Regina Spektor @ Trustees - My First "Concert"

So somehow, even with a degree in sound design, I managed to skip out on the concert-goer experience as an audience member. I did plenty of work for concerts, backstage and the like. Once I was a human wall at one where some kids were dancing like retarded pre-schoolers, but other than that I spend most of my time behind the speakers rather than in front of them.

Well last night I got to go and see the Regina Spektor concert at the Trustee's Theater. (Yeah, more Silent Cloak And Dagger stuff.) The opening "band" was Only Sun. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get too much of his info. Some of that was like watching the future of music. It was just the lead guitarist (frontman?) of the band who came down from New York. The "band" that accompanied him was on his iPod. While I think maybe it needed a better mix to it, the idea of having your band being that portable is, well, very modern. Plus, 'Only Son' was a very good showman. (Notwithstanding the stupid fangirls screaming from the right of us that were offering sex to the performers.) He ended with this musically interluded, almost slam-poetry ode to the way that our posters rocked on the way in.

I liked him. I can't wait to find more of his music.

Now, having never been to a concert before, I was nonetheless comforted by the set-up on stage. A piano, a guitar, two chairs, and several microphones and monitor speakers. Well, notwithstanding the musician's need to be drowned out by their own voice coming back at them, I seriously think the monitor speakers were LARGER than Regina Spektor. If not, they at least had to weigh more. From the balcony, she looked kinda tiny. Very "cute" according to my companion.

Savannah as an environment had to be a horrible environment. She mentioned John Cage's comment on "what's more musical? The conservatory, or the truck passing by the conservatory". (She's really referencing his quote: "What's more musical, a truck driving by a music school or a truck driving by a factory?" Snitched from here.) She not only had to combat some truck backing up through an entire song, but also a fireworks bass drum accompaniment.

On the other hand, Silent (Screaming?) Calamity And Destruction had to be very welcoming. She said, after her opening acappella singing, that it was nice to be somewhere "artsy fartsy", and she called us all SCADalicious. It was very cute.

If you haven't heard Regina Spektor's music, I can say this for it. The entire package is appealing to me. The words are interesting, perhaps a bit kitschy, but the music backing it up is an all-around pleasing experience. (But I may just have a thing for Russian musicians. Anyone ever heard Zemfira? She sings in Russian. My favorite song is "Sums".) There's something very honest and occasionally raw and highly emotive about the way she vocalizes the words to her songs. Ever since hearing Rachael Yamagata (and, I'll admit, Ani DiFranco before her), I've been highly appreciative of the sensation of a singer (who usually happens to be female) having a quality of emotion to her singing that isn't necessarily pop standard. Don't get me wrong, some pop music still turns me on, but for long stretches of focusing I need someone to be experiencing something and not just bouncing out of my computer speakers in the background.

So, in conclusion, there are definitely worse concerts you can go to than one featuring Regina Spektor. As a first concert experience (for me, the sound snob), it was entertaining and musically pleasing in a way that I find many concerts lack. It was neither overpoweringly loud, nor too quiet to hear from the balcony where I was sitting. The only thing I didn't like was the screaming idiots who need to find boyfriends instead of idol worshipping visiting performers, and the stupid girl in F11 to our left who kept taking flash photos. Both of which were ignorable.