Jars of Clay 3/2/2005 Araneta Coliseum, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
That was rock 'n roll.
You can say all you want about the faults of CCM (Contemporary
Christian Music). And you'd probably be right. But don't ever say Jars
of Clay do not know how to rock. Because tonight I experienced
definitive proof to the absolute contrary.
Araneta Coliseum is the biggest popular indoor venue in the
Philippines. It hosts sporting events, mass revivals, circuses, and
more. Tonight it was in rock arena mode. A stage framed by lighting
skeletons took up one end of the bowl. Seats were placed on the bare
concrete floor, usually covered by hardcourt for basketball or
whatever else is necessary.
I was seated in the sixth row. It was a great seat: close enough to
see expressions, right on the aisle, dead center. I sat down and
started fidgeting. I couldn't wait.
Under my seat I'd stashed the pots. No, no, actual pots: earthenware,
raw clay pots, that I'd had in my place for a while. I'd run into Jars
(Dan Haseltine, Steve Mason, and Charlie Lowell) and bass player Aaron
Sands, at the Landmark department store earlier that morning, and
chatted with them while they shopped for souvenirs to take home.
I decided to make them souvenirs. I took the clay pots—mini-pots,
really, about three inches high and two inches in diameter—and drew
sketches of Filipiniana on one side and a Philippine Flag on the
other. I had five pots, so I did that to four of them, hoping somehow
to get them to Dan, Steve, and Charlie, and eventually to the missing
member Matt, home in the States due to a family loss. The fifth I left
blank: if I could get that autographed, that would be mine.
So as I sat before the concert I had these pots in a gift bag under my
chair. That was when I spotted Aaron by the sound booth. I decided to
go over.
"Aaron?"
He saw me and smiled. He remembered. I told him about the little pots
and he said "Oh, sure, I can take them to the guys." I felt bad that I
didn't get him one—he's not "officially" part of the band, but he and
drummer Joe Porter are always the live musicians who travel with
Jars—so I put it in as well. But he said, "No, no problem. I'll get
that autographed for you."
Ten minutes later I spotted him walk out. I hurried from my chair and
caught his attention. With a smile he gave me the little jar of clay
back—autographed by Dan, Steve, and Charlie. Aaron Sands, you are an
outstanding fellow.
The opening act was local rock group Barbie's Cradle. Barbie, its
frontwoman, has a perfect Leigh Nash voice and a hard grrl guitar. I'd
never heard them for real before so it was a great surprise.
Then the lights darkened and the screams began in earnest. The
Coliseum was about half or two-thirds full—about twelve thousand
people I guess. The floor was packed, though, and as Dan, Charlie, and
Steve got into place, everyone flooded into the aisles in front of the
stage.
I was close enough in my chair that I didn't need to join them,
but I didn't sit but once the whole concert.
Jars of Clay fans in the Philippines had ten years of history to
relive, and Jars obliged, with a setlist crammed with songs from every
one of their five studio albums, including gems long forgotten in
Stateside concerts. The band started out with "I Need You" and
followed with "Sunny Days". Dan greeted the wild crowd, getting wilder
by the minute, and whipped them into a frenzy with a rocked-out "Like
A Child."
Without Matt Odmark, the band's sound was extra hard, Steve's electric
guitar doing double duty and his own acoustic performances having to
work both as lead and as rhythm. Of course The Steve was up to it.
The guys looked great. Dan has slimmed down considerably and his long,
wavy, messy hair gave him the air of a Romantic poet. Charlie was
sporting the new Blood:Water shirt, deep blue with red lettering.
Steve's new longer locks and longsleeve button shirt was pure Rock
Star. He took that off later in the concert to reveal his famous "Mama
Tried" tee.
Dan apologized for taking ten years to get to the Philippines, to
which the adoring crowd roared "Yeah!", and said they'd try to make up
for it by playing a lot of old songs.
And did they ever: in close
succession came "Five Candles", again with an amazing hard edge
compared with the album version; and, in a surprise that left me
swooning, "He", one of the most touching songs on the self-titled.
Taking down the amplitude a bit was "Lonely People" and "Frail",
allowing those who wished to sit, to do so. Steve took over at the end
of Frail, ripping off a percolating duet between his electric guitar
and Charlie's piano keyboard.
Dan startled the audience when he started asking about how Filipinos
loved karaoke.
He then said that for this next song, he wanted a
member of the audience to sing lead, since they were singing so many
old songs they forgot the words to. (Steve pointed at Dan to be
exact.) He asked for the audience member by name, and up comes the guy
on stage. Dan then asks for the guy's girlfriend to join him, saying
he couldn't do this alone. Dan gives them the mike, picks up his
tambourine, and then Steve starts the weird mutter at the beginning of
"Unforgetful You".
Well it was awful and delightful. The poor guy was tone deaf, but he
was full of enthusiasm, and Dan did pop in from time to time. And the
audience was loving it, doing the hand claps that are a part of that
song. It was a big hit by the time the song wound up: but it wasn't
over. "I think there's something else we have to do?" Steve said.
Yes, there was.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have an on-stage proposal.
She said yes. Filipinos, being an unashamedly sentimental people, loved it.
"That's what it's all about!" Dan yelled enthusiastically as the
now-betrothed finally exited stage left.
