The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, September 20, 2017 — 5A
Arts
FOREIGN FAMILY COLLECTIVE
Paramore commands the
crowd at the Fox Theater
At first, the screaming was
so deafening that for a moment
I was actually afraid.
Then the moment passed,
and I remembered where I was
and what was going on. I was
at a concert. The intermission
after the opening act of Best
Coast was over, and all seven
members of Paramore had just
run out onto the stage.
Paramore
is
tied
to
an
interesting
brand
of
fan
culture. Older bands typically
spearhead devoted groups of
longtime listeners, many of
whom know the band’s history
and
can
list
every
album
chronologically, whereas the
concerts of more recent groups
are often attended by younger
fans who are primarily excited
about material from the last
few years. Paramore walks the
line comfortably between these
two groups, which is part of
why their concerts are always
so much fun: there are people
who just started listening to
them (thanks to singles like
“Ain’t It Fun” and “Still Into
You”), and people who have
followed their journey all the
way back since Riot!, and even
All We Know Is Falling.
No matter which side of the
aisle you fall on, though, the
level of energy at their live
shows is undeniable.
The pop punk band kicked
off
Friday
night’s
concert
with “Hard Times,” the foot-
stomping
single
off
their
newest album, After Laughter.
From
there
they
plunged
straight through consecutive,
roof-raising performances of
hits like “Ignorance,” “Still
Into You” and “Daydreaming.”
The show never seemed to
falter — Paramore has so many
catchy songs from so many
successful records that every
opening
chord
progression
seemed to throw the crowd
into a frenzy. The band skated
easily
between
their
own
songs, with equal enthusiasm
for older hits like “That’s What
You Get” as for newer ones like
“Forgiveness” and “Brick By
Boring Brick.”
Hayley Williams herself was
a force of inexorable energy.
She strutted around the stage,
flipped her hair and weight-
lifted the microphone stand
with one hand, all without
losing the dynamic force of her
vocal performance.
The entire night, Williams
commanded an intriguing and
telling presence, in that the
audience’s mood always felt
mirrored to her own. When
she was on her feet, jumping
and shouting along to her
own lyrics, so was everyone
else; people cheered at the
top of their lungs, and bouncy
balls pinballed around the
lower level of the theater. And
when she settled back down
momentarily to thank us for
coming and to talk about her
feelings, we settled, too.
“This is one of those nights
where it feels like you don’t
know how this happened, it’s
like it’s not deserved,” she said.
“It feels like a really special
night to talk about feelings.”
There were a few intimate
moments like this. Part of it
came through the music itself
— during slower songs like “26”
and “Hate to See Your Heart
Break,”
audience
members
closed their eyes and swayed,
waving the lights from their
phones back and forth in the
air. But a big part of it came
from Williams herself; every
sentence she uttered came off
as truly genuine, and when she
talked to the audience as one
might a friend, she managed
to
make
even
The
Fox’s
huge venue seem intimate.
When she spoke of the band’s
appreciation for how far their
fans have taken them since
Riot!, one got the sense that
she really was speaking from
the heart.
“I want you to close your eyes
and imagine yourself ten years
ago,” she said at one point.
“Ten years ago, it was 2007 —
that’s math — and it was a very
different time, especially for
good old bands like us. And we
just so happened to put out our
second record, it was called
Riot!, that year, and we set
out across the United States of
America on the Warped Tour
... And it was beautiful because
that year, we met so many of
you. It was a big year for us.”
By the time the show was
over, there were plenty of
fun moments to look back on:
a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s
“Everywhere,”
the
moment
Paramore invited a fan onstage
to sing the end of “Misery
Business” and the fact that
they dedicated the show, “like
every show we play in Detroit,”
to a fan named Papa Smurf
who once gave Williams a pair
of earrings in 2005. But what
resonated perhaps the most
was the band’s genuine effort
to include the audience in the
fun of the performance as
much as they could.
Williams
closed
out
the
encore by introducing the rest
of the performers: Justin York,
Logan McKenzie, Joe Mullen,
Joey Howard, Taylor York and
Zac Farro. “And all together,
we represent something that’s
bigger than each one of us
alone,” she finished. “So who
are we?”
And
when
the
audience
shouted
back,
“We
are
Paramore!” it sounded as if, in
that moment, everyone in the
whole theater was telling the
truth.
LAURA DZUBAY
Daily Arts Writer
Paramore
Fox Theater
Friday,
September
15
CONCERT REVIEW
REPUBLIC
In pursuit of self agency: ‘I
and Love and You’ and me
Whenever life starts to get
a little too heavy and days
start to feel a little too long, I
have a propensity to lose sight
of myself. My interests, my
footing, my breath — they all
just evaporate in this haze of,
“Why does everything always
have to happen at once?” It’s
paralyzing,
this
feeling
of
being in a funk but also needing
to conquer the world. It’s in
these times, this time, that I
often turn to a certain pair of
brothers to pluck me out.
Directed by Judd Apatow
and Michael Bonfiglio, the
documentary “May it Last: A
Portrait of the Avett Brothers”
trails the band during the
making of their 2016 album
True Sadness. It’ll hit HBO in
early 2018, and it had a one-
night-only showing on Tuesday,
Sept. 12 at various theaters
across the country. God bless
the Michigan Theater for being
one of them.
