MY POP CULTURE is not your pop culture. The older I get the more I reason and try to understand why it has to be that way.
It ain't working.
New Faces was at Quincy High School over the weekend. It was really long (three hours and 15 minutes), and there were amazing acts. These are young people busting their butts to entertain and express themselves through music, theater, dance and other ways. A young person who screws the courage up to perform in front of a big audience and their friends is a beautiful thing. So it was a good night.
The jazz bands were awesome. It was great to see former guitar students Tad and Zeke Bates jamming up there. And, of course, the trombone playing ruled, Natalie Wiemelt!
Former guitar student Maddie Daggett performed "The Ballad of Lucy Gray" from the Hunger Games, and she killed it. I was in awe. I think Maddie even surprised herself. She took lessons at Second String Music when she was smaller than her guitar. I'm like a proud papa watching her play and sing.
My favorite act was by Charly Nicholson. She did the dance scene from Napoleon Dynamite, and nailed it. I mean, she crushed every move and I almost fell out of my chair from laughing.
But nobody got it. There were sporadic cheers for a few of her moves, but that's it. Watch the scene from the movie here, or below. If Charly was going for the same audience reaction as in the movie, she got it. Maybe that was the point - few people in the QHS Auditorium understood just how funny it was, because few got the Napoleon Dynamite humor and background. At the end I think there was an awakening because Charly got a pretty good ovation.
Their pop culture isn't mine. It kept me awake Friday night/Saturday morning. It doesn't take much to lose sleep. And I just realized Napoleon Dynamite came out 20 years ago. My. Head. Hurts.
The other night Allison Hutson and I were practicing for our show this Saturday at Quincy Brewing Company (7 p.m., get there early!). I suggested the Sam Cooke song What A Wonderful World from the movie Animal House.
"I've never seen it," Allison said, rather sheepishly.
WHAT? How is that possible? I know my socks are older than Allison, but come on! Animal House? John Belushi? The zit scene? The marching band marching into a wall? Seven years of college down the drain? The Germans bombing Pearl Harbor?
Then again, maybe there are good reasons for us being so messed up as we climb into our 60s. And it came out in 1978. Ugh.
Anyway, kudos to Charly for killing it with the Napoleon Dynamite routine. She was brilliant. And kudos to everybody involved in New Faces. It was a great show.
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