleared his throat, and without a word began playing piano in the dark. The darkness all around us, the acoustics of the music hall, the sound of a lone piano, all creating a combination both beautiful and haunting.
A single spotlight slowly began to light directly over the piano, giving us our first real glimpse of Damien Rice. As the spotlight came on the melody at the piano became '9 Crimes.' It was then that for the first time we heard the perfect voice of Damien Rice. The beautiful simplicity of the moment was literally breathtaking. He could have stopped playing halfway through the first song and I would have been satisfied that it was worth the price of admission. I expected the show to be really good because I really enjoy Damien Rice, but the show exceeded my expectations more than any other show I can remember.
Every time it seemed as if the show had hit its peak it got better. The encore was the most original I've ever seen, but I won't spoil it in case you come upon the opportunity to see it for yourself. I really can't say enough, the whole show was fantastic. I can't imagine how good the show would have been if Lisa Hannigan had been there, the show would have actually been even better which is something I can't fathom. Yet, while the bad news is that she wasn't there, the good news is that she was in Ireland instead, recording an album of her own which is reason to be very excited.
The concert was part of a larger evening that was immensely entertaining, while I was at the show the Yankees were beating the Red Sox (and while that in and of itself means very little with the Sox enjoying a commanding lead in the divison, at this point I'll take what I can get), and then I got to go home and watch the season finale of Heroes on the DVR. It was a wonderful evening indeed!
So, anyway, sorry for not being around so much lately. Things have been terribly busy with the whole moving everything we own into storage and packing for a two month trip thing. Starting very soon I will actually convert this to a travel blog for the summer so that everyone who cares can be in the loop as Emily and I cross the country.
So, in case I don't get to post until then everyone have a splendid few days and remember what Heroes* tried to teach us: the world won't be saved by strength, but by compassion, sacrifice, and above all, love.
*Yes, I know, Heroes is a silly place to find truth, but I find it is often in the silliest places that truth is able to sneak behind our guard.
Well, I still plan to write a Sacred Sundays post about Crash, the winner of the Sacred Multiple Choice, however it has been harder than I expected to get my hands on a copy so I promise to write it as soon as I see it again and refresh my memory. This Sunday I will write about the runner-up, Ben Folds.
Ben Folds has been a pretty huge part of my music listening life, and thus my life in general, over the last 6 years or so. His an uncanny knack for combining sarcasm and compassion, humor and sadness, has been a large part of why he is firmly entrenched among my all-time favorite musicians and song-writers. From his amazing live shows that feel like a secret party in your friend's living room, to his ability, both live and recorded, to make his listeners feel like they are in on some sort of wonderful inside joke, Ben always seems to deliver the goods; from his days with his original trio, Ben Folds Five, with Darren Jessee (Drums) and Robert Sledge (Bass), to his solo CD "Rockin' The Suburbs" and finally to his more recent work teaming up with a new drummer, Lindsay Jamieson, and bassist, Jared Reynolds, still released under his solo moniker. He can move seamlessly from melancholy or peaceful to hyped up and energetic, at times within the same song. While he often uses story-telling to keep his self-revelation from becoming heavy-handed or self-gratifying, the rare times he does sing about himself directly he does so with an honesty that is both disarming and endearing.
It is this storytelling I just mentioned that is, in my opinion, Ben's greatest strength. If you listen to Folds for long, or even just glance thru his catalogue, you will quickly notice his tendency to have names in his titles: Carrying Cathy, Losing Lisa, Zak and Sara, Kate, Jane, The Ascent of Stan, Alice Childress, Eddie Walker, Gracie, and Fred Jones Pt. 2 just to name a few. His songs are full of characters, some real and many imaginary. Even when the title itself lacks a proper noun, there are more times than not still various characters in the song. I heard him talking about this tendency once, about his attempts to write songs that weren't about people, but he admits that while he tries a particular person or story he encounters will capture his imagination and sure enough he has another song with a name in the title. Even when Ben isn't telling a story, we as listeners will still get a sense of the context and circumstance of his lyrics, we can tell we are at the cross-section of a story.
It is Ben Folds' ability to tell a story that inspires in me the audacity to call his music Sacred. It is certainly a lofty claim when he himself would probably laugh at the idea, and yet I make the claim with the utmost confidence. There is nothing more Sacred than Story. Our lives are stories, Scripture is a series of stories that represent a larger story we all find ourselves in, and so much more can be said and shared thru story than thru proposition or doctrine or lecture. Our lives are stories, we all play a part in how all the stories that surround us turn out, and of course how the greater narrative unfolds as well.
Whether Ben is telling a story about an imaginary character, or telling us his own story like we see in songs like 'Brick' about an abortion he and his girlfriend got in high school, or 'Gracie' and 'Still Fighting It' which are songs about his two children, we see a tremendous care and compassion for the subjects of his stories. In 'Too Late' we find a lament about the suicide of fellow singer/songwriter Elliott Smith. In 'Cigarette' and 'Fred Jones Pt. 2' we find a character that started in a run-on sentence with no punctuation Ben came across in a newspaper one random day and ended up with a compassionately told tale of what must be one of the most tragic characters in all of music. He tells stories about people who are frail and beautiful, tragic and humorous, broken and triumphant. In these characters we see a window into Ben's own heart and mind, and also into our own condition as people. Sometimes life sucks and the best defense is sarcastic wit, sometimes vulnerability and openness is required, and thru it all the story moves forward.
