guster vs ptx

This past weekend I went to my first concert in years.  I'm not much of a concert goer---they tend to be expensive, and I don't have much interest in seeing a band or artist unless I'm, well, obsessed with them and know every word to every song.  But when Pentatonix announced a European tour that included Dublin I jumped.  And maybe hyperventilated a little.  If you're not familiar with Pentatonix watch this.  I highly recommend you sit down first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lExW80sXsHs

You see, they're an a capella group that won a singing competition on the TV.  Sound unlike something I would like?  Yeah, I know, I'm so high-brow.  I could sing (ahem) Pentatonix's (or PTX as we Pentaholics call them) praises, but you probably have other things to do today than read my blog.  I sat down today not to write about much I love PTX, tempting though it is, but to write about the concert and fan experience.  

As the concert date approached I was surprised at the need to suppress rising tide of fan hysteria.  I thought  I had grown out of the artist worship that had plagued me in my teens.  Like Austen's Marianne Dashwood I could never "love anything by halves." If I ever liked something I loved it, I obsessed over it, I couldn't get enough of it.  And the fact that Austen wrote this of her young protagonist leads me to believe that this is not a unique experience.  Take a moment to think back to your adolescence. What was it that got you up in the morning?  What adorned your angst-ridden doodle journal?  For me it was

<3 Mrs. Brian Rosenworcel <3 

 Mrs. Thundergod

GUSTER

Guster was (and, I suppose, still is) a band of three Jewish guys from Massachusetts. One played the bongos.  The other two sang in heart-breaking harmony.  They were a bit like a three-person, slightly more Rock-y Simon and Garfunkel.  Every song reduced me to tears.  Their lyrics spoke to me.  It was more than just hero-worship.  I did think they were brilliant artists, of course, but more than that, I felt they really knew me.  They understood what I was going through as a diminutive late-bloomer with transition issues.  Guster, and only Guster, really got me.  

In the interest of equal representation, Either Way, from Guster's 1998 album, Lost and Gone Forever, performed recently. I have to admit, this song still hits me right in the feels.

By the time my seventeenth birthday rolled around I had been to around the concert block.  I had been dragged  privileged to attend innumerable classical concerts, as well as musicals, operas, and the odd acoustic finger-snapper at Freight and Salvage.  But I had never been to a real rock concert (don't scoff, to me Guster was rock) at a standing-room only venue.  My friend Kyla and I scored tickets (she, more excited about the opening act, Great Big Sea, which also occasionally made it to my mix-tapes) and my mother escorted us to the Fillmore.  We waited in line until our feet ached and then, once inside, literally right up against the stage, we waited some more.  I nodded my head through Great Big Sea's set and then nearly passed out when Guster took the stage.  It was a transcendent experience.  I sang along until my voice was gone.  I danced, I screamed.  It was a bit of Beatle-mania, only I felt I was the only one who felt that way.  After all, Guster spoke to me alone.  How could anyone but the four of us (me, Adam, Ryan, and the Thundergod) really understand?

When the concert was over I insisted we shiver in the San Francisco fog until the band appeared.  We waited.  We shivered.  We waited some more.  Eventually Kyla and my mother said it was time to go home. I huffed. Then I sulked. Then I cried.  Then I went ape-shit crazy. Oh my God, I thought, Guster doesn't even know I'm alive.  To them I was just another bobbing head in the audience.  They had no idea that their music was meant for me, that I was the only one who truly understood them and they were the only people who really understood me. I started questioning the meaning of my life in the way only an almost-seventeen-year-old does.  Without Guster I am Nobody.  Oh, the humanity!

I did eventually get over the disappointment (probably by lunch time the next day) and moved on.  I still loved Guster, but I also loved Leonardo DiCaprio, Gene Kelly, and this super-cute sophomore in the Fall play.   Subsequent concerts (including two more Guster concerts) didn't have quite the same effect on me.  I guess I grew up a little.  But something happened to me on the way to the Pentatonix concert.  I love this band, but I'm hardly obsessed with them.  I admire their musicality, their talent, their mission of acquainting young people with complex, expertly arranged and performed a capella music. (Just as a quick aside, because I can't resist, PTX succeeds with this mission.  I have never before seen teenagers screaming and generally losing it over an original cello piece.  Kevin Olusola is The Man). It's nothing like what I felt for Guster, thank goodness.  But before the concert I felt the old anxiety/excitement rising up in me like a beautiful and dangerous serpent.  It's fun to feel that excited.  Unless, of course, you're me, in which case it feels more like a panic attack.  Again, the concert was a transcendent experience.  I sang until my voice was gone.  I danced, I screamed.  And my husband, bless his heart, danced and screamed with me.  And then, after the concert, this happened:

 Avi, the most amazing bass in the history of ever.

 Kevin, the man, beatboxer, cellist, singer, Yale graduate. There's nothing this guy can't do.

Mitch, queen contralto.  As awesome for his talent as he is for his authenticity.

I met the band.  They signed my t-shirt.  We took pictures.  And I wish so much I could tell my sixteen-year-old self that, as cool as it was, they were just human.  Very talented and slightly bewildered humans.  They were extremely nice, and more than a little tolerant of overzealous selfie-takers.  But I realized that there was no way for a connection to be forged between us.  It was such a weird environment. They were obliging fans with a need to be recognized and made to feel special.  I'm sure there were more than a few post-millennial teenage Johannas in the audience (in fact, I'm pretty sure I stood next to one) who felt the overwhelming and exclusive kinship I felt for Guster.  I really hope they got what they needed.  

And because I can't leave well enough alone and I feel a weird obligation to tackle big issues I know nothing about, reflecting on this experience helps me understand zealotry in other forms.  What if as a sixteen-year-old I had been drawn to a religious text or leader, to a cult, or a gang?  We all feel this way as young people, yet it's as easy to dismiss Guster-lovers as it is to condemn and vilify gang members and religious zealots.  Not that I have any answers, but I always find it helpful to see other humans through a lens of shared experience.

Edited: I just can't leave this post alone.  Nick Hornby addressed this kind of stuff hilariously and insightfully in the novel Juliet, Naked. Check it out.