Staying at a hotel near the venue, the Hollywood Bowl. Out my window I can see a massive triumphal arch, covered in quasi-Babylonian or Egyptian figures, beyond which tower two vaguely Hindu style rampant elephants — more Cecil B. Demil than Mumbai (or Babylon), actually:
This is a shopping center mixed with an upscale food court. This is what draws crowds here in L.A. There are few “cultural” monuments or centers here, so the focus is theme parks and shopping centers. Or the two rolled into one. Consumption and the distant scent of celebrity. This is what passes for a cultural center here — and it is bustling, the place is crowded, and the scene continues on the street leading down to the (former) Chinese Theater. People stop and take pictures of themselves to commemorate their visit to — a shopping mall! Framing themselves under the weird Babylonian arch. (Is it odd that the U.S. has invaded the real Babylon?)
Our own hotel lobby is filled with black men with shaved heads and gorgeous women dressed like hos. The BET awards are to be in the adjacent theater tomorrow. It is the same theater where the academy awards are held now. The academy awards are held in a shopping mall. O.K., it’s a theater, but it’s a theater in a shopping mall. Perfect. I am reminded that hip hop and RNB are two of the biggest forces in contemporary music and culture in the U.S. — in much of the whole wide world — a fact that seems to have created a weird fizzy cocktail. There is in this scene incredible creativity, innovation and imagination coupled with sleazy self-promotion, hucksterism, minstrelsy and debasement of the race. Just like what white culture has done for centuries.
Here are the BET winners:
BEST FEMALE HIP HOP: Remy Ma
BEST MALE HIP HOP: Kanye West
BEST COLLABORATION: Ciara f/ Missy Elliott “1, 2 Step”
BEST FEMALE R&B: Alicia Keys
BEST MALE R&B: Usher
BEST GROUP: Destiny’s Child
BEST NEW ARTIST: John Legend
BEST GOSPEL ARTIST: Donnie McClurkin
VIDEO OF THE YEAR: Kanye West “Jesus Walks”
BEST ACTRESS: Regina King
BEST ACTOR: Jamie Foxx
FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR: Serena Williams “Tennis”
MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR: Shaquille O'Neal “Basketball”
BET.COM VIEWERS’ CHOICE AWARD: Omarion “O”
Pretty much all talent, skill and creativity in that list. So, though the awards don’t reward skeeziness, to their credit, lots of the media lap it up and serve it as the representation of black culture. I’ve spent my grownup life resisting the latent racist tendencies I realize I secretly harbor, and it doesn’t help when the corporate media and those who play along reinforce clichés.
Yesterday we did our show at the Hollywood Bowl. Si*Sé, Arcade Fire, The Extra Action Marching Band and myself. Promoted by KCRW. It nearly sold out — 17,500 tickets! Holy Moses! Three years ago in L.A. I couldn’t sell out the Palace, which holds just over 1,000. But maybe that’s because the Palace crowd is not my demographic? More likely it’s that factor, combined with the fact that this is a KCRW-produced show, which means they promote the hell out of it on their own station for months prior. Being the best station around means the audience often follows where they lead. Plus maybe I’m being appreciated by a new generation.
Our whole day is spent teching and rehearsing songs we will do together with Arcade Fire and Extra Action. I had the insanely ambitious idea that the show should be a seamless flow from one band to the next, with inter-band connections and collaborations common. Given that it’s a tightly controlled union hall this is a real challenge. It is hugely ambitious to have this many acts on the bill and to get decent sound checks, but adding the rehearsing of new numbers and attempting untried collaborations makes it nearly impossible. Tempers stay within bounds, but the air is tense.
The show goes incredibly well. The audience is taken by surprise and the flow pretty much works. (In our booking agent’s words, “it was historic.”) There’s a rise and fall in intensity throughout the evening, which feels natural and organic, and apparently turns out to be well-paced. The high-priced seats up front, mostly filled with corporate comps, take a long time to react, as expected. No surprise there. They finally get begin moving when I throw in some popular Talking Heads songs (ugh.) The back half of the bowl has been up for a while already. Hilburn, in his L.A. Times review claims that these oldies are just better songs and that is why everyone was less excited about my other newer stuff. Of course, being me, I would disagree — I would say the older songs are mostly simpler, and often they are more rousing and fun to sing, but that is different than being better. Many other audiences elsewhere react more evenly to both new and old. Hilburn is an old-school rock guy, this we know. But given the size of this audience, the idea of introducing new songs (which I did) is admittedly slightly perverse. So maybe I shouldn’t have tried to introduce new material at an arena show? Ah, why not? If I’m gonna be stuck playing oldies I’ll quit.
The show climaxed with three songs we rehearsed with the marching band — all of us together on stage (there are about 30 of them!) — their flag girls and cheerleaders out front on a semi-circular platform that juts out into the audience. Shaking their butts in the faces of the corporate seat holders, doing things with flags and pom-poms that go beyond wardrobe malfunction.
Everyone seemed to love it, but some of us, in my band and in the Extra Action crew, agree that smaller more intimate venues are more fun. The audience in smaller venues can sense more of the humanity of the performers and when chaos and anarchy does erupt there is a real sense of wildness and even danger… not to mention elation and joy. But we’re all thrilled.
Here I am with Arcade Fire backstage (photo by Adam Travis):
