by Jacob Campbell; via Transafixion..
This was originally in response to dr. robert’s question in the comments section, “so how was Stagecoach?”. It turned into something of a screed, so i’ll make a post of it:
well it started off saturday as nothing necessarily offensive. a lot of tried and true contemporary country pop, the kind of music that easily stays in the background if you’re not hip to it. actually on saturday i sat and watched some phenomenal bluegrass bands on a side stage. then later i got to enjoy an old favorite of mine, the Reverend Horton Heat. great rockabilly/surf guitar trio from Dallas.
so sunday came around, and that day i had my water stations set up around the main stage… meaning i would be subject to whatever it offered… all day… and quite loudly i might add.
but again, for most of the day there was nothing too painful to get through. a lot of good ‘ol country boys and rebel girls singing about drinkin’, lovin’, and elaborate revenge fantasies. songwriting-wise it was competent stuff, if a little redundant. as the day progressed i thought i might be in the clear, but then at dusk… enter Kid Rock.
(*warning: snarky rant to follow…)
now i’ll give ‘Kid’ this… he’s a top notch business man. the guy knows where the money is and knows how to line his faux-faded jean pockets with it. this is the same Kid Rock, you’ll remember, who hails from Detroit and was a straight up hip-hop/turntable dude. underline was. i guess he figured that angle had run its course and something different (read: more lucrative) was worth trying out.
my theory is Kid looked in the mirror one day, figured he could pass as white-trash, and just went for it with the whole “bad-boy southern rocker” thing. and hey, you know what, i got to put my hands up and say “well played.” because as plainly and as coldly calculated as that decision was, it has paid off magnificently for Kid. his command of massive crowds would of had the fuhrur smirking: 40,000+ easily worked into a collective frenzy, eating every bit of his shit-show up. underline shit-show.
i cannot possibly express how contrived and cliche his set was. the phrase “soul-crushing” comes to mind. of what he played, maybe 50% were original tunes (which are horrible). the rest was a pandering mix of all the big and safe classic-rock tunes everyone loves to shout. hell i even yelled “SWEEEEET HOMMME ALLLLLABAMA!!” when he asked me to. in the end, Kid may as well have rolled out a jukebox on stage, pressed ‘play’ and karaoked the shit out of it. that would have at least made for mildly interesting performance art.
some guy named Kenny Chesney came on afterwords and, beyond the inebriated middle aged women swooning in the aisles, i can’t remember anything about it. busy breaking down our carts with laser precision, we wanted to get the hell out of there.
5/1/09
Stagecoach
by Jacob Campbell; via Transafixion..
This was originally in response to dr. robert’s question in the comments section, “so how was Stagecoach?”. It turned into something of a screed, so i’ll make a post of it:
well it started off saturday as nothing necessarily offensive. a lot of tried and true contemporary country pop, the kind of music that easily stays in the background if you’re not hip to it. actually on saturday i sat and watched some phenomenal bluegrass bands on a side stage. then later i got to enjoy an old favorite of mine, the Reverend Horton Heat. great rockabilly/surf guitar trio from Dallas.
so sunday came around, and that day i had my water stations set up around the main stage… meaning i would be subject to whatever it offered… all day… and quite loudly i might add.
but again, for most of the day there was nothing too painful to get through. a lot of good ‘ol country boys and rebel girls singing about drinkin’, lovin’, and elaborate revenge fantasies. songwriting-wise it was competent stuff, if a little redundant. as the day progressed i thought i might be in the clear, but then at dusk… enter Kid Rock.
(*warning: snarky rant to follow…)
now i’ll give ‘Kid’ this… he’s a top notch business man. the guy knows where the money is and knows how to line his faux-faded jean pockets with it. this is the same Kid Rock, you’ll remember, who hails from Detroit and was a straight up hip-hop/turntable dude. underline was. i guess he figured that angle had run its course and something different (read: more lucrative) was worth trying out.
my theory is Kid looked in the mirror one day, figured he could pass as white-trash, and just went for it with the whole “bad-boy southern rocker” thing. and hey, you know what, i got to put my hands up and say “well played.” because as plainly and as coldly calculated as that decision was, it has paid off magnificently for Kid. his command of massive crowds would of had the fuhrur smirking: 40,000+ easily worked into a collective frenzy, eating every bit of his shit-show up. underline shit-show.
i cannot possibly express how contrived and cliche his set was. the phrase “soul-crushing” comes to mind. of what he played, maybe 50% were original tunes (which are horrible). the rest was a pandering mix of all the big and safe classic-rock tunes everyone loves to shout. hell i even yelled “SWEEEEET HOMMME ALLLLLABAMA!!” when he asked me to. in the end, Kid may as well have rolled out a jukebox on stage, pressed ‘play’ and karaoked the shit out of it. that would have at least made for mildly interesting performance art.
some guy named Kenny Chesney came on afterwords and, beyond the inebriated middle aged women swooning in the aisles, i can’t remember anything about it. busy breaking down our carts with laser precision, we wanted to get the hell out of there.
