Cathrina Krab

Yesterday I went to a music festival called All Points West, which took place at Liberty State Park in Jersey City. We rode a $15 ferry from Wall street to get there (my loopt friend, apprised of my every move, texted me to ask if I was taking the water taxi to Ikea. Nice try, Sherlock.). Since we started out late that day, and since we spent the time during Animal Collective in the beer “garden,” and since we decided to miss the Roots in favor of staking out our position in front of the Radiohead stage, we only saw two bands that day: Radiohead and the most puzzling, disorienting band I have ever come across — a band called Kings of Leon. As a sidenote, this is also the story of how I am an idiot.

The term, “mind-blowing experience” is often bandied about, used to describe any old thing that is great. For example, bands that sound very good and put on a very good show can sometimes be called “mind-blowing” by a well-meaning but perhaps overenthusiastic fan. This was not the case with Kings of Leon. Nor was it the case that Kings of Leon were even good — they were comfortably in the mediocre-to-somewhat-dismal range, with your standard rock-style songs that tried hard but fell short of being catchy. However, their mediocrity matters less than the fact of their triumph over that most insurmountable of barriers, a triumph so baffling as to be impressive. For you see, Kings of Leon, the band wedged in between Animal Collective and Radiohead, is a CHRISTIAN ROCK BAND. And not just a rock band where the members are Christian. No, a band that plays music in the genre known as Christian Rock. Like, for Jesus.

By the way, I didn’t know any of this when they took the stage. I had heard their name thrown around a lot in relation to other bands, bands that, for lack of a better term, were brands I felt I could trust (an embarrassing and telling sentiment). Taken as That Type of Band, I then heard half of a song and found it completely intriguing. The song sounded so literal, so much like it was trying to create an exact replica of a type of rock music that had only recently become old, without any nods to anything current or slightly new. Far from being turned off by it, I was incredibly excited (and a little nervous) that what I was witnessing must be the future of music — bands that were self-consciously trying to make themselves into museum pieces of a highly specific kind, with no nods or winks to show how ironic they undoubtedly were being. Kings of Leon, I firmly believed, had fully immersed themselves into the roles they were playing, as if they were living in their own mockumentary. You know, like Spinal Tap, but without any of the tell-tale jokes that would give it away to those not already in the know. The fact that the music they were trying to recreate was not to my taste only reinforced my admiration of their highly developed senses of humor. In short, I thought they must be geniuses.

So when the band came on, I was prepared for a certain type of an experience. They played the first song. Ok, I thought. Sure. I get the joke. They played the second song. Hmm, I thought. That’s interesting….what? The third song began. I began to get freaked out. My brain began racing as I started to panic. I don’t understand, I thought. I don’t get what’s happening. The world tilted sideways; everything got surreal. What was going on? Was this band even more brilliant than I had previously suspected, creating a perfect simulacrum of an increasingly specific type of band with breathtaking attention to detail, attitudes, dress, mannerisms, and musical composition? Or was I watching something else, something I didn’t quite understand? Then, towards the end of the third or fourth song, and after I had been staring blankly at the lead singer’s gold cross necklace for a full fifteen minutes (yeah, not too quick), in a blinding flash the Truth revealed itself to me in all Its Glory. Which must mean I have been Saved.

Anyway, once I had my revelation (further confirmed by Fiance Ryan whispering to me a minute later, “they’re a Christian rock band!”), the relief I had from my mental anguish was soon replaced with more questions: how did they get here? What is their deal? Who were these people singing along to the songs? Were they all Christian, or just oblivious, or knew but just liked it anyway? Does liking Christian rock mean you are Christian? (To this last, I’m going to say yes.). Also, the relief was replaced by the excruciating knowledge that we were going to have to stand there another hour and listen to this.

Of course, the most troubling question I had to ask myself was, really, how did I dupe myself? Am I really that credulous, that willing and eager to believe that shit is gold just because I believed it had credibility by association? That when faced with the band itself, I thought it more plausible that they had constructed an elaborate meta-reality of knowing fake-shittiness, rather than admit what in the normal world is the only explanation that passes the Occam’s Razor test — that Kings of Leon is just a regular, shitty, Christian rock band? Clearly, some soul-searching is in order.

As a final note, the lead singer did the sign of the cross over the crowd about 45 minutes into the set. Ryan told me he found this offensive, and I agreed.