Friday Five takes an artistic turn

I almost didn't get in.

After waiting months for the double-bill of Switchfoot and Anberlin at Calvin College, I walked up to the ticket booth as the student worker was setting things up.

“You've got tickets, right?” I asked. I wasn't worried. Once I attended a concert at Calvin, and it was a gathering of John Reuben and about 50 friends.

“We've got two.”

I smiled.

“No, I'm serious. We have two tickets, and that's only because someone turned them in. Don't move from that spot."

So after purchasing half of the available tickets I enjoyed an awesome concert featuring two of my favorite bands – and met some new friends, too.

Many miles on treadmill and trail have been logged to the sound of Switchfoot's “Hello Hurricane” since it was released in 2009.

Anberlin was a more recent discovery, true to my practice of being about 5 years behind the times musically.

The show was the highlight of an arts-centric Deezo Friday Five.

Switchfoot

Calvin's Hoogeboom Arena was set up with wooden bleachers on the sides and standing room on the floor. I opted for the bleachers near the side because I am too old for the mosh pit.

Lead singer Jon Foreman was interacting with the crowd a lot, leaning over the stage, leaning in to the out-stretched hands. But during “The War Inside” he jumped off the stage and into the crowd and walked along the beachers, then turned and started stepping up – right toward me.

Foreman looked up and extended his hand, then used mine to pull himself up into the row and sang the rest of the song two spaces away. Cool!

Anberlin

Anberlin's sound was pretty muddy until the acoustic songs – including “The Unwinding Cable Car” was a great surprise.

Andrew likes to collect set lists after the show, and we've begged roadies of many groups for the paper, which usually is duct-taped to the stage floor.

But this time I was walking past the sound board and saw the Amberlin set list just sitting there. The guy working behind the board said I could have it. Sweet!



Atomic Tom

It's not easy being the opening act. Usually the best thing people will say is “They didn't suck,” and the biggest applause typically comes after the singer says, “We've got one more song for you.”

But I liked Atomic Tom. Sure, they got points after saying they were from Brooklyn. But their rocking cover of Human League's “Don't You Want Me” was a nice surprise, and the rest of the set was a nice mix of power pop – with the emphasis on power – and straightforward rock.

“Take Me Out” sounded familiar and I liked “The Moment,” the title cut from their CD. I went to meet the band at the merch table after the show, and snagged the last CD they had. Nice guys.

The CD has been steadily playing in the car since the concert, and I found their apparently famous video of “Take Me Out” played and filmed entirely with iPhones on a subway.

“Catching Hell”

I got an email out of the blue last winter from someone who said he was working with a documentary producer and was interested in using two photos he found on the blog.

The post was about Will and I going to see the Mets lose at Wrigley. As will once explained to a Comiskey vendor as I snapped a shot of him preparing my hot dog, “He documents everything.”

And on this particular adventure, we located the seat where infamous Cubs fan Steve Bartman was sitting when he prevented Moises Alou from catching a foul ball in the 2003 playoffs. Or not. It's not really clear whether Bartman actually got a hand on the ball, and the Cubs proceeded to allow 8 runs in the rest of inning, all without Bartman's help.

But this was Chicago and Cub losses are blamed on curses and not incompetence, so Bartman has been forced into exile.

We found the seat, and some goofball was sitting there, preventing others from taking in the view. I documented him.


Then I recreated the Bartman alleged near catch and Will documented that because that, too, is what we do.

The producer wanted to use both of those, and I happily consented.

The documentary aired Tuesday and was called, “Catching Hell,” focusing on the treatment of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner after the glorious 1986 Mets World Series comeback and Bartman.

And, about 90 minutes into the show, you will see the goofball and me in a montage of fans recreating the moment, which must have been a surprise to the goofball, had he been watching. I get a photo credit, too!


ArtPrize

Grand Rapids is filled with art of all shapes, sizes and quality this week for the third annual ArtPrize competition.

People spend the first two weeks voting thumbs up or down on each pieces, and the ten with the most votes continue into a second round, where the winner gets a nice pile of cash.

As you can imagine, high-brow art people are horrified – horrified – at the kind of stuff that lands in the top 10. It's like when music critics tell us how we should love some artists when we all just want to hear Foreigner.

Confession: I like Foreigner, and I like the stuff that sends the hoity-toity people into a frenzy. This year, artist have figured out the kind of stuff that voters like and have been accused of pandering more than a politician in Iowa a week before the primary.

The arts version of “Hot Blooded” is called “Gerald Ford Goes to ArtPrize,” and kind of looks like a wax museum version of the native son pondering a bronze bust of himself.

