Alternatively titled, “A Tale of Two Concerts.”

Since the dawn of the conch shell and the shofar, my brief and inconcise study of history leads me to conclude that musical concerts have marked epochs in history (both personal and categorical). Put another way, history distilled into metered tones and time has dramatically changed over the course of history, and if I play you a song, you can probably tell me a few random facts about the work’s historical context.  Furthermore, we can individually mark our own lives through momentous concerts that halt time, upon which we can reflect and elaborate.  At least this is certainly true in my life.

The summer after my freshman year of high school, my father invited my sisters and me to join him on a business trip to Manhattan.  Most of the four days were rather forgettable, but one evening I will not forget.  I had never attended a concert before (well, the last time I’d been to a concert was for Amy Grant, and my mother threw such an awful fit we left a few songs in).  Not a decade later, my father redeemed himself by scrounging up tickets for the four of us to attend Paul Simon and Bob Dylan’s concert at Madison Square Garden.  I was utterly elated (and I think my sisters were a little confused).  We walked in after the lights had come down, and found our seats on the left side of the Garden, about two-thirds of the way back.  We had a decent view of the stage, and I was still in absolute shock and awe.  The songs are timeless, but I was too young to remember the playlist in perpetuity.  Notwithstanding, I most remember the swaying arms with lighters atop.  As an uninitiated concertophile, the ritual seemed to be some tribal rite; a unity of some sacred brotherhood of damn good rock, perhaps?  All I remember is the community.

[A lighter is a personal thing.  I often feel naked without mine, and when it’s misplaced, I will upend my apartment in a frantic search.  It’s my diminuitive lost sheep.  It must be found and returned to the fold of my pocket. Lest you get the wrong impression, a lighter is a useful tool, and not just for the occasional cigar(illo), but also to light the oft-smouldering incense, or melt the wax to seal a letter, or light a candle wick. Not so ironically, these are all very communal activities in my life.]

For a very brief evening, the packed-out Garden became a family, and we all listened as our fathers sang their wisdom to our ears.  It was an utterly primal areligious worship.  But, worship nevertheless.  The people may have bowed and prayed, but our gods weren’t neon, they were bonafide legends.  Frustratingly, my experience at this concert was truncated too… my father took us back to our hotel after the first set, because the purple haze had settled in rather thick.

A full-decade later, I attended a second Manhattan concert.  This time at the far-smaller Fillmore theater near Union Square.  Yann Tiersen was our performer du jour.  No, I didn’t know who he was either, but Jasmin informed me that he did the whole Amelie soundtrack. To be fair, the music could not have been more dissimilar from Paul & Bob’s.  Where they croak and croon ballads, Yann(i?) stamped on his wah-wah pedal, which was wired up to all kinds of synths (and an accordion!!).  This resulted in a very cool orchestrated cacophony.  I liked it, but I felt like an observer as I peered over the balcony rail and looked upon Yann’s tranced minions, while sipping my poorly-poured Guinness.

Community was lost.  The swaying arms of lighters had devolved into the measured and calculated photographs of wannabe-paparazzos working desperately to find his or her fifteen minutes (nano-seconds?) of fame on Facebook.  Simon’s “neon gods” had found us, and they were 3G.  What was once a communal experience had become an “online community” experience.  My contemporaries were acting like tween girls at a Miley Cyrus concert, and the rhythmic sway of the lighted flame had given way to cellphones ablaze with “txts, pix, and YouTube caliber vids.”   Jasmin must’ve noticed my disdain, and ribbed me, to alert me of our impending departure.  I swallowed the last frothy bubble of Guinness foam in my cup, and we wandered out into the preternatural April evening chill.  I pulled my coat collar up like a mock scarf, and we embarked toward the subway.

Much frustration still emanates from this endeavor.  I feel much more distant from my yuppish Manhattan concertophiles.  Music ought to be communal. Something has surely been lost in the smoke, and concertophiles are now as sterile as their hyperlegislated musical venues (ahh, but for another time, friend).