Why My Baby Smells Like Pot

Thursday night Foxy and I took S-Boogie and Little Dude to the first of this year's Twilight Concert Series at the Gallivan Center in Salt Lake City. I had learned that Michael Franti and Spearhead would be performing at a free concert in SLC a few months ago and spent the intervening time in drooling anticipation. I discovered Michael Franti a couple years ago when I figured Lauryn Hill was likely not going to release a new album any time soon, so if I wanted to listen to something besides her two albums, I'd have to diversify my interests a bit to include other artists. Spearhead is listed on AllMusic.com as a soundalike for the Fugees because they're both hip-hop groups heavily influenced by reggae, soul, and various other non-rap genres, and also because they both have a reputation for being socially and politically conscious. In the case of Michael Franti and Spearhead, this is a ridiculous understatement. Sporting dreadlocks down to his butt and hemp t-shirts, Michael Franti is the epitome of the 21st-century freel0ving, bleeding heart, anti-war, anti-Bush, pro-choice, anti-death-penalty, pro-gay, all-politicians-are-corrupt, down-with-the-establishment, let's-all-get-high-and-love-everyone hippie musician. Basically, he's a perfect match for me.

The funny thing is that I was first interested in MF&S because they were a hip-hop group, but that's not really true anymore. Over the last twelve years they've progressed from reggae-influenced rap music to reggae-influenced rock with just a touch of rap. Their last album and their current one (coming out on July 25th) hardly have any rap at all. Their music is amazing enough, though, that I forgive them for that mishap. The nice thing about their new rock sound is that it makes them much more palatable for Foxy J, as well as pretty much everyone else I know and subject to my music.

At any rate, the concert: Foxy and I were picturing a pleasant little affair sitting on the grass, listening to music. I suspect the Twilight Concert Series is more often along these lines, but we didn't take into account the demographic of SaltLakians who listen to freeloving hippie rock. The Gallivan Center was packed--meaning that finding a place to put our blanket on the grass, even out of sight of the stage, was tricky. Moving at all, for that matter, was tricky. It was refreshing to be reminded that the whole world does not have the clean-cut cookie-cutter look of the entire population of Utah Valley, but we quickly realized that no matter the group, everyone within it looks the same--it's just that the uniform appearance of the hippie subculture of Salt Lake is different from the uniform appearance of the BYU culture of Provo. The other thing that unified this group and distinguished it from our usual surroundings was the required cup of beer in one hand and cigarette in the other. Of course, a large number of little white sticks emitting some form of smoke had nothing to do with tobacco. Hence the unique smell we all came home with. Probably not the sort of atmosphere I want to expose my children to on a regular basis, but for one fun night it was not bad.

The nice similarity between Mormons and hippies is that neither group has any qualms with bringing small children wherever they go, including outdoor concerts. S-Boogie had a blast, whether playing with other kids, trying to escape from her parents in the crowd, or rocking out on my shoulders, waving her hands in the air and singing along with Michael Franti, "Yell fire! Yo, yo yo yo!" Between the convenient distraction of the ultra-cute toddler on my shoulders and the fact that everyone around me was drunk out of their minds, I didn't feel self-conscious at all about dancing and singing along myself. In short, I had a lot of fun.

The music, of course, was great. Michael Franti is a talented performer--I could tell, even from fifty yards away, that he was enjoying himself, and that energy spread to the crowd. He introduced his bandmates as his friends, and I believe it. Doing concerts and making music is not a way for him to make money--in fact he left a major label several years ago in order to make the music he wanted to--but a chance for him to get together with friends and share. This is why the political messages of his songs, which otherwise might seem trite or contrived, come across so poignantly: he believes every word he says, and he cares about everything he talks about. When he decries war in a song, it's because he's been to Iraq and Israel and seen its effects, and it makes him sick. When he sings that "every single soul is a poem / written on the back of God's hand," it's because that's how he sees people, and how he treats them.