The hard rock edge of the night was never more out front than with the
very first track off the self-titled, "Liquid." The original produced
by Adrian Belew had a Gregorian chant loop in the background; the
Furthermore disc produced an acoustic coffeehouse version; but this
one was rock. Between Dan, Steve, and Charlie's vocals was Steve's
guitar and the all-out rhythm section, Aaron and Joe Porter.
If that rocked-out version was a trip, then what happens when Jars
plays one of their real rock songs? "Crazy Times" sent everyone into a
frenzy. The breakdown ("Try to climb a broken ladder") had Steve
skipping halfway across the stage as Dan fell on his knees. Then Steve
took over, going to the very lip of stage left with full spotlight on
him, as he tore the dome off the stadium with his guitar solo. The
poor Araneta sound system! He nearly ripped it to shreds.
All this followed by Dan's Crazy Times Jump. The crowd whooped and
began to thrash and head-bang. This concert was all about everything
we'd always wanted to see.
It was a surprise when Dan announced they were about to play the one
song they had played practically every concert every year of their ten
years together. "World Apart" is often their encore, but this evening
they made it their centerpiece. It was the short version, without an
extended instrumental at the end; but it began with Dan and Steve
alone and built with Charlie and then the bass and the drums.
Now it so happened that as I'd sat in my seat earlier, I'd seen a nail
on the floor by my shoe. I picked it up. It was a simple common
carpenter's nail, about two inches long. I thought it interesting and
pocketed it.
When Dan went into the impassioned ramble of "Worlds Apart" ("I look
beyond the empty cross/ Forgetting what my life has cost") I figured
it out. I reached into my pocket and took out the nail. It was tangled
in my rosary. As Dan's voice implored and Steve's guitar soared, I
held up my hands, cross in one hand, the nail I'd found in the other,
singing with them, since we all had been singing with them: take my
world apart, take my world apart, take my world.
With all these old songs stirring up memories in all the audience, it
was time to introduce the newest of songs. The crowd uttered a nervous
laugh when Dan announced the words to the next song was written in the
seventeenth century, or the 1700's, one or the other. But, he said,
they'd fiddled with it. This was the new single. Hard, driving rock
was the rule of the concert all night, and hard, driving rock is
exactly what Jars gave in "God Will Lift Up Your Head". Judging from
the screams and the impromptu mosh pit at stage front, it was an
instant hit.
After that it was all ecstasy: "Fly," people swooning at the high note
melody between Dan and Steve; "Show You Love", the big single,
everyone singing along (Dan promising to "get our people to talk to
your people" about the lack of Jars albums in local distribution);
"I'm Alright", Steve's guitar and Charlie's keyboards taking the role
of the original choir, and Dan doing his patented call-and-response
with the audience, thrilling them with the high shrieks and the last
low growl and of course all three of them whistling.
And then came "Flood", which needs no description. Packed floor.
Hysterical fans. Jumping. Singing along. Band feeding off the energy
of the crowd. Hard, hard rock, crunching and thrashing. "Lift me up!
Lift me up! Lift me up!" You could tell the magic of the Filipino
audience had worked on Dan and the others. We're nothing if not
enthusiastic.
After a short and completely unbelievable walk-off (we all knew they
were coming back), up came the encore: "Disappear", chosen probably
because the local music channel had been playing 11live over and over
the past few days; and then, the finale.
I don't know when "Tea and Sympathy" became Philippine Jarkdom's
favorite song; but it had. Dan said, "We've got time for one more
song, all right?" and then sang, "Fare thee well…"
It worked. The pounding rock that dominated the evening melted into
the song's intrinsic balladlike nature. All night long the crowd had
been singing along, and it was no different now; but when they sang
"Don't trade us for tea and sympathy!" with Dan, it was clear they
meant it, and hoped he did too.
Then something happened. Araneta doesn't allow cameras; but everyone
in the Philippines has a cellphone, and throughout the evening, people
had been running up and down taking snapshots with their cameras. So
you would see hands up holding up cellphones, their screens shining in
the darkness. This then happened: people began to turn their phones
around, turn the dim setting to off, and wave them in time to the
music. The girl next to me did this; the people in the next row did
this; I did this. It was fun, I thought; a new 21st-century version of
the impromptu ode, the way people used to do with their own lighters,
the way it just wasn't the same with glowsticks you didn't really own
or care about.
So we waved our cellphones and lost ourselves in the song. And then I
noticed the looks on the guys' faces. And I turned around.
And thousands of little lights were waving, across the floor and up
the steps and up into the decks to the roof.
It was magical.
Nobody got up to applaud Jars of Clay as they took their bow together.
Nobody had been sitting down to begin with. The seats were neglected;
excitement was too strong for folding chairs. Jumping, whistling,
screaming, applauding, Manila gave Jars of Clay an ovation made from
long-awaited joy.
I tried to sneak backstage with the fan club members for the autograph
signing, but wasn't smooth enough. It was all right; I'd already met
them earlier, had a nice talk; with the inestimable help and
graciousness of Aaron Sands, had gotten my gifts to them; and again
thanks to Aaron, had in my pocket a jar of clay signed by Jars of
Clay.
Dan promised it wouldn't be ten years before they came back. We're
holding you to that promise, Dan!
The Setlist (as best as I can remember it)
I Need You
Sunny Days
Like A Child
Love Song For A Savior
Five Candles
Lonely People
He
Frail
Unforgetful You
Liquid
Crazy Times
Worlds Apart (short version)
Fly
God Will Lift Up Your Head
Show You Love
I'm Alright
Flood
Encore:
Disappear
Tea & Sympathy
