Tuesday night's show was part of the Art Bar series, which is well attended by literary and spoken poets alike. The theme: Rock n Roll. Poets got up on stage and performed their favorite rock songs as poetry. After about 3 hours of this mock poet voice, and one really long Stairway to Heaven performance, I was rock n rolled out.
But the series really did bring up a good topic: what is the connection between lyrics and poetry? Something may sound excellent and catchy on the radio but when you pull back the music and beat, and examine the lyrics, many modern musicians place little emphasis on the words (ie: My hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps?! what was Fergie thinking?!) Others, however, put great emphasis on lyrics (Bob Dylan's lyrics can stand on their own). And so, the show on tuesday night was quite revealing as to how some musicians can engage in poetic thought, and how others really do not. The crowd was a bit older than I expected, with many people performing classic rock songs. Perhaps the critics are right: modern rock musicians just don't have it anymore. Or maybe it was because it was an older crowd. I don't really know. Some highlights: An excellent choral performance of Help by the Beatles, a few cheesy hilarious 80's hair band ballad pieces, a wonderful spoken rendition of All Along the Watchtower and so much more. It was a great night, however a bit long and drawn out.
Later, a few poets invited me to accomany them during a late night radio interview. It was a really great experience, very entertaining, and I even got to listen to two poets perform live on the air. A poet named "Electric Jon" promoted his performance series Dimentia 5, which I will be attending on thursday.
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