Wednesday, Sept. 03, 2003 - 1:19 a.m.

Patriarchy Rock

So I saw Evanescence in concert tonight. They were terrific. It might even have been worth the money.

But I want to spend some time bitching about the opening acts, and spend some more time wallowing in shame first.

So this was Q-Fest, sponsored by a local Cumulus network radio station, KNRQ. Cumulus is a lot like the politically conservative media monopolist corporation Clear Channel, only they are slightly less huge. Locally, this show was also sponsored by a jewelry store, a bike shop, and the Papa John’s pizza chain. Nationally, this tour is sponsored by Nintendo. More than just a concert, this was a mini-festival with 4 big name bands. 5 huge tour busses were parked outside. Opening for Evanescence were Finger 11, Revis, and Cold. What can I say about them? They were “good” I guess, by which I mean they seemed to be very good at playing what they played, which was corporate radio-friendly drivel. They all sounded like Tool, but worse, or like Creed, but better. Metalesque pop songs with a little angst, at little anger, and a lot of melancholy. But there’s 100 ways to sing melancholy, but these bands only know one. Thus, all their songs sound the same. Bor-ing.

Why are nearly all rock musicians guys? 4 bands with 5 members each. 20 musicians took the stage tonight, and only one of them was female. So 5% of the musicians were female, playing to an audience that I estimated was 55% female. In 2003. I’m fed up with this male-dominated bullshit. Is it the male musicians’ fault? I doubt it. Are females too chicken, or too lazy, to learn how to play the music they like to hear? I dunno. But I’d love to know.

Even worse, 3 DJ’s from the radio station came on stage to introduce each act. They were all male too, and one of them cajoled female audience members to “let loose the twins” ostensibly to encourage the band. Now, I’m all in favor of sexual objectification, as long as it goes both ways, but this was all one way. These men are paid to speak on radio stations owned by huge capitalist corporations which are granted access to the airwaves by the State, and the State claims it regulates those airwaves in trust for the people, while the State’s Federal Communications Commission forcibly shuts down grassroots low power FM stations. I felt ill to think I had given them my money.

When I was in college, a friend exhorted me to stop buying CDs from big corporate acts, and buy from indy labels instead. I countered, “but what if I like Elton John? I can’t buy Elton John on an indy label, nor anyone who even sounds like Elton John. Do I have to change my musical tastes?” He didn’t have an adequate answer. So I figure that we do need to influence market forces with our buying power to nudge things toward a slightly better world. Every dollar is a vote. But I would also add that it’s important to sponsor music you like, so that the market will be encouraged to make more of it, even if that music is performed by a corporate act.

If underground punk bands played the kind of music I like, I’d be happy to patronize only them. If Fuck God In the Face had a chick singer comparable to the one in Evanescence, they would be my favorite band. But underground punk and metal bands eschew melody, and I just can’t live that way.

Several years ago, I decided that concerts were a waste of money because they are so ephemeral, and that the same money would go a lot further if spent on a far less ephemeral CD. But then came Napster (and after Napster, Gnutella), and I resolved never to spend money on recorded music again. So now I look at concerts as a way to support bands, since they get a greater proportion of concert revenue than from compact disc sales. I dunno. Plus it gets me out of the house. And lacking television, I need some form of the Spectacle-Commodity Culture to give me the illusion of purchase and passive viewing as participation.

In case you’re like my sister, and you somehow don’t know Evanescence (no, wait, she did hear their song during the sandbag-stabbing scene in the movie Daredevil), the singer sounds vaguely like Tori Amos, only picture Tori singing for an extremely heavy metal band. For once, all is right with the world. They have a little of everything: piano, orchestra, techno, rap, and metal. I was a little disappointed to see that in concert the backing vocals, piano, and orchestra were all prerecorded. I guess it would have been very hard to work it any other way.

They did a cover of that Smashing Pumpkins song with the line, “God is empty, just like me.”

For an encore, they turned it into a Metallica concert with a medley of “Master of Puppets”, “Enter Sandman”, and “One”. I was utterly amazed and inspired to hear “Master of Puppets” performed well by a live band.

And yeah, all of Evanescence’s songs sound the same too. The difference is that their one song happens to be a fucking awesome song.

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