Extreme - Live in Concert

The Emerald Theatre, Detroit, Michigan.
Legends. Icons. Pure Harmonies. Amazing musicians who still know how to perform live.

Most artists have forgotten what it is like to be at a live music show and actually perform “Music.” Live shows are now all about the damned fireworks, the caged animals, the effects, the outfits and 9 times out of ten crappy, crappy singing. Why do you call it live when the music is all pre-recorded and all the artist does is say “Helloooooo (insert name of place here)… Are you reaaaaaaaaaadddyyyy ???? ”

Ready for what? Watch my money go down the drain, for an hour or two of listening to the same track I have on itunes while you dance around on stage in the equivalent of a Paper Napkin. Bah.

But then there are still artists like Extreme. These guys know music. And I don’t mean know in a “This is what I am playing and therefore what you plebians will listen to” kind of way. I mean that they know music in a “You listen to this and it will eat through the humdrum and head straight to your soul” way. And it did.

I believed in Hole-Hearted. I could see Cupid’s dead body lying right there on stage. Right there in front of Nuno’ beautiful beautiful fingers weaving hypnotic magic that made everyone in there want to know how it felt to stage-dive. Maybe I exaggerate, but at least I sure as hell wanted to know what it felt like to dive off a raised platform and expect drunk, headbanging strangers to catch me before I hit concrete.

But all in all, it was music, it was actual singing, not some studio edited crap being back-played. It was real harmonizing, something I think artists today have forgotten. I sound like an old fogey griping about “Kids these days…” when I am just a regular (at least I think so) 23 year old who just wishes people remembered what it was like to hear something that sounds like real music.

We sang along to “More Than Words” and bought tickets on the “Midnight Express” and we did all of it standing ten feet away from Nuno himself… We headbanged alongside people twice our age who have obviously been fans since long before we were born. One of them looked at us singing along to almost every song word for word and nodded appreciatively. He later shook my hand and said “Good to see not all kids your age have forgotten what real music is.” That made me think. Have we realllly forgotten? Or do we just need a reminder now and then?