RIGA - Oh dear. It had seemed like such a great show at the time. But as soon as I started listening to the recently released "Youth Choir Concert at Skonto Stadium" CD (Microphone Records), I realized this was a classic case of "you had to be there." In fact, I might even go further. The CD is so abominable that it made me wonder if I had really been there at all.
When the 23rd Latvian Song Festival took place this summer, the event's organizers decided they needed to somehow endear the nation's MTV-loving youth to it. To this end, they staged a vast youth choir concert at Skonto Stadium, which involved a monstrously large choir of some 1,800 teenagers and just about every pop star in the country.
The epic concert lasted for over three hours on a gloriously warm evening. The stadium was packed out, and, needless to say, a certain helmet-haired president was regally tapping her feet up in the VIP box. Perhaps it was the warm weather, perhaps it was the beer, perhaps it was the infectious enthusiasm of my friend, but either way I had a whale of a time. Or so I thought.
To begin with, so much of the spectacle and the emotion are lost on the CD. It had been quite something to see the vast color coordinated choir swaying with their hands up en mass, singing their little hearts out. But listening to it all again on CD turned out to be a strange exercise in the subjectivity of memory.
The songs simply sound awful out of context. It's like schlager meets karaoke on an unprecedented scale. The music is so woefully banal that it even manages to make Eurovision seem avant-garde in comparison. Just how much beer did I drink that night?
From 21 tracks, only four didn't make me convulsively lurch toward the eject button on my CD player. Ozols raps out a pretty moving version of the classic "Davaj'a Marina," putting on his best Pardaugava-cum-Bronx voice to urge the crowd "Viss kopa!" (all together!).
"Tik un ta" (This and That) is a lovely, lilting, melodic number that embodies some of the best qualities of Latvian folk music. President-in-waiting Renars Kaupers was also there to sing the BrainStorm anthem "Tu izvelejies palikt," (Welcome to my Country) always a sure cue for the audience to whip out their lighters and set the night ablaze with patriotic fervor.
But for me, the highlight of the whole concert was the song "Balade par gulbi" (Ballad for a Swan) for its sublime lyric: "It's stupid to kill a swan, but it's even more stupid to feel bad about it."
If you're a diehard fan of Latvian music, drop me a line and I'll gladly give you my copy. It's stupid to criticize a CD, but it's even more stupid not to get rid of it.