The same artist last year created an ultra life-like sculpture of a monk which was praised mightily but did not get a ton of votes. This year's version is in the top 10.

I wanted to vote for it just because A) it is pretty cool, and B) the high brow folks would go ballistic. Alas, with just one vote to cast, there were great negotiations within the family. We voted for “Rusty,” the giant dog made from car scraps and tree stumps.

Maybe a little more "I Want to Know What Love Is" than "Double Vision," but still pretty cool.

Big hits at the ballpark -- even without a game

Fifth Third Park, home to baseball, concerts and an occasional adventure.

Baseball stadiums tend to make lousy concert halls.

It’s that whole square peg thing, of using something for a purpose other then the one it was created for.

But the billing of TobyMac and MercyMe was to great to pass up, and my son and I headed off to Fifth Third Ballpark, home of the Single-A West Michigan Whitecaps. And it was one of those adventure-filled nights that you just don’t see coming.

The strangeness started as we walked across the parking lot. We saved $5 by parking in the commuter lot across the street from the stadium. I know, I know. But I’d rather spend that $5 at the concert on CDs or something.

Anyway, a parking lot separates the stadium from A.J’s, a mini-golf and go-cart kind of place. We were following a group of guys who apparently were killing time playing skee-ball and air hockey, not really paying any attention to them.

But a guy heard us talking, turned around and asked if we were going to the concert. I thought that it was odd, since there wasn’t a game that night. He said the centerfield gates were closed, and that we’d have to walk around to the front entrance.

"That’s the band right there," he said.

And sure enough, there were several tour buses parked in fronts of the gates where we normally enter. File this information away for later.

Inside, we saw that they had the stage set up right on second base, and the dirt and infield grass covered with plastic, with folding chairs set on top.

We bought tickets for seats in the stands — Andrew worried that he wouldn’t be able to see if we were in a flat place — and seemed pretty far from the action. There was a wide gap between the foul lines where the infield chairs stopped and the stands began. And the sound was pretty rough, too.

Which is not to say that we did not enjoy TobyMac, a Christian rapper/rocker who puts on a great show and has long been one of our favorites.

My son is at that age where he finds me embarrassing, so any dancing or singing is met with great eye-rolling and distancing, lest someone think we are related.

MercyMe started playing and, again, there seemed to be sound problems. It just wasn’t loud enough for my liking. And it definitely wasn’t loud enough to drown out the bored kid and even-more bored mom sitting behind us.

Now, this is one of my pet peeves. Adults, I’ve noticed, don’t behave well at concerts. Nothing is worse than plunking down good money for a show and have people chatting in your ear the entire time. Granted, for a Kiss concert that’s not going to be an issue, since you can scream in your neighbor’s ear and they still won’t hear it.

But for some of the mellower acts, it can be really distracting.

I also noticed that the ushers long stopped caring if people left the stands for the more expensive seats on the infield.

So when the bored ones were no longer deterred by my glares, we decided to move down — and ended up at the very foot of the stage. Andrew was dead center, and I stayed off to the side, at the foot of guitarist Mike Scheuchzer, since there were no other adults in the center and I had already embarrassed my son enough.

Volume isn’t an issue when the PA system is 10 feet away and MercyMe's new album really rocks. I was really getting into it, especially during "No More, No Less," my favorite song on the new CD.

At the end of the show, Andrew asked a roadie for one of the set lists, a paper with the order of songs that bands tape on the floor of the stage so they know what to play. He’s got a pretty good collection of these by now, and loves to get them autographed.

We saw some of the band members lingering with people behind the stage, but were not coming out to sign autographs, as a lot of the Christian bands do.

As we were heading toward the exits through stands, we could see the band members walking across the outfield to the centerfield gates.

Andrew, remembering our encounter on our way in to the show, said "We know where they’re going!" and made a bee-line for the area near the buses.

And sure enough, rounding the corner came the guys from MercyMe, spread out a little as they walked. I stepped way back, and reminded Andrew to be polite when he asked them to sign his set list.

And the band members were happy to sign, which made his day.

Then I noticed Scheuchzer, the guitarist, walking toward me with Barry Graul, the band’s other guitarist.

"This guy was singing every word," he said, pointing to me as they got close.

"Yup, I saw him!" Graul said. "It’s nice when we see that people know the new songs."

We were having a nice chat about the new CD, and how it’s got a harder edge than some of the previous albums and how some earlier songs that are mellow on the discs get a little crunchier in concert.

They both shook my hand and thanked me for being a fan.

Andrew’s eyes were as big as saucers. Cool rock stars wanted to talk to his old man? Sometimes Dad is somewhat cool after all.