September 5, 2016 — It seems to me that most people are consistently one thing, or at least one type. Not so for me, so that means I have friends of entirely different groups. It started in school. I had friends who were my study friends, my intellectual friends, although intellectual is not the right word. I’m thinking more thinking, people who would indulge hour-long conversations about science facts and theories, or about the alternate meaning of a poem, people who were company when I wanted to go way inside my head. Then I had friends who were better for parties, better for concerts, because most of the former thought concert people did drugs and failed out of school, people who were better for dancing and laughing. Except for a very few, the people of my life feel into these two distinct groups and never could have been in the same room. Well, except once when I had a breakfast party before a football game in my apartment and made omelets for everyone, all my different friends, all morning… now that was a fun social experiment. I even had the professor there who all the girls thought was hot who was dating my good friend, one of the so-called intellectuals; see don’t tell me they aren’t wild in actuality. Everyone got along. Everyone fit. It was beautiful.
In my adult times, there aren’t that many people; there’s no opposite in type thing going on, but I still find myself gravitating to entirely opposite things. I like rock music, the aggressive kind especially, but with lyrics you can understand, distorted guitar, but not too, something catchy, something meaningful, perhaps even a bit dance-y, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Reckless. But I also like music that will accompany me into those times I go way inside my head. I like poetry, words that paint pictures of emotion. I like Lana del Rey for her poetry, for her calmness, for what I believe to be a wild-abandon spirit. I especially like her for the pictures of emotion her music paints inside my head. It is beautiful.
It’s not the easiest time for me right now. It’s not the worst either. But there is nothing extra right now. It is, for lack of a better word, an intellectual time, much like those times where I had to study and work at the same time to get through school, only it’s more; there are much greater monetary demands. Last weekend, in the strange turn of events that is life, I needed to drive my truck to get the truck’s computer to have data for a smog test I have yet to go obtain. (Cross your fingers the truck passes.) The smog test guy said I needed two trips of 20 minutes each driving over 65 mph to get the data. I had already rejected going to Dana Point to see one of only a handful of Lana del Rey dates in the world because this concert is expensive. But I thought I could go to the parking lot to listen. After all, I needed some drive for my truck … and the ocean, and I haven’t been to the ocean, except for being near it, in while, so that seemed like the place to go for this smog check drive. I thought I might as well drive someplace beautiful.
And a beautiful place it was. Doheny State Beach, a place I’ve never been, consisting of a long street into a park with camp grounds, picnic tables and interspersed parking down the coast, on the outside of a train track then the Pacific Coast Highway. The beach was an inlet, rocky in places, and large in others. It seemed friendly, not a common thing here, with dogs walking next to their people. I will go back. Jasper hasn’t seen a beach. I parked a long way away, ruining my thoughts of listening in the parking lot. I won’t talk about how I got my entrance, but I did. It was a festival, people of all ages, lots of flowers in the girls’ hair, but then again, that’s Lana for you. The people were nice, very excited for the show. After the act before ended, hordes gathered in the front of the stage, very close together, and talking all together, very giving and happy to be there. It took a long time to set up. I would have been impatient, but the anticipated happiness made for an atmosphere of beauty.
