The Sound of Music

In light of the Dark, there is always music.

I've been lucky to see a few live acts this past year, some large, some small, but all incredibly fulfilling and for a number of different reasons. You read below about Cat Power (see updated post with concert review) and her voice that makes Norah Jones sound like Jessica Simpson after blowing John Mayer.

But music is such an incredible medium, especially live music. With a movie, you're in the theatre, and even if you're hitting the new Bond at the latest gargantuan politburo-esque movie megaplex, you know what you're getting well in advance: Long lines of people talking incessantly on their cell phones while their significant others look for parking ("Yeah honey, the line... yeah, it's long... I said LONG... Uh-huh... did you remember to lock the door?"), $25 tickets and $50 meal combos of liquefied coconut fat, and more leg room than what I've got in my bachelor suite.

For live music, though, the variables are almost infinite. Even if the act is at a venue you've been to before, it matters little. Depending upon the mix of fans, single Dads trying to look cool in their three-quarter length leather coats on the pick-up prowl, and your influence of choice, the night is an empty pallet.

Take this past Wednesday, for example. Went to see a local act at, well, a sports bar that had a stage for some reason. Knowing a member of the band, it was more to show solidarity than anything else. But then, the band was pretty good, with a lead singer who could belt out Janis-like echoes and grating vocals with the best of them, and a lead guitarist who should have gone for a decathlon to loosen up before the show - by the last 3 songs, he had warmed up enough to do a fairly solid skinny white-boy impersonation of a Hendrix-like tuning move that made his guitar sound like a drunk Mel Gibson growling at Santa Monica police officers.

My point, right. My point is that even with the band being fairly good, it was the fish bowl you got to look into while the soundtrack played in the background that made the most of the night:

- The two boozing cougars, drunk off of 2 pitchers by 830, crying and then laughing and singing with the lyrics of the first couple of songs (their intoxication due more to the fumes from their hair product application than the booze), who upp'ed and left, likely to drive home, before 9pm.

- The mulleted made man, his Siberian tiger print silk shirt, and his drum moves that were so off, Helen Keller could have kept a better beat.

- The Seriously Drunk Guy (who could have passed for a smiling pedophile), changing his coat twice and on the dance floor, while his wife and kids were likely at home thinking their nerdy dad was working late at Kinkos.

- And of course, Rich Couple... you know who I mean, the 50-something year olds, professionals, small c conservatives who discuss minorities as "those poor people", drive a Jaguar X-Type, and have a tendency to walk off the street into mistaken places of business, just as they did on Wednesday. They're polite, though, and sit on stools fairly close to the exit, listen to a few songs, and then rip cord with the stealth of a Russian assassin. Unfortunately for the wife, she must have quickly realized upon entering said bar that faux fur coat night was on Tuesday. Shit.

In light of the Dark, there is always music. Hear it, feel it, make it. Like one of my far off friends said, music is so good because you can just... let... go. Just remember to take a look around before you take off. The Sound of Music is only the half of It.