I'm converted.

Posted by Jordan

I just took Jaicee to see Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. I loved their music before, but now I feel as though I have reached a new level of enlightenment. This band is incredible. Their concert in the humble Kent Concert Hall on the USU campus was perhaps the best concert I have ever experienced!

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most experienced concertgoer. I have, however, seen a few bands. Some of them were pretty big names. But this was the best show of them all.

Now, you have to understand which criteria I am using to pass such a judgment: First of all, this was not a huge venue. It did not have fog machines and a laser show. There was not, in fact, a lights show at all. There were not pyrotechnics. Nobody was lifted off the stage to fly over the audience by invisible cables. There was not an irrigation system above the stage that created indoor rain... in brief, it was not a Las Vegas show. And if a Las Vegas "show" is your idea of a good concert, then this might have disappointed you. (But I still think they would have won you over.) There was nothing about this concert that could not have been performed in your own living room... well, okay, it would have to be larger than a living room. But if they could fit the whole band and the drum set somehow between your sofa and entertainment center, they still could have pulled off the most incredible show you've ever seen.

Thing is, these guys have personality and stage presence like I've never seen. They were hilarious, they were animated, they got the crowd going, they pulled you in, they got you singing and dancing and screaming for more. And, if their humor, energy, and stage antics were not enough, these guys are hands down the most musically talented individuals I have seen perform. MASTERS of anything strummed, plucked, or pounded upon, I tell you! Many times tonight their insanely smoking-hot, string-busting solos caused me to involuntarily erupt in to giggles like a child that is being tickled against his will. They also pulled some novelty stunts with their instruments that blew my mind. If you get the chance to talk to me sometime, I'll tell you about it.

Better yet, go to their concert. The next one you can find.

I have heard tales of a few famous groups whose music is, in fact, created by the producer and not by the band. Oh, sure, in the studio the band members may actually play their instruments and/or sing into the microphone, but then the recording is filtered, trimmed, layered, highlighted, and whatever else they do to it to make it more a product of technology than anything else. But on stage, these groups stink. They can't actually reproduce live the same sound that they constructed on the album. If they do, it's because they are singing to a prerecorded backup track.

Then there are bands that put out albums only to satiate their fans between concerts, because something is better than nothing, even though their live performance cannot possibly be captured by a studio recording. Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband is one of the latter.

The only reason these guys are not one of the most popular bands in mainstream America right now, as we speak, is simply because they are not mainstream. Sorry you Top-40 fans. They have a fiddle, mandolin, and banjo in the band. But make you no mistake: although they may have bluegrass instrumentation, they can rock your socks off. (Right after they sing an ode to corn dogs.)

They mentioned at the concert tonight that they are doing a Christmas concert at UVU in Orem on December 6. I'm calling my secretary first thing in the morning to have her call off my meetings and clear my schedule...