"A Gathering Of Angels Appeared Above My Head"

Well, the Frampton/Styx concert was a pretty good show. Frampton was rather self-depricating and humorous, and I think he's a little disappointed with his fall from the heights of rockstardom to being a third-tier act who opens for a band like Styx. Don't get me wrong, his classic stuff is still great, and even some of his newer tunes (he insisted on playing some of them) weren't half-bad, but he's already jumped the shark, really.

Styx was in fine form, though, denying that they've aged at all. They still act like the young rockers they were when they began, playing epic guitar god as though they were still one of the biggest bands in the world. It's a little silly seeing the forty-somethings behave like that, striking the poses and all, but they still put on a good show. Styx weren't just playing music; they were giving a performance, and a rather theatrical one at that. But I knew more of the Styx tunes than I did the Frampton tunes.

I think I'd have to classify those two bands--and groups like REO Speedwagon--as a sub-genre of classic rock. Yes, they're all classic rock bands, and decent ones at that, but they're what I'd call "yuppie rock." It's very polished, somewhat flamboyant and showy stuff. They go for chugging, epic chord progressions, striking the guitar god poses, and and the lining up and swaying back and forth thing that a certain type of guitarists are wont to do. This is the style of music that my youngest brother, Scott, prefers to any other.

Myself, I like my rock and roll to be a bit grittier, a bit rougher around the edges. I don't like it to always be polished to a high sheen, to the point that most of the life and energy is sucked right out of the song. Some of the stuff Scott listens to is so over-produced, it could have been performed by robots. No, my tastes tend towards musicians of the Bob Dylan and Van Morrison vein, guys who you know are very much alive when they perform. After all, rock and roll was about energy, enthusiasm, bucking authority and playing it loud, fast, and hard (punk borrowed this later, of course). Sure, Dylan and Van the Man may have their softer moments, and maybe Dylan started out as an acoustic guitar-strumming folkie, while Van does all the jazz-inflected pop ballads, but they both know how to rock out harder than bands like Styx will ever understand (listen to Dylan's three mid-sixties electric albums, or Van's stuff with Them--you'll know what I mean).

Anyway, the next concert on the list is Dylan and Willie Nelson in September, which I purchased tickets for on Saturday. I'm excited about that one--I'm an even bigger Dylan fan now than I was the last time I saw him (almost three years ago), so I stand a 50/50 chance of actually knowing most of the songs he plays.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Flaming Lips, "Waitin' for a Superman"