Same Love
Once I started listening to Macklemore, it was really impossible for me to not love Macklemore. Like, with all the enthusiasm in my soul. It's always exciting to discover new music that you like, which was part of it, but he has songs about white privilege, and same sex marriage, and lyrics about how paying $50 for a t-shirt is ridiculous. It makes me feel like this is a guy who gets it.
A few months ago, I read a piece in Slate about how incredible it is, as a gay person, to be able to hear Macklemore's "Same Love" on the radio or to see Macklemore performing it at the VMAs. Which I had not really thought about before, but is totally true.
Last night Macklemore came to Columbus. And even though it was at the Schott, which is a kind of big and kind of terrible venue (seriously, three ushers sent us to the wrong seats), Angie and Zach joined Kristen and I to mount an expedition to the concert. Vendors were working the crowd selling cotton candy, soda, etc. They were doing a weird "Dance Cam" thing like we were at a sporting event. And the people in front of us were fifteen year old girls wearing pastel colored skinny jeans, one of whom had a shirt with a pattern of Christian crosses on it, and the other with a shirt that had one giant sparkly sequined cross.
Angie commented that it is strange to observe how, what you in your head believe to be your own impeccable taste in music is actually something you have in common with all these people. So true.
Anyway, Macklemore was awesome, although having an artist who so frequently tells the audience to put their hands in the air, combined with a venue with scrunched together aisles and rows like the Schott, is really a recipe for getting clunked on the head a lot. But that is certainly not Macklemore's fault.
But what I wanted to write about was the experience of hearing him perform Same Love in front of that crowd. There were 6,000 people there, and he started out asking people to make some noise if they were in college (many), if they were in high school (also many), if they were old people (me, me, me - I guess), if they had jobs, if they didn't have jobs, etc. [Angie did not make any noise at all, presumably waiting for Macklemore to get really specific and ask the vegan yoga teachers to make some noise, at which point I am sure she would have given it her all.] I figured that this was all just a crowd noise building exercise, until he started talking about how progress works in this country, and then started the song. (Joined by Mary Lambert, the woman who sings the hook, and is an Actual Lesbian.)
And all of a sudden, this crowd of 6,000 strangers was singing along and cheering for a song about gay rights. The pastel Christian teens were singing it and cheering like crazy for equality. A massive white guy, probably in his late forties, who looked like somebody's dad, had his finger in the air chanting "We have to change us." And I know we've had some really good court rulings lately, I know that Illinois just became the 15th state to legalize gay marriage, and that the Federal Government is recognizing them now that DOMA is dead, and I know the guy who just might be the next governor of Maine just came out - I know all of these things are happening around us right now - but in that one moment at the Macklemore show it felt like so much more - it felt like we were winning the hearts and minds and voices of all these people.
Thank you, Macklemore.
A few months ago, I read a piece in Slate about how incredible it is, as a gay person, to be able to hear Macklemore's "Same Love" on the radio or to see Macklemore performing it at the VMAs. Which I had not really thought about before, but is totally true.
Last night Macklemore came to Columbus. And even though it was at the Schott, which is a kind of big and kind of terrible venue (seriously, three ushers sent us to the wrong seats), Angie and Zach joined Kristen and I to mount an expedition to the concert. Vendors were working the crowd selling cotton candy, soda, etc. They were doing a weird "Dance Cam" thing like we were at a sporting event. And the people in front of us were fifteen year old girls wearing pastel colored skinny jeans, one of whom had a shirt with a pattern of Christian crosses on it, and the other with a shirt that had one giant sparkly sequined cross.
Angie commented that it is strange to observe how, what you in your head believe to be your own impeccable taste in music is actually something you have in common with all these people. So true.
Anyway, Macklemore was awesome, although having an artist who so frequently tells the audience to put their hands in the air, combined with a venue with scrunched together aisles and rows like the Schott, is really a recipe for getting clunked on the head a lot. But that is certainly not Macklemore's fault.
But what I wanted to write about was the experience of hearing him perform Same Love in front of that crowd. There were 6,000 people there, and he started out asking people to make some noise if they were in college (many), if they were in high school (also many), if they were old people (me, me, me - I guess), if they had jobs, if they didn't have jobs, etc. [Angie did not make any noise at all, presumably waiting for Macklemore to get really specific and ask the vegan yoga teachers to make some noise, at which point I am sure she would have given it her all.] I figured that this was all just a crowd noise building exercise, until he started talking about how progress works in this country, and then started the song. (Joined by Mary Lambert, the woman who sings the hook, and is an Actual Lesbian.)
And all of a sudden, this crowd of 6,000 strangers was singing along and cheering for a song about gay rights. The pastel Christian teens were singing it and cheering like crazy for equality. A massive white guy, probably in his late forties, who looked like somebody's dad, had his finger in the air chanting "We have to change us." And I know we've had some really good court rulings lately, I know that Illinois just became the 15th state to legalize gay marriage, and that the Federal Government is recognizing them now that DOMA is dead, and I know the guy who just might be the next governor of Maine just came out - I know all of these things are happening around us right now - but in that one moment at the Macklemore show it felt like so much more - it felt like we were winning the hearts and minds and voices of all these people.
Thank you, Macklemore.