If we listen, I think Ben's music has the ability to remind us that everyone has a story. The angry old bastard on the bus has a story, he may have watched everything he loved die or fall apart, perhaps life passed him by without his permission and he's angry at the reality that he is forgotten by the world before he's even dead. The shell of a man who appears alone after a trauma may have a bus load of people on their way just to celebrate his life. If we can remember how important our stories are we might find just a little extra grace for those we encounter throughout our day, and for ourselves as well. Our victories and failures, our strength and our brokenness, the times we reached the finish line and the times we've helplessly watched our dreams slip away, they are all earth-shatteringly important, if only to ourselves. We've all been surprised by love, we've all been blinded by the tears of rejection, and as author Henri Nouwen reminded us, that which is most intimate is also most universal.
Ben's stories remind me of these truths, at times in profound ways. We would be wise to listen carefully to the stories he has to tell, if only to remind us of our own stories, and to remind us that there is nothing more important, nothing more Sacred, than a good story, and nothing more beautiful than a good storyteller.
The long trek back from Geneseo is finished, and it was well worth the effort. Ben Folds was wonderful (as always) and if you've never seen him in concert you should remedy that as soon as is humanly possible, unless you have super powers, then you should remedy that as soon as is superhumanly possible.
Sadly, there are no photos from the show as they didn't allow cameras into the venue. Let me just assure you that the concert was great and, thanks to an hour and a half of standing in the rain, we were right up front. Being up front was everything I thought it would be, aside from smelly kid... that we all could have done without. I think Bryanne described smelly kid best when she referred to his odor as a cross between body odor and cat piss. For all you smelly kids out there, if you aren't going to shower at least leave it at straight b.o. and don't go around rolling in cat piss... that's just an entirely new level of 'uncool.'
There weren't any highlights of the evening, being that the night just hit its high point and continued in a long plateau of joy, but I'll give a top five list of notable moments, listed in no particular order.
1. Corn Mo - The artist who opened for Ben was a guy who, due to my musical ignorance, I'd never heard of before. I really wasn't interested in seeing an opening act and when Corn Mo came out I was skeptical. In reality I think everyone who hadn't yet heard of Corn Mo was skeptical; but once he was done you would have been able to take the degree of skepticism we all originally held and replace it with 77 times over that amount of love. He was the best opening act... ever, at least he was close.
2. Jose - All night long, Ben pretended that Jared's (the bass player) name was actually Jose and that he didn't understand any English. You probably had to be there to appreciate it, but being that this is my list, you're just going to have to deal with it.
3. Such Great Heights - Ben performed a cover of this song, previously of Postal Service fame (and equally, or perhaps even more well known for the Iron & Wine cover featured on the Garden State soundtrack). Perhaps you don't like the versions by The Postal Service or Iron & Wine, I don't care, I like the song and Ben Folds' rendition was hugely entertaining (even if I was holding up my cell phone to attempt to leave it in a voice mail for Brian that didn't actually come out).
4. Stalking - After the show, the four of us needed some food, which brought us to a Denny's in town near the school. As it would turn out this must have been a "cool" Geneseo hang-out because a large number of others from the show were at Denny's too. After leaving Denny's, having endured some typically awful fare, we noticed a large bus parked at the Quality Inn next door. Our wondering about whether or not this was the 'Tour Bus' was intensified by the trailer the bus was pulling that we could only imagine was chock-full-o-sound equipment and one lucky piano. We hesitated in wonder within the parking lot long enough to see Jose, also known as Jared, emerge from the bus. As it would turn out Bryanne, Tom, Emily and I are utter failures in the world of stalking and we couldn't get the combination of a writing utensil and surface on which to sign fast enough to obtain an autograph. Even the 45 seconds Jared spent signing autographs for two fans in a car in front of the hotel didn't get us in before the bell. Alas, it wasn't meant to be, but we were close... very close.
5. Coach Paul Simmons - Ben wrote a song in the bathroom just for Geneseo. Perhaps he does this everywhere and just writes new words to a particular, pre-agreed upon jam with the band, but it was still awesome. It was pretty simple, just a song about Coach Paul Simmons not allowing the band into the gym. I don't know if Coach Paul Simmons actually barred the band from the gym, or if Ben just saw the name on the wall, it was funny either way. What made it great was really the way he kept bringing it up all night; he worked it into Olivia Newton John's 'Let's Get Physical,' he included it in his birthday song to a girl in the front row... he worked it into every spot imaginable, plus a few more after that.
Anyway, I could go on for quite a while, but there are my 5 notable happenings from 'Ben Folds Takes Geneseo.' Enjoy your work week!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Emily and I had the chance to head down to Irving Plaza in NYC to see a Switchfoot show. The show was wonderful. Switchfoot still has an amazing energy in concert and the ability to make all of us feel like the band is genuinely glad each of us showed up. Jon has a wonderful rapport with the crowd that he only gets more skilled at creating over time (helped along quite a bit by the addition of Drew a few years ago, freeing Jon of his guitar duties more frequently). They still had the old concert fare Switchfoot fans know and love, such as the trademark 'Switchfoot jumping' for lack of a better phrase, and Jon singing into his guitar; however this time around they've added a few new tricks to their bag... I'll let you see for yourself in case you get the chance to see the current tour.
Here are some pictures of the show:
And now for the real deal, the pictures of Switchfoot:
