Andrew’s Odds and Ends on the Music of Summer 2013
Last year, our readers may remember my ventures to listen to Bruce Springsteen from my front porch and attend Riot Fest to see Elvis Costello and sundry others. This year, big concerts were not in the budget as I am saving for a lot of book-related activities, and the Wrigley Field free concerts were not on the same excitement level as Springsteen, yet it’s hard for me to pass up the chance to hear terrific A-List music. Armed with a case of Shiner Bock in my cooler, I went out to hear some tunes and also observe the audiences.
The Wrigley Field music this year brought back a lot of nostalgia for my days at the Ohio Department of Transportation, cruising along the Mahoning County highways picking up litter and listening to whatever was on the driver’s preferred station, and our drivers preferred the hard rock/heavy metal and country stations without exception. As a strong proponent for melody in music, I developed an unexpected taste for country during those summers as a type of music which thrives on crafting infectious tunes you can hum, and while I did not acquire a similar love for a musical style that seemed to involve screaming out the words half the time, the modern rock station gave me a healthy appreciation for Pearl Jam: the songwriting without the necessity of rhyme, the roaring emotion of Eddie Vedder’s voice, the way Stone Gossard and Mike McCready’s guitar lines never resolved the way you expected. To this day, “Black” remains one of the most impressive and moving—and excellent—rock songs of my lifetime. So I had high hopes for these two evenings.
How much the audience shared these hopes was revealed only with the passage of time. The key takeaway of my pre-show people watching was how corporate these audiences were: while a significant number were in T-shirts and jeans (including about 70 different Pearl Jam shirts from various tours), there were many men in button-down shirts, and many women in dresses, done hair, full make-up, for outdoor concerts on very warm July nights. There was much complaining about scalping, and much discontent whenever someone saw me writing things down in my pocket Moleskine. These did not seem to be people who were enjoying themselves but people who viewed the shows as commodities, presentations of particular things which they deemed fit of occupying a few hours of their time, and treating them as any other event.
This impression was wrong.
