Concert Review: Grey Gersten’s Gives A 9 Hour Show To Heal The Soul
I begin my review with an analogy on vapor rub. When you think of vapor rub it is an icy medicine that seemingly cools into fiery pain. The irony is that if the pain is not there to counter, clash, and eventually give into its coolness then the vapor rub’s soothing balm feels annoying or unnecessary. Yet, you only reach for the vapor rub because the pain is as much a guarantee as the cure. They are destined to fight and give each other purpose. In essence, Grey Gersten’s 9 hour concert at The Emily Harvey Foundation felt like the music vapor rub to my soul.
I know that comparing someone to vapor rub might be strange, but I am not known as normal, and nor is Gersten. His elaborate and extensive career ,from The Eternal Lips to now, his solo debut album, Naked Lights, has been a journey of defining music and humanity as one. In between acts of comedians and fellow artists, Gersten appeared like The Grand Wizard of OZ, of which two flight of green stairs were, symbolically, your yellow brick road to his magical resolve. As grown adults sat on the floor like class was in session, Gersten’s music appeared like a series of lessons from the most intriguing teacher. He played straight through his album tracks like, “Strange Love” and “The Planet Is Doomed”, where the intimacy between his voice and the guitar drew up a beautiful sadness in me. Something about being in a blank room with only Gersten to serenade us made me fully absorb the genius and work that Gersten puts into his music. He does not just put sounds together, but sentiments, particularly, hopelessness. Seeing such darkness clash with lightning of his guitar reminded me, in an odd way, of vapor rub, but, again, my mind is not known for being normal. Still, my analogy fits as one to explain that Gersten feels so rich because he speaks to how poor we, as persons, can feel. If my pain was not there then his music medicine, meant to cool the fires of hurt, would not be powerful.
Having a 9 hour concert was a unique experience that, frankly, I am trying to absorb for its difference. While some in-between acts worked, others did not, but you had 9 hours to bear the highs and lows, while also realizing that, ultimately, Gersten was the highest. No matter how good or bad a fellow artist, Gersten was always the best because he came in like a whimsical breather. Once he started to play and sing in his wrought voice, you felt like you were re-gathering and processing from all that you had seen and felt. His vocals are made to make you lay out in the grass of your mind, and try to observe how you could be apart and so different from nature; a notion Naked Lights, definitely, plays with. For More Information On Grey Gersten Click Here.
