As I mentioned yesterday, I went to a Ray LaMontagne concert, and had a wonderful time. Once he got on stage, that is. The tickets said the show started at 7:30, so we arrived promptly. And the usher who scanned our tickets said the concert would end at 11:30. Wow! We were really going to get our money’s worth!
Of course, there was an opening act. The Belle Brigade. They are a sister/brother act that kind of reminds me of The Indigo Girls. Their songs aren’t very sophisticated or complex, but I could see the potential there.
I always kind of feel sorry for opening acts. People are anxious for them to get off stage so they can see the singer they really came to see. But these two acquitted themselves well, overall. We discovered later that they were also part of Ray LaMontagne’s band. If that had been all there was to it, I’d say that the evening was rather perfect.
But no.
After the Belle Brigade left the stage, another band came on. Two opening acts? Oh God. Okay, get it over with. But the minute this new band walked on, I knew they were going to be trouble. They were all dressed in white from head to toe. They looked like members of some demented cult.
And then out walked Jenny Lewis. Dressed in a white pants suit with a big old splash of pastel, and a pastel guitar, she looked like she had been farted out of the hind end of a dyspeptic cotton candy machine. I cringed.
Her songwriting style seems to consist of making a point and then belaboring the hell out of it. Repeating the same lyrics over and over and over and over until you want to scream, “We get the message!!!!” I leaned over to my friend Steve and said, “Please kill me now.”
To add to the farce, during instrument solos, Ms. Lewis liked to pose seductively on a royal blue box with silver stars painted on it. I have to give her a certain amount of credit for this. It is not easy to pull off seduction in a white pants suit. And then when it’s time for her to sing again, she would have to leap up and run back to the microphone. Then she’d go back and drape herself over the box again. It was all rather sordid.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, she started singing a song called “Just One of the Guys.” The message of this song appears to be that if you are a woman and you don’t have a child, you are somehow incomplete. How sad that she feels that way, and how tragic that she chooses to apply that belief to a snappy tune that will convince other girls to feel the same. Here are some of the lyrics:
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me.
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’.
There’s only one difference between you and me.
When I look at myself, all I can see:
I’m just another lady without a baby.
I have to say I wasn’t just disgusted. I was appalled. I had to get up and go out to the lobby for the rest of her set to keep from screaming. I could not believe that this was 2014.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, because I have never seen a lobby so crowded. People were 25 deep around the bar, and none of us went back in again until Ms. Lewis exited the stage and took 1950 with her.
Thank God Ray LaMontagne was fantastic when he finally came on at 9 freakin’ 30, or I’d have considered the experience to be cruel and unusual punishment. But imagine my further horror when I got home and googled Jenny Lewis to try to figure out how she must be blackmailing Ray LaMontagne in order to be a very innefectual part of his show and discovered that she made a video of that wretched song, and the Actress Anne Hathaway is actually in it (among other famous women who must be after my time). Is she blind? No, actually, she must be deaf. Am I wrong? Check it out:
(For those of you getting this blog via e-mail, the video in question can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irvcf6dCk-k )
The View from a Drawbridge 
Good god, how pathetic! And for all those women who can’t have kids (me included) this would be a big trigger if they haven’t come to terms with it. Just because we can’t or don’t want kids does not make us pathetic. Not to mention she has no emotion when she sings. Ugh.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. She’s like a robot. And I hope that I don’t trigger anyone with this blog entry. I genuinely and truly believe that women are more than their wombs. We have a great deal to offer the world besides that. I barely know you and I can see that in you!
Thanks, and I can see the same in you. The song stinks. lol
lol. Yeah it does.
I knew there was a reason I don’t go to concerts… I never wanted kids either. And I’d feel sorrier for those who do but can’t, if there wasn’t such a population problem already.
Well, yeah, there’s that, too. It would be tragic to want children and not be able to have them, but I think it’s practically CRIMINAL to then write yourself off as a total and utter failure in life because of it. And then sing badly about it.
OMG. How funny… “Dressed in a white pants suit with a big old splash of pastel, and a pastel guitar, she looked like she had been farted out of the hind end of a dyspeptic cotton candy machine. I cringed. ” I nearly wet myself laughing. I dread to think of what you could come up with to describe me if I challenged your senses or beliefs. I hope someone sends Sweet Jenny this blog, perhaps she will learn to respect her audience. Though you think that performing to a half empty auditorium would be a clue.
🙂 I love making you laugh, Carole. And actually, I kind of hope Jenny never sees it, because if I were her, I’d find it unspeakably cruel. I kind of feel guilty. But she leaves herself wide open for it. She did seem to be enjoying herself, so I suppose that’s all that should matter to her. That it’s torture for much of the audience is a sad byproduct.
okay… that ‘farted out of a dyspeptic candy machine’ really cracked me up.
Yeah, I was rather proud of that sentence. My all time favorite since, “Barack Obama does the watusi and a frothy silk kimono.” But seriously, did you SEE that video? How else could she possibly be described? 🙂
I couldn’t have done better myself.
Why thank you. 🙂
yup