It’s my thinking side that likes Lana. I listen to Lana a lot when I’m sad, or when I need motivation, or when I want motivation of a different sort, not sure why that works for me, but it does; perhaps it is that my thinking side really does control me. Sometimes I even feel a sort of spiritual communication, a message, from this music, usually a message that being my fragile self, and I am fragile even though I’m forced to be otherwise, is okay. As a person, shown by the words of her songs, there’s something about Lana I relate to, her inconsistency, her sort of brokenness, her evident love of the people she entertains, the not-so-standard loves in her life. Still, I’ve never seen Lana. When I was going through the hard that was 2015, times I was scared I’d never make it back here, this place I’ve made into my home, she performed at a small place here. I wish I had seen that show. I couldn’t have. I was lost somewhere out in the world. As opposed to that show, this show was not small. For that reason, I didn’t hold any hope in actually seeing the personality of Lana’s that one would see in a small place. And you don’t know what a Lana show will bring either. Sometimes her vocals aren’t strong. The guy standing next to me said she’s sometimes too high to do a good job, his review of Coachella, whenever that was. I really wanted the good Lana, the Lana with strong vocals and a strong sound. Literally I was nervous as the show started, nervous for Lana, nervous because this music means more to me right now than any. When Lana took the stage, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard louder screams. After the screams, the first sounds we heard were from Lana’s guitar player. Then Lana stood at the microphone and simply smiled. She was overtaken by the moment, the sound of the audience, smiling a very real smile. Her smile showed me she wasn’t nervous, so I lost my nervousness for her. And it got better, smiling that huge smile, she said “I can’t believe I’m finally back; my favorite place in the whole world.” I don’t know if that was a message, or just a validation of my life for the last year, but that was my exact, and I mean exact, thought in the 23rd hour of my trip as I drove my truck down Laurel Canyon toward my street in the middle of the night, no car sight, a little over one year ago. Sure, I’m far from done, but it was a stark reminder of what makes it all worth it… my favorite place in the whole world. I could have gone home right then. It was beautiful.
The concert. She played a dozen songs, about an hour and fifteen minutes in length. I truly wanted more. I did my very best not to sing. People go to hear Lana, not to hear others sing, well except on Freak, the song about California, and this California audience, this California girl, had to sing on that one: “come to California be a freak like me too.” There were people who filmed, but not that much. The music was strong. Lana’s vocals were strong. I could tell you about the songs, but you don’t know them, so I won’t, save to say for one song, Yayo, she plays a Gibson Flying V. I’ve talked about that before. It was a true highlight for me to see this. I tortured everyone around me about that guitar. “I have that guitar.” “That’s my guitar.” “I play that guitar.” Trust me, they got the message. Lana was pretty too. Sometimes people who photograph well don’t look as good in person. I thought she looked beautiful, less beauty queen than normal, but perhaps that’s because she was home. Who knows? And that part of two opposite extremes in me? Well it was satisfied across the board. The concert girl in me was happy. The thinking girl was even happier. Lana even had a song with a video of the Sun with statistics about the Earth’s relationship to the Sun — the start of the 1976 Vangelis (the composer of Chariots of Fire) song Albedo 0.39. Physics. I do so very much love science. And rocking out to science … that was beautiful.
Other than the possible excerpt of this song being from 1976, I know for most of you, all of you perhaps, Lana is not your thing. Much is said of the old music we like, of the influence of that music, the superiority of that music. But one time, some months ago in my discussions with HS, she quoted me an article stating that Lana loved Van Halen, that Lana learned it from one of her past boyfriends, that it’s an influence of Lana’s. I know Lana is a far cry from Van Halen, but I think Lana likes rock music, that it is one of her influences, even in this seemingly slow music she plays. In fact, one of the lines in one the song Freak, in a passage about making love or perhaps living love, she, says, as a part of what they will do: “slow dance to rock music.” It takes a while of listening to her music to hear the rock influence, but it’s there. It’s there in the attitude. It’s there in the suggestiveness. It’s there in the sound, especially live because the guitars are much stronger live. It’s there in the feel of the audience, the transference of energy from her and back. At some point in each concert, she walks down from the stage and, for ten minutes or so, talks to, takes photos with, signs autographs for, hugs, touches, shakes hands, and kisses her audience members. They give her flowers, stuffed animals, gifts. (See cover photo, as the long video of this I took got lost. So sad!) The look on their faces is that of meeting their rock idol, and it’s boys, girls, men and women. Everyone. I promise this isn’t just chick music. I promise, just that audience interaction alone is rock influenced. It is old school rock beautiful.
Closing song:
If you feel like indulging my craziest deviation from rock, listen to the videos. Otherwise, I hope you take from this story two things, first at least some personal relation to the absolute love of something that has influenced you more than anything, ever, because oh my god, that feels so amazing, and second, the beauty that was this wear-flowers-in-your-hair festival in Lana’s and my favorite place in the whole world. Happy Beautiful Labor Day to all.