With or Without U2

There are moments in life that define us, shape us, turn us into people we wouldn't have been if those moments hadn't happened. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to recognize those moments, and appreciate them, as they are happening (as I did when I came out of seeing Star Wars when I was seven years old; I knew I was not the same person coming out as I had been going in), but, usually, it's not until later, if at all, that we realize those moments happened.

I had another of those moments in the spring of 1987. It was soon enough after the release of "With or Without You" that none of my friends knew what the song was or whom it was by. I know, because it came on the radio one Wednesday night after youth group as we were hanging out in the church parking lot. It's not surprising that I didn't know the song or the group, because it came on the local rock station which wasn't the kind of music I listened to at the time. However, the song instantly captivated me, but the DJ didn't name the song when it finished playing, and none of my friends knew what it was or, even, seemed to care much, but it was the beginning of what I can only fairly call an obsession with me. Not with the song, with the group.

U2 was music of a kind I'd never heard before, but I suppose, having been raised on 60's protest music (Dylan; Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel), that it should have been no surprise I would gravitate so heavily to them. Within a few weeks, I had copies of all of their music, and they had become "my" band.

I have this cousin who's a few years older than me and who lived in Dallas at the time. He was a theater guy and had gotten involved in theater production work after high school, and one of the things he did was help do stage setup for bands coming through Dallas/Fort Worth. He gave me a call on November 20 or 21 letting me know that he was going to be working on the stage for U2 and had backstage tickets; all I had to do was get there.

Backstage passes for The Joshua Tree tour! Can you imagine? So, you know, I asked my mom, because I didn't have my driver's license yet, and I don't think she'd have let me drive to Dallas by myself at the time even I had. Or maybe she would have, I don't know, but it didn't matter since I didn't have it. Her initial response was "yes;" after all, Dallas was less than three hours from Shreveport.

By Sunday, though, she had reconsidered her willingness to drive me to my cousin's house and spent the day laying a heavy guilt trip on me about how I was shirking my responsibility to work on Monday night as I was scheduled to do. And Tuesday night. There were concerts on both Nov. 23 and 24, and I could have gone to either or both. All I had to do was get there. But, you know, I was supposed to work, and, if I went off to do something so frivolous as going to a concert --because it was Thanksgiving week -- I would leave my church with no one to cover for me... other than her.

She spent all of Sunday reminding me of how irresponsible I was being and, by Sunday night, I broke down and called my cousin and told him I couldn't come.
And that was that.
I never really got over it. I mean, here I am, 30 years later, writing about it, right?
That, too, actually, was one of those defining moments, but one that went unrecognized by me for many, many years. You do try to dismiss major disappointments like that as being unimportant, after all.

I never really did the whole concert thing when I was growing up, not mainstream concerts of the type you think of when someone says "concert," at any rate. [I did see lots of Christian bands, but that was a different kind of thing.] After the whole thing over U2, I decided somewhere internally that concerts weren't worthwhile and were a waste of time and money. After all, if I couldn't go see U2 because they were frivolous, what was the point of spending money on some other band?

All of that to say, when my wife saw that U2 was doing a 30th anniversary tour for Joshua Tree, she knew she had to take me to it. Above any objections I might raise. So she made it my birthday present, and it's really hard to say no to that. And I'm glad I didn't, because...

It was amazing!

Here's the view from our original seats:

BUT! These seats had an obstructed view. You might ask of what, because that's what we asked when they came to tell us and offer us new seats...

And now you can see the OTHER stage that we didn't even know was there! And these seats were closer, so it was a win/win. For us!

Mumford & Sons opened.

Then...

The only thing that could have made it better is if they had closed with "40." Maybe next time.

What If This Song Was Number One? (a local color post)

Last year right about this time, my wife and I went to see Michael Franti in concert. You can go back and read that post here.

I'm still as impressed with Franti as ever. He has a new album out, Soulrocker, and it's pretty great. The above song is one of my favorites. Of course, it's one of those situations where whatever song I'm listening to is my "favorite." Well, not any of the songs, but he has, at this point, at least half a dozen tunes that are my favorite when I'm hearing them. However, the above song, from a life philosophy perspective, pretty much nails it.

If that doesn't tell you enough about what Franti's music is about or about him, take a listen to this storyteller session of his song "My Lord." This album has a bit of an old fashioned spiritual vibe to it, and this song is one of the reasons.



If you get the chance to see Franti in concert, I highly recommend it. He puts on a good show, walking out among the crowd frequently, and has great music. Seriously, don't miss it.

