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ENTERTAINMENT
Taylor Kuykendall: New American Music Festival a joy to experience
It's rough being a college student with a terrible sense of financial planning, a love of music and a commitment to reconcile the two.
However, as a true music fan, I sensed an opportunity to see Bob Dylan, the Raconteurs, Spoon, The Black Keys, The Roots and Gnarls Barkley at the New American Music Union, and I was already Pittsburgh-bound.
The concert was broken into two delicious scoops, one on Friday and another Saturday. Dylan topped off the show like a sweet cordial cherry on the best ice cream sundae you ever had.
The Black Keys put on a show that ended up being the musical experience I had been looking for.
Patrick Carnet, drummer, and Dan Auerbach, guitarist/vocalist, filled the stage with a vintage rock-and-roll sound usually accomplished by no less than five god-like men under the direction of Apollo himself.
The Black Keys left a crater in Pittsburgh that may explain how we lost the dinosaurs. Not to be outdone, The Roots performed with a demeanor so cool, that the stage may have been mistaken for another Ice Age.
The Roots spit a super conscious form of hip hop with a jazzy rhythm and blues back track. The band has been touring for more than a decade and still impresses the world and reminds rockers that hip-hop may still have something to offer the world of music.
Day two of the festival kicked off the college band competition which brought out music that ranged from classic rock to electro-pop. The vocals ranged from Coldplay to Courtney Love and the dancing was everything YouTube-worthy.
The live instrumentation of Gnarls Barkley sounded less like a radio pop band and more like a legitimately solid group composed of one of the nation's hottest multi-instrumentalist producers and a hip-hop artist associated with a group that revolutionized hip-hop. Imagine that.
The only thing that would have been more amazing is if an indie-rock band was able to follow a hip-hop show without turning away the audience. A band like Spoon.
Follow they did. The band sang about throwing down a "Cherry Bomb," and did nothing less with a stunning performance of many of their songs from their album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga."
Jack White, with the patience of a man who had been in a band with a horrible drummer for years of his career, played out his hour set and further. Someone had to tell the Jack White's Raconteurs their time was up.
Few bands but the Raconteurs could manage pushing into a Bob Dylan set without angering a crowd, but not a single protest was spoken.
Then the legend took the stage. He played new songs and old songs in new ways. The crowd sang along and stumbled at the new rhythms of their old favorites.
Dylan has obviously aged. He rarely acknowledged the crowd. He never picked up a guitar. He only stood and walked during what appeared to be an effort to thwart stiffness between songs.
He sat at the piano and sang into a microphone, occasionally adding well-thought notes from his harmonica. The crowd swayed in rhythm with the song and dance man who changed not only the way music was made, but the way that it was heard.
In 2008, my friend and I may have been able to experience the closest thing that we could to witnessing the legend that has become Bob Dylan.
Though the show was outstanding, it feels like I only heard the songs of Robert Zimmerman, and I came to hear Bob Dylan. I got an excellent show, but I wanted a religious experience.
Regardless of my expectations, I shivered at the very sight of the body that changed the world of music.
My ears were filled with a dull ringing on the trip back to Huntington. My eyes were full of a desire to sleep. My head soared at the complete joy that was the New American Music Festival.
Taylor Kuykendall is a music fan and an intern for The Herald-Dispatch. Contact him at rkuykendall@herald-dispatch.com.
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