Blast from the Past

2/3/11

Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith! That’s right. It’s 2011, not 1989, but they’re touring together again. And I was fortunate enough to be able to go. Tickets were actually a little expensive, but my sister came through and was able to get us some for free. Can’t beat that with a stick!

The venue was small. It seemed to have had a former life as a movie theater, or perhaps it was used as a church in its second act. We were sitting in the very second to last row of the entire theater. It sounds worse than it was. It was small enough that the back row was about the same distance as the back of the orchestra section in a typical modern venue. Also, the crowd was…interesting, and we were happy to be near the back in case we needed to flee. More on that later. Further, POM was sick, but we went anyway because it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity, and she’d stayed home from work and had slept for an extra six hours; but we were happy to be in the back in case she had a coughing spell or something.

Amy led things off with “Stay for a While,” a fortuitous sign as it’s one of my very favorites of hers. MWS (his label refers to him as Smitty – LOL) accompanied her on keyboard for the first several songs. She continued with more oldies-but-greaties: “Love Will Find a Way,” “Sing Your Praise to the Lord,” “Lead Me On,” “El Shaddai,” and too many others to list here, and some new ones, such as “Better Than a Hallelujah.” Let me just say it now: Amy’s still got it. I adore her voice. No, she’s not technically perfect. But I love her voice. Her low register, her strong, dry-brush-y timbre. She talks and ad-libs a lot on stage, which is the whole reason for going to a concert, if you ask me – the singing is nice, but I want to know more of the artist’s personality and story, and Amy obliged generously. And Amy’s still pretty hip; she was the best-dressed one on stage. (Believe me when I tell you that the ‘80’s…and the ‘60’s, too…were still alive and flourishing on that stage!)

The crowd at a Christian “rock” concert is a sight for people-watchers, especially a Christian concert in the heart of a conservative enclave of SoCal. There is no typical concertgoer in SoCal, but here the anomalies abounded. From white-haired dowagers to exuberant children. From jeans to hipster duds to Sunday church suit-and-ties. From young music lovers to praise band singers, from Christian society schmoozers (“hey, honey, this is the former mayor of blahdeeblah; you know, his wife works with blahdeeblah…”) to those churchgoers who find this crowd to be old home week. And let’s not forget the ‘80’s diehards who were there to relive their high school or college glory days. Our motive for being there was to right a wrong – neither of us had ever seen Amy perform live before, a shameful state of affairs.

Mixed as it was, the crowd was also mixed in their behaviors. Many sat the whole time; some sat and swayed; others stood; some stood and swayed; others waved their arms sedately, in docile churchgoing fashion; a couple fans danced and got down, 80’s-style, with gyrations that entertained (or perhaps annoyed) everyone else sitting behind them.

I do not jest when I assert that the median age there must have been 52. I expect that at a classical concert, but not a “rock” concert. And indeed, once Michael W. Smith went on, after the intermission, many of the more, shall we say, mature couples exited politely, given MWS’s penchant for electric guitar and beat-laden songs. It was rather humorous.

We happened to be sitting just behind one of the two stationary cameras that projected the concert onto the large overhead screens. I found myself watching the cameraman and his choices of camera angles and aperture settings. I also found myself, later in the concert, wondering what he must think of this crowd, especially as Amy returned to stage to sing more of MWS’s praise-style songs. The tone changed. It was clear from the sudden choral singing all around us that many local churches use some of these songs in their own worship services; everyone seemed to know all the words. The crowd became a sea of upraised hands, folks standing, singing, swaying – different from the earlier tepid rock-and-roll swaying. At one point, MWS said, spookily, “He is here,” and went on to avow that church is not a place but is you, the people. The audience moved nearly as one, one mind, one body, one sea of waving arms. I wonder if the camera man found it cool or creepy. Or perhaps he didn’t even notice, focused, as he was, intently on his job. Or perhaps he deliberately focused, on a job he’s performed effortlessly for decades, as an excuse not to notice.

I myself wasn’t sure how I felt about the transformation. I couldn’t decide, either, if it was cool or creepy. Maybe I’ve been a stodgy Anglican for too long, but the moment felt to me more manufactured and sudden than authentic. Maybe I’m not channeling the right station anymore. I’m not sure I accept that explanation, though. I’m a fairly emotional person; I cry at practically every movie, and at every other NPR story, and sometimes even at commercials and sporting events. I even cried in church last week at the second verse of the hymn “My Faith Looks up to Thee” – too many griefs around us have been spreading lately, and we desperately need God as our guide. I don’t think I’ve lost my emotional connection to God, occasional though it is. So how to explain my uncertainty? Was I just being judgmental about the odd crowd?  Did I miss the point? It seems this will require further reflection.

Despite my reservations about the crowd and that particular moment, it was a fabulous concert and totally worth…well, I was going to say the price of admission, but that would be an insult. Let me just put it this way: POM said on the way home, “I can’t decide anymore whether the amazing Bonnie Raitt concert is still my favorite of all time or if it was this one.” The Bonnie Raitt concert is our ultimate standard for concerts.  Such is the power of Amy and her smoky, woodsy voice, and the pull of the songs, both old and new, on the heart and the memory.