Pinko Martini

Went to a much anticipated concert at Pier17 yesterday night.

 

Sound: Horribly loud, no nuance, “all treble”.

All singers – with exception of China Forbes – force it. They can’t sing, they scream, they yell, they dramatize and play their voice, like in cheap melodrama. And they roar. Indeed.

Because of course, as in a bad joke, in a middle of event, “women, all women in the audience!” were called onstage, and whole unwieldy crowd, led by Ms. Forbes, blared the soiled feminist anthem. It was unsightly, ugly, and I felt like in a middle of a pussy-hat convention, one of a handful of sane women remaining in my seat.

Politics dictated the choice and often the content of the program. There were 3 songs performed in Arabic, one in Turkish; in full compliance with Party line of identity politics, Arabs and Turks in the audience were called to the stage and encouraged to hug and thank the singer at the end of the gig. They performed as expected. While calling on the Turks the band leader Thomas Lauderdale (a stocky middle-age hedgehog of a guy with ridiculous died Mohawk) announced: “Greeks to prepare! You will be next!” But it was not the Greeks – it was Armenians who were called to sing-along to Ov Sirun Sirun. The awkward timing, it seems, was not noticed by anyone. Oh maybe only by Armenians – who were too polite to show.

They acknowledged other ethnicities – Romanian, Croatian (could with same effect called the song Serbian – but no! Serbs are still evil, I guess) with more folk songs. Japanese – prefaced with rather racist joke. Not Jewish and no Russian, of course – not PC at the moment! There were, naturally, numbers in Italian, Spanish and French – which gave the band their theme and niche, and all success as 20-yr performer of “European and South-American light genre of the 50’s”. Ah, if they only stayed within  their expertise and that niche.

Their Guest Singer, to much applause, was – wait for it – despicable Ari Shapiro. Yes, go read the Wiki. A handsome, impeccably suited slime. He announced his songs himself. The first was some bleating in Arabic, which he explained “is a beautiful nostalgic song by an unjustly exiled, and of a hope of return to the lost land”.  The word “Palestinian” was silent but heavily hinted to: journalistic training. The travesty, the incredible lie and shameless treachery! I’ve known self-hating Jews, but this one took the prize. My cheeks were hot, I couldn’t look at him.

Never mind that this was a tango which we so loved under the original name La Soledad…I thought I’ll be sick.

 

There were other “guest singers” – for some reason, all gays or lesbians. Like Thomas and Ari, accidentally. Who for another song revealed its history as written on a nude gay beach, “shocking the neighbors”. Audience loved it!

Wouldn’t say they can’t sing at all – I guess, if they were soloists of some HS orchestra, they would be right in their place, but oh my – at a concert of this level? One was a Mexican with rabbit teeth and very aggressive manner of singing, another – short black boy with huge afro that made his legs even shorter. He covered another political checkmark – This Land Is Your Land. Again, fine for their socialist rally, but at a concert of a group known for light jazz and pretty nothings?

And this constant appeal to audience to stand, to sing along, to come to stage, to hug…so amateurish. The fake solidarity, ubiquitous communal spirit, all this primitive vulgar Marxism. Grey-haired, self-important, expensively dressed people in the audience – thousands of them, all happy to pretend they are part of this fishy kumbayah.

Totally not worth bruised feet I suffered in my new heels and the wasted $85.