I've got soul, but I'm not a soljah

So, James Brown. Yeah. In case you didn't read Chris's posts yet, James Brown played a free concert down at Forsyth Park (4 blocks from us) tonight for SCAD graduation. So we went. There were a lot of people there, as you would imagine, being that James Brown was performing live in downtown Savannah for free. I wasn't really that excited about going, because I'm not really all into James Brown. I know, shoot me, but just because people tell me I'm supposed to revere an artist doesn't mean that I suddenly do. It's not like James Brown's music bothers me; it doesn't offend my senses like Country music does. It just doesn't rock my world. Besides, I've seen him before, at the Alachua County Music Harvest back in college (affectionately known as "Back In The Day"). And he wasn't all that exciting then. So I was expecting more of the same, and I got it.

But since this is my blog and I can say whatever I feel like here, I will elaborate just a little about the experience. And you can't stop me.

James Brown has a PR Announcer who spent the first 15 minutes before The Man came on stage trying to remind us that we really wanted to see him. Really. He just kept yelling "Are you ready for Ja-ay-yay-mes Brown! Jay-ay-ay-ames Brown!" and other sundry things that always ended in a long rendition of his name. I thought the thousands of people crowded around the stage did't need any more convincing that they wanted to see this guy, but apparently James Brown Himself thought it necessary to pay someone to spend 15 minutes before his set telling us how cool he is. So finally he comes on stage and plays a little music. Then the Announcer needs to remind us that we are, indeed, listening to Ja-ay-aymes Brown, just in case we had forgotten. Then The Godfather of Soul told us he was now (after an hour of playing) going to "Get Up And Do My Thang." After he said about a dozen times that he would, indeed, "Do His Thang" some girl in his band asked everyone a few more times if we were ready for James Brown to "do his thang." I guess he wasn't getting enough encouragement. After 10 - 15 minutes of that, he played one more song. Not even a big song that everyone knows. Nothing major at all. And then that was it. I guess "his thang" is to jam for a few minutes and then get off stage. W00t.

Now I guess I can't really complain since I didn't spend any money for this experience. Well, I'm sure Chris's tuition helped out a lot, and we'll be paying that off for a long time. And when I saw him at Harvest he was about 45 minutes late getting on stage anyways, so I should be happy he started on time. But really, when you're The Godfather of Soul and you're as well known as he is, why would you need to pay some guy to spend 30 minutes of your set telling people how great you are? Shouldn't he be secure in his awesomeness by now? At any rate, because I'm easily annoyed, this whole announcer hooplah and lots-of-hype-without-lots-of-performing just ruined any possible enjoyment of the show.

The End.

Since I wasted a lot of space here complaining about the show, I'll wait til tomorrow to ramble about the other stuff on my mind.

(* the title is from a song by The Killers that Chris was playing in the car today)