tuesday’s on the phone to me
It’s hard to believe I’ve seen OtR in concert. For a band whose songs have intersected with my life at so many key moments over the past decade or so, to have seen them, living, breathing, singing, playing not 20 feet away was positively transcendent. We’d been trying to see them for some time now, and circumstances finally aligned so that we were able to go to a show close to Valentine’s Day. The set was all too short, and they only did one encore, but brief as it was it exceeded my (admittedly lofty) expectations. They sang a mixture of old and new stuff, with 3 or 4 brand-new songs mixed in, songs I can’t wait to hear on their upcoming album. Bands who play unreleased stuff at shows have the potential to shoot themselves in the foot if casual listeners tune out songs they’re unfamiliar with, but in this case I can’t imagine anyone in the room, even those who hadn’t heard a single OtR song but were dragged to the show by their dates, would have minded if the band decided to play a whole set full of new songs. Perfect. Karin’s voice was the definition of flawless and Linford lost himself in baroque stories between songs. I want to see them again.
Charlie sent me a trailer for this movie over lunch today. He’s a Beatles fan, like me, and thought I’d find it interesting. I do, and the film looks promising (Kristin Scott Thomas in particular is always good), but it touches on a perennial annoyance of mine about the Beatles, and specifically John Lennon fandom. I appreciate the fact that he was incredibly talented musically–he was witty and deft and crafted some of the best music ever–but the bottom line is that personally, he was a jerk. Just utterly devoid of character, and not just during the Ono years. His attitude toward the women in his life was appalling and he was callous, vindictive and nihilistic in his personal philosophy, regardless of how people try to spin “Imagine.” I guess it just bothers me that he seems to be the one the most press and artistic attention is lavished upon, since he’s the most “interesting” personality in the band, not to mention the fact he died early and acquired, as all celebrities in that situation do, something of a mythic status, a la James Dean, Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Elliott Smith, Michael Hutchence, Keith Moon, John Bonham, etc. As far as Lennon is concerned, is it possible to give his music its due without glorifying the man behind it? Probably not, and that’s depressing.