"Well Maybe It's You Who Aint Got It Anymore"

You know there are music snobs out there like me and then there are pretentious assholes who could justify murdering or the burning down of their own home if that's what the artist "really wanted to do."

Over the weekend I saw the band Brad, which is Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam's side band. What makes this band so special to see is that they represent an entire movement that started in Seattle's late 80's music scene. Drummer Regan Hagar and Stone used to be in Mother Love Bone, Singer Shawn Smith and Regan were in Satchel and Brad has a small but passionate and dedicated fan base. What I was expecting last night was the band to return the feeling. Although Mother Love Bone died with Andrew Wood, their spirit is remembered by many with a love for this music, so when Brad came out and played a few Satchel songs, I figured a tribute to the band many believe started it all wouldn't be far behind, now maybe. (I'm such a geek) The shock of this concert wasn't that they only did one Mother Love Bone song. The shock was that singer Shawn Smith who was NOT in Mother Love Bone sat at his keyboard and sang MLB's Crown Of thorns by himself while Stone Gossard and Regan Hagar who WERE in Mother Love Bone AND helped write the damn song sat back stage and drank tea or whatever these guys do. The second shock was that Shawn Smith took this song with a beautiful melody and piano riff and played it to the tune of Prince's Purple Rain. I'm not kidding. He did Purple Rain, and then he sang Crown Of Thorns over it. It was insulting. You see there ARE fans who care about this stuff, who followed the history of WHY they bought a concert ticket, and WHY they are spending their valuable time watching a band. Having Shawn Smith sing some lines of a Mother Love Bone song over another seemed like a throw in done in haste to satisfy that annoying part of the audience who DARES get their money's worth. Just don't do the song. Brad is a mellow band with almost Jack Johnson style songs, just a whole lot more meaningful, but they do have some harder songs. The way they simply threw a whole bunch of songs down without reason or care for the flow of the set makes me wonder about who's actually at fault for the music industry's demise. I wrote a few weeks ago about how people just don't care anymore about things like music and movies and complex TV shows. Maybe its due to the artists not caring anymore. Watching Shawn Smith run from the main microphone placed in the center of the stage over to his keyboard set over to the left a half a dozen times took as much out of my interest as his tribute to man formerly relevant to fucking Alternative Rock band concert. I was told by the guy next to me that I was being selfish. Me, the guy who spent 30 bucks on a ticket and three times that on four beers and a diet coke (I'm watching my girlish figure)This "gentleman" informed me that the artists are NOT there to play for me. They are displaying their passion in public and me and my hard earned money should be honored to be a part of it. So consumer satisfaction is off the table when it comes to "art."
There are many who think this way. The sad thing about this mentality is the absence of one very simple fact: Its called the fucking music BUSINESS for a reason. An artist needs to recognize the reasons why their audience is standing there and do what they can satisfy that while expressing their art. Artists that REFUSE to play certain songs because they are sick of them, and refuse to acknowledge their significant air play by only playing track's 3 and 9 of every album fail to appreciate the only fucking reason their mortgages are paid off. The AUDIENCE is the CUSTOMER. If you don't want to feel like a prostitute , don't sell your albums. When someone buys a ticket to a concert, its a pact. Not a contract. A pact. A pact that you'll be sharing a common emotion, common love for something. To see Bruce Springsteen denying the audience the time honored sing-a-longs on the Magic Tour was watching a man literally tear apart his own legacy. After years of bonding with the crowd over passionate call and response segments of every show, 2007 was the year Bruce decided to say too bad, thanks for coming. Ironically enough, it was Bruce who was quoted in Crawdaddy magazine 30 years ago talking about how a kid in Cleveland only has a ticket to Cleveland and not Detroit or Houston, so as an artist you only have one shot to play for that kid in Cleveland. Springsteen got the message as the empty seats spread through the stadium and by his next tour he was taking request signs from people and giving thousands a memory exclusive to their own 89.95 ticket or whatever it was. Other bands need to find their way back. We appreciate your work, and we respect your desire to share your art with us. To make music work again, an artist needs to reciprocate that respect by honoring the reasons why the audience in the first place. People do still care out there, and if rock music is gonna survive, these artists need to care about THEM again.