I had a chance recently to take two of my pre-teens to a concert at Riverbend. The band, although I use the term loosely, is a popular group of young men who have been, shall we say, packaged.
I had heard my daughter playing their album at home and pointed out that the music seemed to be a copy of what has grown out of Soul music and is now what you get at cool Jazz festivals — although it's not Jazz.
In fact, the band starts with this premise, an old one in the business: "Let's find a group of white guys and have them sing and dance like black guys." This concept, of course, goes all the way back to Elvis Presley.
The concert went way beyond this in terms of obvious commercial endeavor. Three large screens placed out from the stage with 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s short clips that gave everything that MTV feel. I couldn't figure out why the '70s clip mentioned the Jackson 5 at least five times until the band's next number turned out to be a Jackson 5 song. The three-second shot of Michael Jackson dancing, even though that short, did not reflect well on the band. Michael Jackson can really dance.
What became clear rapidly was that these lads did not sing or dance all that well. Whether they played instruments during the performance was irrelevant. In fact, even the a capella, nice at times, paled in comparison to other well-known or even lesser-known groups of real talent — Manhattan Transfer and The Bobs, for example.
But maximal talent or even creativity were not the point of this concert. In an interview previously on TV, one from this group had made the point that "We can't really tell if our next song is going to be a hit. It depends on what the fans think, if the company keeps pushing the song, how much it gets on the radio and a bunch of other things."
I couldn't help comparing this to a recent public radio interview with a solo artist who said, "I know when I've written a hit song. It may not become a hit commercially, because that depends on too many factors. But when I'm done creating and the effort went well, I know if it's a good song."
The point of this "concert" was not even the music. It was really just the promotion of the whole, completely planned-out show and aimed at eliciting the sensations associated with immature, pre-pubescent emotion. They sang nine songs in about 90 minutes, the rest of the time filled with film clips shortened to hide the greater talent from the past and imply that this band is a culmination of that talent, along with cutesy little crowd interaction routines geared to holding the attention of a 12-year-old.
The curly-haired singer always got more screams and squeals from the young ladies in the crowd than his compatriots. The guy with the all-too-obvious earring and intermittent purple hair was meant to be just a little bit intellectual, doing more of the talking. And band-directed crowd participation was encouraged. In fact, "Everybody scream" was one of the crowd-control ploys shouted from stage, along with the inherent look at this, look at this, look at this.
I was relieved that my kids, although obviously enjoying themselves, did not participate much in the physically expressive idolization of the older youth on stage. Even my 13-year-old daughter, although enjoying the band, maintained a detachment when the show became downright manipulative. Neither child screamed much.
But of course, these gents are out there working hard, already getting to an age where their Hollywood-type personas are going to rapidly fall apart. I suspect the band itself won't be around in three years and that these young men fully know this.
Perhaps the meaning of the evening was hinted at strongly when the '90s film clip, among many other things, mentioned that the Democrats took over the White House, showing a clip of Bill Clinton. The boos from at least 30 percent of adults and children alike rang out. I suppose because, in addition to probably being Republican families, these folks perceive Clinton as disingenuous or as a fake.
Irony certainly was here: Booing the president of the country because of a group-think, collective, media-induced opinion while hysterically supporting a band that in terms of anything close to creative art is about as fake as bands come.
But this might be all adult perception and misery on my part. As my friend who gave me the tickets to the concert said, "Feel the energy there. It's a bunch of pre-teen and teen-aged kids having a good time without a care in the world. And that's the way it should be."
During a clap-along near the end of the evening, I turned to look at a dad standing behind me: a balding man with graying hair, just long enough, with a totally cool outfit looking like an ex-hippie-now-converted-to-yuppie parent, clapping along, staring into space, with absolutely nothing in his eyes other than a blank stare, hands clapping but brain and heart vacant, thinking and feeling nothing.
And this with not a whiff of marijuana anywhere. Only beer. Of course, the sensual motif at this event was not about drugs; it was about idolizing a first love, with, of course, the specter of first sexual experience underneath.
I developed a craving to go backstage, just to see what really might be going on, but then remembered that tours backstage also were organized as part of the show.
I pointed out the nine songs in 90 minutes statistic and some of the other big business ploys to my kids on the way to our car.
"So what?," said my 11-year-old son, his point being, "We had a good time."
What parent can argue with that?
I did have my counter insurgency plans, however, and I pulled out CDs of Louis Armstrong, The Beetles, Bill Evans, Steely Dan, They Might Be Giants, Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Stravinski for the 20-minute ride home. But before I had to start, I was saved the effort. The public radio show started playing its featured artist: Big Alice Hoskins, a local singer and an unknown at Riverbend.
As the somewhat too guttural but totally authentic Blues came out, my kids weren't dancing or yelling but sitting very still. They didn't object, either. It was kind of a quiet and peaceful ride home.
