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Feb. 24th, 2016 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI saw Josh Ritter play on Sunday at the Union Transfer in Philadelphia. It's my fourth time seeing him play, after shows apparently in '09, '08, and '06... so I haven't seen him in half a decade, but I've been listening to his music for fifteen years and seeing him live for more than ten. I really enjoyed getting to see him again. I had a grin on my face all night. So, for that matter, did he. Ritter's concert affect has always been amazingly inclusive. He smiles with his whole face and jumps up and down and dances around and spontaneously announces how excited he is to be there, and it's an infectious sort of enthusiasm that pulls you into his joy.
The last snow from our snowpocalypse had melted literally the day before the show, turned away by a miraculous 60 degree day. Everyone at the show knew that "Snow is Gone" had to be part of the set, and it was, and everyone cheered loudly every time it came to the chorus. And the fact that everyone knew was another part of why I was so happy to be at this show. Ritter has released 8 albums over fifteen years, and "Snow is Gone" is the fourth or fifth best song on his third album (I put "Bright Smile", "Bone of Song", "Kathleen", and "Wings" ahead of it). A Josh Ritter concert is one of the few concerts I can go to where I have that deep a knowledge of an artist's full catalog, and it was really cheering how many others could say the same thing, cheering how everyone was singing along to the even older "Monster Ballads", and not just singing along, but getting anticipatorily excited when we knew a particularly good lyric was coming ("I was thinkin' 'bout what Katy done/ Thinkin' about what Katy did".) Ritter, too, seemed to get anticipatorily excited for the good lyrics on his old albums. The new songs he played with impressive power, but the older songs, the old friends, he kicked around just for kicks.
And there was new pleasure in the new songs. I felt a little self-conscious dancing in my yarmulke along to "Jesus hates your high school dances." The faith Ritter is always debating rejecting in his music is a Christian faith, but what I love about "Getting Ready to Get Down" is how grounded it is in the Tanakh as a source of religious inspiration to oppose bad religion. By spending time at Bible college, the protagonist learns about "Infidels, Jezebels, Salomes and Delilahs." She learns that sex is part of the Bible, that good religion is not afraid of confronting it and asking tough questions about what it means and what its purpose is within God's plan. And that's an approach that is profoundly contained within my understanding of Jewish mesorah. In any case, it was a blast to dance along to.
Though I wonder... early Ritter has allusions to "monster ballads and the stations of the cross," and mid-era Ritter conceptualizes his faith as a thin blue flame because 'only a full house gonna have a prayer". "Sermon on the Rocks" sees Ritter channeling "Sympathy for the Devil", particularly on "Birds of the Meadow" ("Didn't come to roll no stones away, no./I've come to tell you that the end is nigh./ I've come to prophesize"). It's clear Ritter's been on a journey of faith, and judging from recent results it doesn't appear that faith has been winning lately.
The one thing Ritter's faith in still seems clear is the power of performance and music as transformative experiences. Even if it's not clear that he can still summon the tentative but glorious faith of his early songs, he still sings them with everything he's got, trusting that they have value for his audience. Seeing him perform again was an absolute pleasure.
The last snow from our snowpocalypse had melted literally the day before the show, turned away by a miraculous 60 degree day. Everyone at the show knew that "Snow is Gone" had to be part of the set, and it was, and everyone cheered loudly every time it came to the chorus. And the fact that everyone knew was another part of why I was so happy to be at this show. Ritter has released 8 albums over fifteen years, and "Snow is Gone" is the fourth or fifth best song on his third album (I put "Bright Smile", "Bone of Song", "Kathleen", and "Wings" ahead of it). A Josh Ritter concert is one of the few concerts I can go to where I have that deep a knowledge of an artist's full catalog, and it was really cheering how many others could say the same thing, cheering how everyone was singing along to the even older "Monster Ballads", and not just singing along, but getting anticipatorily excited when we knew a particularly good lyric was coming ("I was thinkin' 'bout what Katy done/ Thinkin' about what Katy did".) Ritter, too, seemed to get anticipatorily excited for the good lyrics on his old albums. The new songs he played with impressive power, but the older songs, the old friends, he kicked around just for kicks.
And there was new pleasure in the new songs. I felt a little self-conscious dancing in my yarmulke along to "Jesus hates your high school dances." The faith Ritter is always debating rejecting in his music is a Christian faith, but what I love about "Getting Ready to Get Down" is how grounded it is in the Tanakh as a source of religious inspiration to oppose bad religion. By spending time at Bible college, the protagonist learns about "Infidels, Jezebels, Salomes and Delilahs." She learns that sex is part of the Bible, that good religion is not afraid of confronting it and asking tough questions about what it means and what its purpose is within God's plan. And that's an approach that is profoundly contained within my understanding of Jewish mesorah. In any case, it was a blast to dance along to.
Though I wonder... early Ritter has allusions to "monster ballads and the stations of the cross," and mid-era Ritter conceptualizes his faith as a thin blue flame because 'only a full house gonna have a prayer". "Sermon on the Rocks" sees Ritter channeling "Sympathy for the Devil", particularly on "Birds of the Meadow" ("Didn't come to roll no stones away, no./I've come to tell you that the end is nigh./ I've come to prophesize"). It's clear Ritter's been on a journey of faith, and judging from recent results it doesn't appear that faith has been winning lately.
The one thing Ritter's faith in still seems clear is the power of performance and music as transformative experiences. Even if it's not clear that he can still summon the tentative but glorious faith of his early songs, he still sings them with everything he's got, trusting that they have value for his audience. Seeing him perform again was an absolute pleasure.