Channelling the Spirit of Armenia

Our summer of music kicked off in early July with The Decemberists at the Hollywood Bowl (which was awesome btw, thanks for asking; and so was andrew bird), and continued tonight with our "mystery concert" of the season: KCRW's World Festival - Spirit of Armenia. I have to admit: despite being the instigator, I had doubts on whether we would enjoy the concert. I'm no stranger to Armenian music, having shared a lab for over a year with an Armenian-American who's proud of his heritage. Late-night PCR sessions were often accompanied by some form of music from the region (and the unavoidable System of a Down, schoolmates of said Armenian-American). And unsurprisingly, for his graduation party at his parents' house, we had an entire night of traditional Armenian music and dance. I rather think P enjoyed the dancing: arms in the air, shake your booty somewhat in time with the music, dance in an inclusive circle, and you're dancing like an Armenian.

So we were very pleased to find that we enjoyed the more "traditional" music played at the Bowl tonight. The native instrument of Armenia is a double-reed woodwind: the duduk. And boy can they make it sing. Djivan Gasparyan is truly a duduk maestro. His duet with man-whose-name-I-forgot-cos-I'm-crap was astoundingly melodic. My ears are more used to flutes, clarinets and bassoons producing a cacophony; always used against each other for contrast. Hearing two of the same woodwind in a duet was a revelation.

Another pleasant surprise of the evening was The Element Band. As they were setting up, we were left in no doubt that they were local Angelenos. Every other performer was dressed to the nines. These guys came on in their scruffy LA streetwear, but produced such hauntingly beautiful folk-inspired music. The female lead had the most angelic voice, which sadly had to share the stage with the rough sounds of the male-obviously-the-leader-of-the-band.

A note about the dancers tonight: they looked like Riverdance offshoots in red and gold dresses¹, kick-stepping their way across the massive Bowl stage. All 50+ of them (I stopped counting after 50; the beer was getting to me). Aside from the Riverdance aspect, I almost felt that if you changed the duduks for some Asian strings (eg erhu or pipa) and changed the skin colour of the dancers, you could well be watching some Chinese traditional dance troupe or a North Korean dance formation. Not to say it wasn't good. It just had the feel of regimental dancing.

And if the dancing had some Asian qualities about it, the second half of the night resonated even more. Something about pop acts in most of the European continent all being naff. I'm really sorry to say this. It was NAFF. The lineup was taken straight from Eurovision. No, make that the qualifying rounds of Eurovision. Ai yai yai. The stereotypes! Of the five singers, I'd categorise the oldest as a Des O'Connor-a-likey, the 40-something-year-old-man-in-a-business-suit as a standard Eurovision entrant from Southern Europe, the 40-something-year-old-woman-in-a-ballgown as your typical slow-song-diva, a Bjork-a-likey (or Yuki-a-likey) and a extra-cheesy-permed-hair-rocker-wannabe. Or if you want the Asian comparison, imagine a variety show from the 70s with male crooners "romancing" the ladies (think Bryl-cream hair), military-tempo songs being belted out by patriotic types, wistful songs of love from soppy women...

Ach, I shouldn't be so mean. I should have saved all that bitching for the composer-conductor-pianist, who abused his position with over-indulgent Clayderman-like compositions that really numbed the brain. Oh, it was BAD. But then, every now and again, they launched into more "Armenian" beats, got the duduk players out, and the audience got up to dance. Now that was more like it.

Conclusion: Glad we went, but won't be buying the album².

¹ That was just their first inspired colour-combo³. They followed it up with some yellow-and-gold, and finished the evening in yellow-and-red horizontal stripes. The men looked like little lego-men. But maybe it's just me that had yellow lego-men with red trousers.

² Of the pop acts at least. We really like the Winds of Passion and The Element Band.

³ Speaking of colour combos, the stage lights tonight were particularly garish. Oops, did I say garish? I meant gaudy. No, inspired. At one point, it was a pastely yellow-pink-violet, changing to blue-purple. That was followed by some fast-tempo music and blue chasing purple across the walls of the stage. I think the lighting operators were practising for the Pet Shop Boys concert in September⁴. Very discoteca!

⁴ To which I'm going. I can't quite convince P to go yet, and may need to find a fellow PSB fan to go with me... I can't say I'm a great fan of disco, but something about PSB allows me to forgive their disco experimentation and even tolerate it.