I felt like a gringo

There are nights when I think that Stu Sherman was right.

Beirut's set at the GAMH last night made me think of the first Camper Van Beethoven album: faux ethnic music, played mostly for laughs. Six men and one woman took the stage with trumpets (up to three at a time!), other brass stuff, an organ, a violin, a variety of percussion devices, and an assortment of stringed things from the lute family. No bass. They played mostly forgettable minor-key tunes for about an hour, jumped around, shook tambourines in the audience. It was fun, in a Serbo-Croatian kind of way.

Maybe those songs address serious matters, or serve as wedding songs or something, in their original context. I would guess that almost no one in attendance cared about any of that. For most people who would actually show up at one of their shows, Beirut is simply a change-up from the usual, a detour into ethnic music that you don't have to take too seriously. (I'd laugh if you called it indie rock.) Most of the band is quite young, and the frontman isn't even old enough to drink in a bar. He is not without his gifts, but his music is ultimately of little consequence. It could be dance music for people who don't dance. I liked it anyway.

Yeah, I know. Thinking too much can ruin a good time. The PopMatters essay shoots a little higher than necessary (did he really have to bring Susan Sontag into it?), but the writer definitely has a point. (Boss disagrees. Says it just sounds good, and he leaves it at that.) Beirut does trivialize something that's taken seriously somewhere in the world, sure. But isn't that where rock'n'roll comes from? Simultaneously embracing and cheapening more serious things?


FMFM: The mp3 in the title.