Sunday, February 01, 2009

"Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star bullshit. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave, tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs." - Henry Rollins

There have been a lot of true words spoken about the cogs and the sprockets of live music, but those above? Uber true. Close to the heart and it couldn't make me more excited. Those words were handed to me on a piece of paper last Thursday night in the arena production office of Madison Square Garden by a well-known NYC promoter.

"Make a copy. Keep it."

To set the scene, Kings of Leon were in town and Bowery Presents had just released 1,000 more seats to the public for the growing band from Tennessee... to open the stage past 270 degrees. And if the band didn't have so much A/V in their show? It would have been a group of brothers + 1 from Tenne-frickin-see selling out their first Garden gig at 360 degrees.

Aforementioned promoter then sat at his desk and just kept saying, "Who the fuck are the Kings of Leon?"

For starters? Sold. Out. That's who they are.

Being a fan, but nowhere near obsessed, I went out on the floor, mid-set, to see if I could figure this out.Who the fuck were the Kings of Leon? A trend or finally a band that will have some popular longevity? Standing 20 feet away from the stage, amidst a sea of enthusiastic, but harldly melodic fans, I found out the somewhat anti-climactic answer. The Kings of Leon are simply a rock band.

Now don't undercut the word "simply," but don't discount it either. I still had chills running up and down my spine ("Closer" is a stellar live song). The Kings of Leon are a rock band that might not be Zeppelin, but who sure can put on a show that's been missing from our music scene for years, save about 3 other bands grossing enough to sell out venues like MSG. And per the usual at the Garden, I desired to be nowhere else, but in that moment. For all of you Atlas Shrugged fans out there, this is my version of Dagny Taggart's railroad.

I've been fortunate enough to have nature show me some of the most stunning things I've ever seen, but to watch something purely man-made, built by you and your friends, that stops your heart and holds in your breath is equally as awesome. You want to be as close to that feeling, that moment as you possibly can, so much so that when you let that one breath that's so tightly locked in your lungs go, your heart resumes at 10 times its original rate. To call it sexy would be true, but the greatest understatement that could possibly exist, well, in my reality at least. I don't even have a word to describe how deeply I wanted to be closer to that moment. When you feel like this toward a person, your desire is to make love to them, but with moments? These moments are intangible, unless of course 1) you share those moments with someone who sees it the same way or 2) you are a band-aid (no, not groupie).

Neither of those two things were true Thursday night, so all I could do was look around and wrap myself up in thousands of fan faces, lighting design and a solid live show pumping through the speakers. Without standing with them, I saw the stagehands, the promoters, the electricians, the caterers, the teamsters and a group of 4 dudes up there making the arena floor shake. All of them with the power to elicit such deep emotions in the even the most reserved types of people.

I know a lot of them don't see it like that, particularly not many hands, but I do.

So my idea of wild success, Tim Parsaca, is to be able to produce environments that make people feel as I did on Thursday night. And as you always say, "We break the first commandment here every night." It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it?

Working this show was the beginning of 43 straight hours of being awake. 26 of them being some of the best hours I've ever had. If it's possible to be subtly hit with a ton of bricks, well that's what happened. If I start talking about why, this entry won't ever end, so if you want to hear a good story sometime, ask me about my first 43-hour experience.

Skies are beneath me
I see a storm bubbling up from the sea
And it's coming closer

"Closer"- Kings of Leon

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