Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 10.0 [Focus.]

When I was seventeen, I went to my first real rock and roll show.

Yes, I like to act as if I've been in the scene forever, but your little Jenna, who is at once a professional fan and pretentious, unforgiving music critic, had at one time completely given up on anything remotely resembling contemporary music.

I listened to nothing but the local oldies station all through middle school. This was back when “oldies radio” meant the '50s and early '60s, and not any year remotely approaching the year of my birth in the early '80s. I didn't have any strong affinity for oldies radio, but a person has to listen to something while doing homework or falling asleep, so that is what I kept the clock radio in my bedroom set to.

At the end of eighth grade I was advised (more or less) that everyone my age listened to 99X, which I believe, at the time, was billed as “Alternative Rock”. Whatever that means. I remember the exact conversation sitting in the computer room in the hallway where you took all your electives, next to this girl whose name I will not publish but do remember. For some reason I perceived her to be cooler than me, and when she heard that I listened to Fox 97 (“Good times, great oldies”) she tried to chastise me, and fully succeeded. So I switched.

What followed that was a few festival type concerts, the kind of all day events with too much sun and overpriced food. I thought that's what live music was. I had never been to a club show, and I think I was completely ignorant of their existence. And while I generally had fun playing in the sun all day and into the night, throwing up rock hands and dodging the feet of wayward crowd surfers, I never felt like I had seen a tremendous amount of music. The performers at these shows were often hundreds of feet away and projected onto large screens at either side of the stage. I often wondered to myself why I was paying so much money to basically sit in the hot sun and watch broadcast television.

I distinctly remember, at 15 years old, lying in the sun, in the middle of the stadium at the International Horse Park, catching a nap during the Fuel set. Granted, Fuel isn't the most amazing band, but I was 15 and this was 1998. I should have been nuts for them. It seemed like everyone else was.

It was at that same show that I caught about four minutes of Jump, Little Children on a small second stage. My friends dragged me away before I could see more, but I remember being enchanted by their energy. A couple years later I went to the same festival at a new location, and Jump (who I have since written on extensively) were on the large main stage, far away. So when I found out that later that Fall they would be coming to the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, I bought four tickets and started begging friends to drive me.

But this story is not about Jump. This is a story about a man from Nashville, Tennessee.

With the offer of free tickets, I managed to secure a ride (thanks, Maggs), and traveled to the show not really knowing what to expect. We took some seats along one wall, away from the standing-room-only pit at the front of the stage. The opening act came on. A four piece, one guitar-playing singer, one lead guitarist with hair that covered his face when he played, and one tight rhythm section that couldn't stop smiling. In this non-smoking venue the lead guitarist chain smoked. The lead singer shed layers of clothes as he sang, getting hotter and sweatier with each verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus, and becoming my first real musician crush. This little four piece owned the large room, leading us in claps and sing-alongs. Then in the middle of one song, they broke out into an interlude of “Land of A Thousand Dances”. That's when the singer put down his guitar and writhed and leapt all over the stage, and I swear it was like being taken to church. I was sold.

That was the night I discovered rock 'n' roll. And the man responsible for that is none other than Will Hoge.

08/16/2007

It's been almost seven years since that fateful night. At this point, I've been to more shows than I could ever count, but with Jump no longer together, Will Hoge is set up to be the band I've followed longer than anyone. And when I used my last $10 to attend his show at the 40 Watt a couple weeks ago, I wanted nothing more than to be taken to church again. I wanted that buzz, that total body high I used to get from his shows, or any truly great show, for that matter.

Then came disappointment: it just didn't happen for me. I knew the words to every song, I had a good spot near the front of the stage, the mix off the sound board was a good one, there was even a fairly moving encore of Hank Williams's “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry”. But the whole show I'm looking at the time, wondering if I'll miss the good stuff if I skip out early. My heart was just not in it, and this isn't the first time this has happened at a Will Hoge show. The last few have felt the same way. I feel like what really keeps me going to these shows is momentum, and to put it bluntly, that is just fuckin' sad.

Some part of me wonders if the years of going to shows, buying records, honing my ear and — my god, I hate to admit this — reading music criticism, jaded me. That I can't get the same pleasure out of seeing pure, simple rock because I've lost some kind of innocence about music. But then I remember that as late as 2005 I was still enjoying the hell out of the shows.

So what happened?

I love concert photography, so predictably, I shot dozens of pictures from all angles. I recall that I kept trying to get a picture of Will smiling. And I couldn't. What used to be an easy thing — just snap between verses — became impossible. After so many years on the road, years extending back before the beginning of my fandom, Will Hoge's heart does not seem to be in this anymore. Even though he still puts on a fairly dynamic show, I can tell something is missing, and that combined with my honed cynicism about musicians in general, has built a wall between me and my original rock 'n' roll evangelist. This saddens me more than you might believe.

The good news is, there are a few people who still carry on the good word. One of them is my sister, Sarah Tollerson, who has put out a record you must hear, and who, with her band The Big Fantastic, puts on a show you would not believe. Tastyworld, Friday, August 31st. Be there. You may or may not be in for a religious experience.

01/06/2007