The
summer
after
I
graduated from high school (I
sincerely wish I could refer to
a less cliché time in my life),
I saw the Avett Brothers, an
Americana group, live. Despite
having seen half of their set at a
festival in 2015, I wasn’t super
into their music yet. But in
this setting, at that particular
point in my life, something
shifted. I felt so out of control
of my future that I just let their
performance move me. I can’t
say I went home that night and
cried, because “cried” isn’t
a strong enough word. I was
weeping.
That whole summer was
full of hesitation, and it was an
introduction to varying degrees
of sadness and self-doubt that
I hadn’t known before. Even
with close friends, I had always
felt a little out of place. My
high school experience was
somewhat
unconventional,
and there were moments when
it got pretty lonely. When I
listened — really listened — to
the Avett Brothers that night,
it was as if this whole new
dimension of life just opened
itself for me.
Fearlessness, love, sorrow,
heartbreak, freedom, agency
— all of these feelings were
just sitting there, waiting for
me to claim them. They turned
into possibilities and dreams
and finally, thank whoever’s
up there helping me out, I was
awake for them.
Now, almost a year and a
half later, this documentary
about the Brothers comes out.
I know they don’t know me,
and they didn’t know I needed
them, but it’s really like they
knew I needed them. The Avett
Brothers are my reset button.
Hearing their writing process
and
seeing
the
dynamic
between Seth and Scott, I felt
like myself again.
From
“Open
Ended
Life” from Magpie and the
Dandelion,
2013:
“I
spent
my
whole
life
talking
to
convince everyone / That I was
something else / And the part
that kind of hurts / Is I think it
finally worked.”
These lyrics are poignant
and eloquent on a level I can
only ever hope to reach. I
started to think of all these
moments when I got hurt by
vibrating on everyone else’s
frequency but my own. It’s not
worth it. I keep having this
same revelation, and someday
I hope it sticks (maybe that’s
what my thirties are for). Until
the time comes, I have this
album to revisit whenever the
chain tugs at me.
My dear love, my aching
pain, my loyal friend: “I and
Love and You.” The Avett
Brothers wreck me like no
one else can, and this album,
this song, these lyrics, are the
epicenter of this.
“Dumbed down and numbed
by time and age / Your dreams
to catch the world, the cage /
The highway sets the traveler’s
stage / All exits look the same /
Three words that became hard
to say / I and love and you.”
I’ll
repeat
it
over
and
over again until the world
stops spinning: I and love
and you. They’re lyrics that
have grown with me and will
eternally continue to do so.
From big dreams, to baby
dreams, to crushed dreams,
this
documentary
fed
me
perspective, and it showed me
how to breathe again — grateful
and boundless.
So, I’ll go. I’ll listen to
“Head Full of Doubt / Road
Full of Promise” and start
living the visions I drum up
when times gets hectic and
I feel inadequate. I’ll listen
to “Murder in the City” and
remember my mom and how
much I miss eating her food
and watching “Gilmore Girls”
together. I’ll listen to “True
Sadness”
and
let
myself
experience pure moments of
just that. I just listen, and my
heart thanks me.
ARYA NAIDU
Daily Arts Writer
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
“First
They
Killed
My
Father,” directed by Angelina
Jolie (“By the Sea”) is one
of
the
most
heartbreaking
movies
of
the
year. Telling the
autobiographical
story
of
Loung
Ung
(who
co-wrote
the
screenplay
with
Jolie and wrote
the memoir upon
which
the
film
is
based)
and
featuring
an
all-Cambodian
cast, the film is an epic and
disturbing recreation of one of
the most horrifying events of
the 20th century.
Beginning in 1975, the film
chronicles the story of Loung
Ung and her family as they
are forced to deal with an
increasingly
terrible
series
of events due to the rise of
the communist regime of the
Khmer Rouge. Fearing they will
be targeted due
to their family’s
connections
to
the
previous
government,
they flee to the
countryside
where they end
up forced to work
in a series of labor
camps. The family
is slowly torn apart as the
genocide ramps up its terror.
Films
about
genocide
are tricky. With a personal
investment in this story, Jolie
fills every frame of the film
with this sense of hopelessness
and
confusion
that
is
as
unnerving as it is compelling.
The audience will find itself
hard-pressed to look away as
the atrocities begin to pile
up and the sadness of the
characters’s situation begins to
hit home. The music by Marco
Beltrami (“The Hurt Locker”)
imbues the film with a sense
of terror as well as a sense of
scale.
The scale of this film is
stunning.
Aerial
shots
of
thousands of people walking
convey
the
sheer
number
of
people
affected
by
the
Cambodian genocide in a way
that forces the audience to
grapple with the subject matter
, and realize what it would be
like to be forced from your
home and lose everyone and
everything that ever mattered
to you.
This is not a happy film. It is
not a film you watch to “enjoy”
in any real sense of the word. It
is a film that forces its audience
to look inside themselves and
ask why their country didn’t
do anything, why their country
should’ve done something and
if either they or their country
are doing anything now. There
are terrible atrocities in the
vein of the genocides of the
20th century being committed
around the world today and by
and large the western world
is content to deal with its own
problems
and
do
nothing.
In light of that, “First They
Killed My Father” is not just
an extremely important film
but
also
extremely
timely
one. As extremist groups of
all kinds continue to cause
terror and fear all across the
globe it is important now more
thAn ever not to forget what
happened in Cambodia in the
’70s. Americans did not pay
any attention then. With “First
They Killed My Father,” Jolie
and Ung are doing their part to
make sure that this time, they
will.
IAN HARRIS
Daily Arts Writer
NETFLIX
‘They Killed My Father’
proves disturbing & tragic
“First They
Killed My
Father”
Netflix
FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW