As anyone who’s — sporadically — kept in touch with high school friends upon graduation knows, the passage of time can change a lot. I was reminded of how much things can change Sunday night when I stepped back in my life about 12 years by joining two high school friends at the 311 and Sublime concert at the LC.
I haven’t listened to either band more than a dozen times combined since I graduated high school way back in 1999. Similarly, I haven’t kept in the best touch with either friend since then either.
My one friend, let’s call him Austin, is my childhood best friend from the time we were four or five. He now lives in Chicago and so I see him a few times a year (mostly around holidays). My other friend (whom we’ll call Mike) lives in Columbus, but prior to moving here myself in January I had hardly seen more than once a year.
In high school, our lives mostly revolved around music, soccer and parties. Minus the soccer, this concert seemed like a good chance to hang out with some old friends and reminisce, regardless of how little I might be into this brand of music now.
I remember, firstly, the weather. It was a warm day, but beautiful. A few white clouds in the blue sky. A slight breeze. A great day for an outdoor show at the LC.
We entered the venue a few minutes before Sublime (with Rome) took the stage. As the group launched into its first song of the night, I couldn’t help but feel some remorse that I wasn’t seeing these two bands in the mid- to late-’90s when my appreciation of both was at its apex.
I don’t mean to sound disparaging to either band. Sublime sounded surprisingly fresh and tight considering the loss of singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Bradley Nowell back in 1996. Rome sounded surreally similar to Nowell, which helped the transportation back to the ’90s. Had I closed my eyes, I doubtlessly could have told you which singer was which if both were before more. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that a musician as talented as Nowell had left Earth so prematurely.
Still, Sublime ripped through most of its old material, playing fan favorites like “What I Got,” “Pawn Shop,” “Santeria,” and “Wrong Way.” Through the faster tempo, more punk-influenced songs, a dozen or so fans attempted a mosh pit, a few crowd-surfed. Nearly every one sang along, full-throated, hands raised, reciting the anthems of their childhood.
Speaking of which, the crowd, expectedly, consisted mostly of late-20s to early 30s-ish white dudes who were probably in the same demo I was in high school. There’s a saying I’ve often heard and suspected to be mostly true, and it is that people with dated haircuts and fashion sense dress and look the way they do because that was the time period when they were most alive, most comfortable with themselves. I suspect this is also partly true with music. Those of us who still listen to mostly the same music we did 10 years ago do so because that’s the music we most identified with then, when we were young and mostly carefree.
There was a visceral connection to Sublime’s songs that was evident each time a refrain was repeated among the crowd, each time a familiar chord was strummed. Many of those in attendance are still deeply connected to the band and that time period, and despite my deepest wishes, I couldn’t transport myself back to that time or that connection in quite the same way as those around me. And it wasn’t for lack of effort on my part or a poor performance on the band’s. Quite the contrary, most of those around me I surveyed proclaimed the show to have been rather “kickass.”
The experience changed some for me with 311. After waiting till the sun set, so the band could fully utilize its impressive light system, the band took the stage to chants of ‘three-eleven, three-three-eleven.’
This was the band I most closely followed and enjoyed in high school (aside from maybe The Beatles). I owned all the band’s albums, their live CD, their DVD, T-shirts, etc. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve struggled to get past some of the weaker lyrical moments in their songs. I’ve also struggled to reconnect to the rap-rock hybrid. So I was cautiously pumped.
As such, the songs I enjoyed the most Sunday were the ones filled with harmony between lead singers Nick Hexum and S.A. Martinez, which pretty much consists of their more recent output. My friends, however, wished for some deeper cuts, particularly those from “Music,” or “Grassroots,” like “8:16 a.m.” or “Feels so Good.” We did get “Beautiful Disaster,” “All Mixed Up,” and “Down,” alongside cult favorites like “Who’s Got the Herb,” which I knew from a compilation released in the mid-’90s.
I, personally, was most satisfied, at least musically, to hear a Chad Sexton drum solo and “P-Nut” bass solo, something I remember distinctly from live recordings. And anytime band members show their versatility, my impressions are raised a little. Such was the case when all five band members came on stage for a five-piece percussive assault.
Still, by the end of the night, I must say, as corny as 311’s unity/positivity vibe can come across sometimes, I left the LC feeling a little closer to Mike and Austin. After spending the previous 10-12 years not seeing the two of them as much as I would have liked, I couldn’t help but feel sentimental at the end of the show. I felt truly blessed to still have these two as friends and to share an evening watching two of our favorite bands from high school — 12 years later. Especially considering we've lost at least three close friends (and almost a fourth) to various life calamities since the start of high school and subsequent graduation.
That, truly, was pretty kickass.
http://uweekly.com/blogs/live-from-columbus/posts/concert-review-a-travel-back-in-time-with-311-235/
No comments:
Post a Comment