The weird thing is that I've seen quite a few shows in between Carina and Bjork, I just haven't felt particularly compelled to write about them. I saw Midlake, who had some awesome moments (Roscoe), and The National, who I love, but for some reason wasn't particularly moved. I was semi-bored. I guess it has something to do with the people you go to shows with because if they aren't into it it can take away from the experience. Bjork fans definitely left nothing to be desired...they were dressed up in drag (who knew Bjork had such a big gay following) and generally amped up about the show. I'm not sure if she's ever come to Atlanta before so I guess the rarity of the occasion had everyone hyped. The costume design and light show/theatrics were top notch and I would expect as much from Bjork because she's so weird. I mean, she's from Iceland. And anyone who knows anything about Bjork knows to expect the unexpected.
What made the concert so great wasn't just the show she put on, but rather the way she got my wheels turning. Isn't that what great art is about? Producing a canvas for the viewer to project onto? My seminal moment came when Bjork was singing 5 Years to a guy in the front row. She kept screaming, "You can't handle Love, boy. I'm so sick of cowards. They say they want and can't handle Love." It was like she was singing the song to whoever she wrote it about and it was so intense it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
That got me thinking about love. The western world's favorite topic. Ever since we were born we've been bombarded with thoughts about love. John Lennon told us "All you need is love". If thats true, how do you get it? It seems like it should be intuitive and without need of any explanation, but if thats the case, why are so many of us without the amount/type we want? I think its like the magic eye, some people see the picture right away, their eyes naturally relax and the 3D image appears before their eyes. While some of us don't really understand the concept and any explanation of what we are supposed to see only adds to the frustration and confusion.
And is that true anyways? Is love all you need? After years of listening to love songs and watching romantic comdies we develop a thirst for love that similar to greed(or any addiction) is not satiated by getting it. You want and want and want but you have no idea exactly what is it you want. You think you know because of the way love is represented in popular culture but what does that have to with reality? Don't get me wrong, every once in awhile someone gets it right. Knocked Up, Annie Hall, Brokeback Mountain, and The New World are all realistic portrayals of people trying to make sense of the feelings we call love.
I mean, don't you think it's hard to recognize the real deal when it happens? Its like how they say when you smoke weed you don't get high the first few times. That just isn't true. You get high, it just takes you about five times to realize what getting high is and enjoy it. But since you don't know what the fuck you're doing you smoke the entire blunt by yourself when all you needed was three hits and you've spoiled something that should have been easy and you're so high you can't talk.
So now after the high school awkwardness and college drama you have love. All your problems are solved right? If it were only that simple. No one told you it was a living thing you had to nurture. All you know is the chase. You're clueless about how to keep it afloat. So you get lazy, and you take what you have for granted, you're distracted by tight packages and you think, "I wonder what that would be like?" Now all of a sudden you have Bjork yelling, "You can't handle love you coward!" in your face and you're thinking how the fuck did I get here?
You finally realize how profound the not so well known Dave Matthews song "Pig" is. He sings the lines, "Love, Love, Love what more is there?" with such fierce desperation; pleading for someone to end the drama. It's enough to make you want to put your head in the sand. It seems like this is a cycle we're forced to play out over and over again because unfortunately, Robert Palmer was right.
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