Also!
The opening act was a singer by the name of Zella Day. I'd never heard of her before, though, upon some research, I see that's she's had some high profile features these last couple of years. I really liked her sound. I'm in the process of giving her music a good listening to, so, until I can come to a more conclusive decision about what I like most, here's a song that I like the sound of:

Parcivillian -- In Concert!

A few weeks ago, I got to see Parcivillian in concert. An actual concert, not just an open mic night where they performed a few songs. It was pretty great.

If I'm remembering correctly, they opened with "Lonely Road," a pretty rocking song, then moved on to "Left Behind," which might still be my favorite song by them.

Before I go on, though, remember that I said a while back that I got to go to one of their rehearsals? Well, I did, and, now, finally, I want to talk about that for a moment.

I would say that their method for producing music is on a "how does it feel?" basis. That was a question Delek and Stav asked each other more than once, "How does that feel?" It was interesting for me, because I've only been involved in music rehearsals before for already written music, so there was no, "How does it feel?" It was only learning the music as it was written.

This was music creation, and it was pretty cool to watch and listen to. There was a lot of "go back and try..." Okay, honestly, when they started doing that stuff, it was like listening to people speaking some other language. Because it was. Mostly, I didn't follow it, but they all understood each other even without the completion of sentences.

Anyway... They were working on two new songs at the rehearsal I was at, both of which they played at the concert in their completed forms, one of which I had insisted that they finish: "Say Goodbye." "Say Goodbye" is a great song with a catchy chorus bit. I think it has all the things a song needs to be a hit, especially the part where you want to hear it again as soon as it's over. Alas, I have only heard the finished song the one time at the concert, because they don't have it recorded yet. (Psst! Go over and tell them to record it!)

All of that to say that it was great to hear them perform the new songs, especially "Say Goodbye." It was great to get to hear all of the songs they don't have recorded, yet. They did, of course, end with "One Kiss," my wife's favorite song by them (and it is a good one) and, really, the thing that started all of this off. The only bummer was that Elliot (the one who plays the violin) wasn't able to be there so "One Kiss" was done without the violin, but it sounded (nearly) just as good!

This is the last Parcivillian post... for the moment. I am sincerely hoping I will be able to revisit the group in not too long to tell you how they're doing and what kinds of strides they're making.

Michael Franti (a local color post)

My wife and I went to see Michael Franti & Spearhead recently. He's kind of a big deal around here since he's local. Well, localish. From  the Bay area, at any rate. However, even being a big name around here doesn't translate into a huge concert like with some big, popular group or artist. The concert was smallish and cozy and tons of fun, but I am wondering how many of you have heard of him.

Oh, wait! I bet you'll recognize this song:

Or, maybe, this one:

Those are excellent songs, right? And you've probably heard of one of those, because they've been featured in all kinds of movies and TV shows. In fact, the first time I heard "The Sound of Sunshine" was in a movie. Or a TV show. I don't remember. I do remember needing to look it up, though, and finding out my wife was already familiar with Franti. Or something. It's been a while.

Let me make something clear: This is almost the only mainstream concert I've ever been to. I would actually say it's my first, but my wife insists that the Deana Carter concert we went to back in '97 counts as mainstream, so I guess this is my second. This is not to say that I haven't been to a lot of concerts, because I have; it's just that they've all been Christian concerts. It's a different experience for me to go to something like the Franti concert.

But, man, it was so much fun! Despite the woman who spilled her drink on my wife, and the old white asshole dude who was dancing all over people so that everyone had to move away from him and allow him, like, a 4' radius so that he wasn't stepping on people (I think he's the reason the woman spilled her drink on my wife), and the other old white asshole dude who kept backing into my wife despite the fact that we kept moving back to get away from him (by the end of the concert, he had almost 6' feet of space in front of him because he just kept backing into us (seriously, what the heck? How much space do you need?). Despite all of that, and the overwhelming smell of weed, it was an awesome concert and a great performance.

Franti is a musician I can really admire for more than just his skill at music. His belief in equality for people strongly parallels my own, and many, many of his songs have to do with that. As my wife says, he splits his music between love songs (like the two above) and political activism songs, and all of them are good to great. And most of his music is just fun. It's fun, and it says something, which is kind of rare.

So... I guess what I'm saying here is that, if you've never listened to Franti, you should give Franti a listen. He has some great music. If you ever get the chance to see him in concert, you should definitely do that! He was great. He brought kids up on stage to sing with him at multiple points during the concert, and that was really cool. He walked down among the crowd several times, which was COOL. He just put on a good show with great music. How can you say no to that?