Choose or Lose: Why Was I at a Locksley Concert?

I was instantly skeptical of what I had gotten myself into Monday night at Cafe 939. Girls, and lots of them. Not just any kind of girls, but teenage girls filled 939. Only a sparse few men were in attendance and more than one was a father most likely accompanying his daughter to the show. Parents with arms crossed on top of previously purchased merchandise sat on the couches along the back of the venue. Their eyes were vacuous except for the slightest tinge of annoyance. They were stuck at the annual work Christmas party  and they just wanted to leave, but they couldn’t. If they left, their boss would notice and work would be hell for the next week. I suddenly had a deep respect for their plight and remembered back to my own mother’s perseverance and generosity when she brought me to my second “real” concert in 6th or 7th grade - Metallica at Great Woods. She sat patiently taking solace in the fact that I wasn’t subjecting her to three hours of hip hop. She could deal with rock, metal or grunge, but the heavy, pounding bass of hip hop for hours was too much for her fragile skull to withstand. I should be clear, she didn’t like Metallica either, but in situations like that parents must turn to the clouded optimism set forth in John Darnielle’s proclamation that, “there must be diamonds somewhere in a place that stinks this bad.”

All of this left me wondering, was this the show I was asked to review? Had the person who had asked me ever read my blog? Once again, I was skeptical.

Hymns took the stage and half way into their first song a dilemma for bands like them or Locksley became apparent. Playing to teens is much easier than playing to an older and more demanding audience. The older a person gets the less receptive they are to new music in general, but also the more picky they become about a live performance. Once someone sees a great show it is much easier to recognize a poor one. So, Hymns and Locksley have taken up - probably at no fault of their own - a teenage audience. They are granted the benefit of looking cool by moving energetically around the stage, wearing clothes that aren’t featured in local high school wears (read: a tight fitting knitted sweater obtained at a thrift shop), and having left of center hair. Being in a band alone gives them points and the attributes just described put them all the way over the top. Of course, the problem then becomes, should a band sacrifice peer acceptance for the unmitigated and loyal devotion of teens, teens that have fistfuls of their parents cash to spend on records and merch? I guess it’s a question that each band must decide on themselves; or perhaps, it’s almost entirely out of a band’s hands (but  of that, I am skeptical).

Hymns played their set. They brought a girl on stage who had her chest dotted with band members’ signatures, which seems wholly inappropriate. A parent in the back cringed, I’m sure. She played tambourine while looking unbelievable nervous. It was the best day of her life, so far.

Then the Wonders Locksley came on and played sugary sweet pop dotted with power chords to keep up their street cred. The girls screemed and I witnessed the tiniest glimpse of how absurd Beatlemania must have been. The Beatles were the best, but no rock group should cause girls to piss themselves (as detailed in Philip Norman’s Shout!). I doubt any of the girls pissed their pants last night, but their enthusiasm was extreme in that Locksley may not deserve the kind of devotion they encountered at 939. Then again, they’re a mix of well groomed young men who try their best to mix the vintage American look of the Beach Boys (pre LSD), the slightly rebellious fashion of the later Beatles (see: Kai) and the energy so often attributed to punk, but seen well before the punk movement.

In between their scripted song transitions the band urged people to vote. Their push gave light to the second dilemma of the night, which was although the event was a promotion for voter registration a good chunk of Locksley’s fans are under 18 and cannot vote. An impromptu survey by the band revealed a good chunk of audience members under 18 and those above 18 either said they were already registered or were too preoccupied to voice their apathy - ironic. Ideally, a concert that urges people to vote should be 18+ in order to increase impact, but a third of the audience would have been gone if the show was not all ages and then the entire night would have just been depressing.

I guess MTV and the concert promoters were faced with their own “choose or lose” question: either make the show all ages and have a chance at making money, or –

Well, that’s no question at all…

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