Shine Like the Genius You Are

Last night I was musically enriched again.

Hunger. Sleep deprivation. Agony of a sore back. It was perfect. On any sane night I would have stayed home, shunning a two hour traffic-congested trek to the inner realms of Hollywood. But this was not a night for thinking sane thoughts and weighing the pros and cons. Obsession has and end to meet without regard for the means. This was hope against hope to perhaps enjoy a live offering from Daniel Lanois. This was important because I had recently discovered how Mr. Lanois works a musical chemistry that is too unique to ignore. The ambient echoes of Brian Eno meet a warm folk heritage that is not unlike Dylan.

With an exploratory production style, Lanois helped borne the most attention-getting albums by musical icons from both sides of the Atlantic: Peter Gabriel, U2, Bob Dylan, Neville Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Scott Weiland. Although he's worked in a considerably broad range of styles, his approach is consistently raw and passionate, as he summarily described in his advice to would-be producers during a recent key-note address: "Always press the 'record' button, because that might be your master take. The (magic) is happening when you don't think it's happening."

But Lanois' production credits, impressive as they are, give way to his even more intimate solo work. Both in composition and performance he takes his guitar and draws from it yearning melodies and curious tones that makes you forget the instrument and instead wordlessly melt at the feeling, the story, the settings. His material weaves in and out, from the inexplicably sublime to the earthy folklore of everyman. Whether he sings his tales in French, English or a combination of the two, only hearts of the strongest iron could not be moved to some degree by the simple beauty. Shades of folk, blues, country, rock, reggae, and ambient are deployed almost at whim. He taps in to regional flavors that are travel worthy. His songs are little standstill journeys across some of the cultural centers of North America, without the additional benefits of discomfort and expenses. I always feel safely grounded when his music is on. I'm not on some distant astral plane forgetting the difference between reality and wild imagination, instead I'm donned with a veil of secular and spirituals which reinterpret a sometimes ordinary world: they make the hardships bearable.

So. Speaking of hardships. There I was, stuck in a line that wrapped around the corner block of Hollywood Blvd and El Centro. From the outside, the Henry Fonda theater didn't look large enough to accommodate the turnout. I had already been standing in a separate line on the other side of block, only to learn I needed to be in the catch-all line for will call, guest list, and those who were still trying to get in without having purchased a ticket yet. The lines were so long I couldn't escape the possibility of the O-word. OVERSOLD.

What a crowd. Young and old, but not too young. A good amount of the fashionably hip singer-songwriter fans, 20 and 30 somethings sporting more collective black hair dye than you can shake a drum stick at. I stood in line behind a man with grey balding hair, and a greyer three piece business suit. He was not as out of place as that may seem. Being out of place meant being there. Behind me was a worldly looking woman with a heavy French accent. Behind her a lady originally from the UK. They discussed among themselves the anomalies of the southern California lifestyle.

I finally make it in. My e-ticket was legit! The theater's faux pillars and arches and wild color scheme gave it that Greco-Roman-temple-meets-vaudeville feeling. Expectedly, I noted a good number of musicians and studio types in the audience. And through eavesdropping it sounded like most had some Daniel Lanois story: "My boyfriend met him at a cafe and they started talking about music. Now they jam together every so often", and so on. I bumped into a friend who owns a small L.A. Studio, and even he had the obligatory Lanois story.

Chit chat over vodka and Coronas aside, how about the music. It was beautiful. The man is beautiful. Lanois' live approach reflects himself and his passions. Unashamedly present were his cross-pollenated experiences from a musically rich, French Canadian upbringing. He brought it all on stage. The performance was so raw it was almost like we were peering in on a candid rehearsal (of highly professional musicians, make no mistake). I was coming in expecting it to be pretty mellow judging by his new album, Shine. But he kept it all intensely electric, eclectic and charged, getting some of the most compelling sounds out of his Les Paul while singing all the beautiful songs and I thought, does it get any better than this?

The one thing visibly noticeable (besides his burglaresque black beanie) was that he did not use a guitar pick. That may not seem like any big deal, but in fact I saw it as a necessary exclusion to allow him to do things his way: slap, smack with his palm, open strum with spread fingers, going everywhere up and down the neck, or even sometimes closed fisted direct attacks to induce an absurdly deep rhythmic boom, and so on. All for the sake of doing whatever it takes to get the guitar to express the tangling roots and accent of his soul. With a guitar in his hands Lanois is constantly sculpting until the curves appear.

And then for the big surprise. Well into the set, Lanois and the bassist Daryl Johnson needed to harmonize together for a song, so the center mic needed to be used. Lanois knocks the mic a couple of times, then calls out to the soundman from his own, "Hey, can we get some power on The Edge's mic?"

Yeah. Oops, he didn't give anything away ....

After a couple of more songs, Lanois took a few moments to explain to us how appreciative he is to have worked with some of his heroes over the years. And so he would now invite someone out on the stage who he's worked with for 20 years. Enter The Edge.

There I was, standing 40 feet from the stage in a relatively intimate venue, watching and trying to take it in, as Lanois and the Edge performed together three songs. "Falling At your Feet", "Still Water" (here the Edge melodically meandered with the guitar slide), and for the last one the Edge began by filling that small concert hall with his signature, clean arpeggiating guitar. Like a waterfall of the purest tones, enter "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". That modest building could hardly contain the energy and emotion that filled it in those moments. Imagine that triumphant beat and melody, and all the crowd singing along to their vocal harmony, helping carry those nostalgic lyrics of the wandering but hopeful soul. I was shaken inside and out.

Lanois also sat for a couple of numbers at his pedal steel guitar. This is the instrument that was his first love, and he played it with such emotion and intensity. During the encore Lanois invited an "old friend", Mary Ann Faithfull, on stage for a duet. It was a song Lanois said he wrote for her but it was never recorded. After a false start in the wrong key, they played it well despite my initial disliking of Faithfull's voice. Based on the chorus I figure song is called "Drifting With Blood in Your Eyes."

What additional words could I use to convey what the evening was like? Well I don't want to finish up without giving due praise to the drummer, Brian Blade. I agree with what Peter Gabriel once said, that a band can only be as good as its drummer. Brian Blade is a giant among babes in the jazz drumming world. He is the new blood but the kind that taps into the veins of the old blood. His style is so inspired, so rooted. A couple of times between songs he performed drum segues (not solos) that so were perfectly fluid and yet tulmutously dramatic; they would conjure in me visions of swimming under the low rumbles and crashing waves of an angry sea.