Hip House Concerts

Andy and I are once again trying to prove we are young, hip and urban, despite the fact we are old, somewhat out-of-touch and live outside the I-275 belt way. Our latest adventure was attending a “house concert” at our neighbor’s home. It was being organized by her college-age son (who is from Georgia and therefore has few acquaintances in Ohio) and he had tasked her with putting bodies in the room. We eagerly volunteered because we claim to listen to NPR, along with new and alternative music. However, we kept it to ourselves that recently the High School Musical soundtrack has trumped intellectual talk radio and that the last band we can truly say we discovered was Dave Matthews (which, by the way, my tweener nephew has now seen in concert more than me)!

But determined to have a life beyond Disney and our outdated iPod, we got a baby sitter and sat through a two hour acoustic set in her living room played by two up-and-coming artists: Jon Black and Eliot Morris.

It turns out, it was a good show. And as the music industry is shifting from big labels and big concerts to independents and MySpace pages, these house tours fall right inline with making the musical experience that much more intimate. The jury is still out if either of these artists will make it big or if this personal road show will pay off – our donations at the door and money spent on the pampered chef style CD soliciting in the kitchen was probably just enough to cover gas for the next leg of their trip – but we walked away feeling like winners with some modern folk rock for the Matrix and, more importantly, a cool story about hanging out with the band after the show. How many suburban parents do that on a Sunday night?