In part one of this overly complete concert report, I traveled by train into the city for the O.A.R. concert at Madison Square Garden. I took my seat just after the opening act began at 8:00.

The opening act? Matisyahu. (Warning: Home page starts with music.) I had never heard of him before the concert was announced, but he’s apparently very big in some places. Picture a tall and lanky Hasidic Jewish man with long beard, black hat, formal white shirt, and long black jacket on stage with hands moving like Eminem to the beat. Picture him spitting out lyrics faster than a mile a minute — they could have all been in Hebrew for all I was able to recognize.

It was completely bizarre to me in some weird way. He had the crowd’s attention, though. I’ve never seen an opening act to a concert get this much love. Howie Day opened for O.A.R. a couple of years ago and made no fans. He’s a big shot on AC radio and has videos in rotation somewhere now, but even he couldn’t sway a crowd.

Matisyahu? Big hit, with people dancing and bopping all over the place.

And when he did the human beat box routine? The place was enthralled.

I wanted to laugh at the SNL-like moment of it all, but who am I to judge? I own the complete Weird Al Yankovic catalog. And if that ain’t a bizarre anthropological study waiting to happen, I don’t know what is.

It also meant that this was the first time I had ever been to a concert where half the crowd sitting around me were wearing yarmalkes. The two rows in front of me were bussed in from a local synagogue for the concert, I think. They were all together, with chaperones at either end. At the end of the set, they all went back stage. Lucky kids.

(I’m guessing that’s all they were there for. They didn’t return for O.A.R.’s set.)

Matisyahu wrapped up a 45 minute set in high style. I’m guessing the last couple of songs were big hits amongst his fans. They seemed really excited by them, but what do I know?

I know this — rap ain’t my thing. And I couldn’t understand more than the occasional word that spit out of his mouth. But the music behind him was decent to really good. The music did a good job of driving the rap along and providing a hook to latch onto. And if you treat the rapping as a percussive beat, it all blends in fairly well. Heck, I found myself tapping a toe once or twice. It’s an interesting perspective, but it’s not my thing.

O.A.R. appeared on stage at about 9:00 p.m. Their set lasted roughly two and a half hours by my watch — 20 songs in all. I got the feeling the band would have played their entire backlist of songs if they could. That’s the most remarkable thing about the concert — the band was all smiles. As much of an event as it was for the 17,000+ in attendance, I don’t think any of us appreciated it as much as the band members, who frequently could be seen smiling and just looking around at everything. Playing at MSG was a dream of theirs, and it came true last weekend. The smiles were infectious, and the music popped from it. I’ve never heard the band so enthused, and I’ve listened to dozens of these concerts by now.

The crew snapped pictures of it all from all around the stage. Benj - the bass player - was fiddling around with a camera on stage. Marc — the lead singer — took the monitors out of his ears a few times to listen to the crowd singing along. And the ninja tambourine player popped out as he always must on “Love and Memories.”

It was obvious the band was having a lot of fun, and I know I did from 14 rows back.

Next time: The songs, the changes, and more of the crowd.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 9:55 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.