Euro-Music

First, sorry - it's been a long time. I've been thinking about writing, but been pretty busy and a little bit sick. In any case, I'm back!

I played at a concert this weekend that was remarkable. Not remarkable in the way that going to see U2 is remarkable, though... it's a different kind of thing.

It was billed as a gospel concert, which, in some respects it was. But in some respects, it wasn't.

It was a lot more R&B than gospel. I know that gospel and R&B share similar roots, but that doesn't make them the same. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that Europeans LOVE gospel. You can pretty much do any kind of music you want, but if you call it gospel and encourage them to clap on all four beats, it's almost guaranteed to be a success.

The opening band (that I was playing in) was rather definitely rock. Not much of a gospel sound. Okay, we're only the support act, but I would say that if neither of the groups plays the style in question, it's probably not a good idea to bill the concert as that style.

But I'm nit-picking.

There were really a couple of things that I found interesting.

First is how popular R&B-ish kind of music is in Christian circles. Maybe I'm the only one, but this music mostly makes me think of making out. Not to be vulgar, but that's just what it sounds like. And you can put "God" in the lyrics, but it still sounds like that. This was further complicated by the fact that, during a costume-change midway, the headliner played a video of one of her tunes. It wasn't really very tightly lip-synced, had special effects that reminded me very much of the Bananarama or some such 80's band, and featured her dancing against a wall and looking a lot like she was coming on to me.

Now, granted, my senses in this respect may not be that highly refined. I'm still in training. But I'm pretty sure that's what she was thinking of when she was recording it. Normally, this wouldn't bother me so much, but the combination of "come here, baby" in her eyes and "God, thank you for saving me" in her mouth kind of threw me off.

The other thing is just how white and... well, European it was. And how very, very non-anglophone.

This is the kind of thing that's hard to really explain until you can experience it. Part of it is the aforementioned clapping on every beat. 1-2-3-4.... 1-2-3-4... it's just wrong. It's marginally less wrong than 1 & 3, but still... wrong. Still, I can't blame that on her.

The part that makes it feel most like this, I think is the lyrics. I wish I could remember better examples, but how about this line:

(blah, blah, blah, it doesn't really matter)
You are indescribable,
(blah, blah, blah... something that wasn't supposed to rhyme)
Your love is unwritable

Now, I'm not 100% sure that unwritable isn't a word. But I do know that it's not a word I would ever use in a song. The lyrics were full of little things like this that, while they weren't necessarily "wrong", just weren't.... right. The music was good, actually - she's a pretty gifted writer, but the lyrics certainly had the babblefish kind of touch to them. Things that don't really rhyme unless they're sung with an accent that it would never occur to you to sing with.

She wasn't helped by the fact that she had the lyrics put up on a screen beside her. Have you ever noticed how songs - even good songs - can sound ridiculous when you read them? Well, if you start with something a little less than bring-a-tear-to-my-eye lyrics, that effect is kind of amplified.

The other thing was the she had a projectionist who had an actual film projector set up in the balcony. The minute I saw the guy, I knew it would be trouble. Very French, very hairy, very, very artsy. Surprisingly, the film was a constant barrage of people, slightly out of focus, running off the camera, water running, and similar evocative but, let's admit it, rather meaningless things. There was only one point in the whole show that I noticed any kind of link between what he was projecting and what she was singing about. And that was not exactly masterful... she was talking about running to God, and he showed a woman starting to run... and tripping. Over, and over and over. And, of course, slightly out of focus.

Is this bad? Not necessarily, if that's what you're looking for. The down-side (besides what he was showing) was that, in order to satisfy his artistic needs, the lights on the stage were really, really low. So you could see water flowing, slightly out of focus, and the woman falling down, but you couldn't see the face of the singer.

Hmmm.

I feel exceptionally inept at describing this. Maybe it was a bad idea to even try. If you were here, I could try to distract you with a little dance or something, or I could make you some popcorn or tell a joke to make up for it. Actually, I'm not good at jokes, but I could make really, really good popcorn.

Oh well.