Loathing the Live

Because poverty and other boring factors are forcing me to miss the Avett Brothers at the Bama Theater tomorrow—a band I’d actually love to see again—I’m going to write a short tract about the inanities and irritations of live music.

The first concert I attended was that of Julio Iglesias at the long defunct Saenger Theater in New Orleans. Lala forced me to wear my only dress, a white one with a big blue, square collar which made me look vaguely like a sailor. I agreed to wear it because there was a loose seam in the hem, and unraveling the entire skirt would be my project for the two tedious hours. Even then I had no interest in Hispanic men like Iglesias who, according to Lala, made all women wet. Seeing him in the Saenger that night, with its Greek architecture, gold facades, I felt cold and clammy, far from hot or wet like Lala, who used both hands to fan her face and in between her legs. I had the idea—perpetuated constantly by my grandmother—that all Hispanic men wanted was sex, and sex from many women, and furthermore sex hurt a lot, I would see someday—and I just wasn’t interested in any of it. I was five.

Before I could unravel just an inch of skirt string, Lala lifted me out of my seat and pushed me into the aisle. “Baile,” she said. Dance. She pinched my side until, holding the balustrade for dear life, I bent my knees intermittently in what others viewing from their seats must have supposed was some strange form of calisthenics. Lala made me keep moving for the eternity of a five-minute song, which emoted something about what a great lover Iglesias was, and now, finally, I was growing hot, but it wasn’t a good thing: I wanted to kill Lala. I realized, and wished she would too, that you can’t force a person into rhythm. Into feeling the music. Despite my eight subsequent years of ballet and jazz, I knew right then I’d never be a dancer. Dancing, like sex, took moves and a frame of mind that should be private. No one wants to see a public boner. But that’s exactly what I felt like at that moment, dancing in a way I didn’t like to music I didn’t understand.

That’s my big problem with live music which only grew in the next twenty four years: other people moving their bodies as if no one is looking. Because of that formative first concert, I’m looking now. I’m always vigilant of the un-self-conscious, because I think, no one can be that un-self-conscious. The way I see it there is one of two ways to view the moves of people dancing at concerts: either they have fallen so entranced into melodies that they are not in control of how they dance or how their bodies react to the sounds of the band, or, they are full of shit. In life I try to be open-minded, liberal, non-judgmental, sweet and loving, but when it comes to experiencing live music, I go directly to “all these people are full of shit” mode. At concerts, I’m a fascist.

So ultimately I think it’s not me: it’s the presence of other people that ruins live music. When I saw The Roots a few years ago, the only 6’9” linebacker in the House of Blues stood right in front of me. This isn’t an anomaly, or plain dumb bad luck, but a metaphor for what being at a concert does to me. Other fans don’t bring me closer to meaning or movement toward the music, but push me further away from it. Just as I’m starting to remember how beautiful the song “The Seed” is, and speculate why The Roots wrote it, and consider what that song means to me, there’s the linebacker in front of me. Or the girls popping it like it’s hot right next to me. All of them so aware of the effect of the music on their own bodies that I’ve got to be aware of them. And meanwhile, where did the intoxicating live music go? Into the rafters, into the assholes. Definitely not into me.

Psychoanalyze me. Say, “these concert-goers aren’t Lala. They love the same music you love. Enjoy their company. Feel the music.” To which I’d respond, I do feel music: in my car, in my bedroom, when I’m running, sometimes even in public, through my ear buds. But I can never forget the importance of public propriety. The other day at school I had Jay-Z’s new song “Empire State of Mind” in my head. I nodded intermittingly to the internal music, perhaps appeared to be in a good mood, and because of Jay-Z, I truly was. The rap lyrics are brilliant, but I think it’s the six lines of Alicia Keys, the sounds of her soft strong voice that ground the song:

In New York,
concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
there’s nothing you can’t do.
Now you’re in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you…

Later that day, once I’m home, playing the role of Alicia Keys in front of the mirror, I don’t even realize my hips are swaying, that there’s a beautiful solitary rhythm here, that in my bedroom I’m a private dancer. I belt out the entire song and I dance. But after the song is over I do say out loud, “Damn, I’m pretty good. I should’ve been a singer.”