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Return of the Freak: Kevin Max live at the Beverly Hills Hard Rock Cafe, 09/26/03Oct 05 '03 (Updated Oct 08 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Sure, he plays a lot of unfamiliar material and he's hard to sing along to... but Kevin Max always strives to make his live shows unique, and that's what counts.
Date: Thursday, September 26, 2003 Performers: Kevin Max with Christa Black Venue: Hard Rock Café, Beverly Hills, CA Ticket Price: $10 (club cover charge) Kevin Max is a freak. Don't worry, I'm not putting him down by saying this. Anyone who's ever been to a dc Talk concert before can probably attest to this. Sure, it may have been Toby Mac who actually had a hand in composing the group's smash hit "Jesus Freak", but Kevin came to embody the term soon after that. Kevin became the "soul" in the group's equation of "rap, rock and soul", and his unique crooning style, combined with his flair for poetry and his penchant for making off-the-wall comments in front of an audience, conspired to make sure that no one could completely understand (or sing along with) his words. A few years ago, I might have considered these things an annoyance, a slight imbalance in the force. But with the release of each of the three members' solo albums in 2001, Kevin very quickly attained the status of being my favorite dc Talk member, as opposed to my least favorite. There was something about the songs and the odd pairing of musical styles on Stereotype Be that grabbed a hold of me and wouldn't let go. It was like a light bulb came on, and I suddenly understood Kevin. (For the most part, anyway.) Of course, understanding an artist and liking them as a live performer are two different things. After being teased by a short solo set from each member during dc Talk's last tour, I had to confess that I still enjoyed Tait's live show the most out of the three. But Kevin was still the one who intrigued me the most. He managed to effortlessly mix random covers in with material from his album, and make it all work rather seamlessly., which I guess was a testament to the different sides of his personality. I wanted a chance to hear more of the stuff from his album, though. So when I found out he'd be playing at the Hard Rock Café in Beverly Hills, I jumped at the chance to take my girlfriend out for a special evening of music. No huge invite lists to groups of friends this time, no complex carpooling situations and frenzied scrambles to find space for us all to sit together... just the two of us in a small restaurant, standing a mere three feet from a man who I was used to seeing play for thousands of screaming fans. I suppose I should take a minute to describe the setting. Having never been to any of the Hard Rock's establishments before, I wasn't sure what to expect. Imagine a small restaurant/bar combo with music paraphernalia all over the walls, and TV screens showing an interesting mishmash of popular music videos past and present (so that's what U2 looked like when I was six years old!), and you've got the general idea. The stage was in the corner with a few booths behind it (they actually block this area off when live music is playing), and since I was mistaken regarding the time of Kevin's set (I had thought 7 and it turned out he wasn't up until after 10), we had quite a bit of time to kill. I felt a bit foolish for requesting a table near the stage when no one was going to be playing until a few hours later... but oh well. My girlfriend and I made the best of it and had a leisurely dinner (fairly standard for a slightly upscale but not ridiculously expensive American restaurant), and spent some time in between window shopping at the Beverly Center next door. Our interestingly dressed waitress was wonderfully accommodating with all of our questions about who was playing and when, and how much it would cost us to get back in (entry during dinner hours is free, but there's a $10 cover charge to see the bands, which to me was worthwhile). It turned out that Kevin didn't come on until around 11. His opening act, Christa Black, held things up with a lengthy sound check, and during that time we actually spotted Kevin standing around and talking to random people. (He was hard to miss with his bleached hair and pink tie.) We decided not to go up and bug him at that point (we were sitting at the bar having dessert), figuring we'd get a chance to talk to him after the show. We actually turned out to enjoy Christa's music once she finally got underway - she opened and closed her set with some mean violin playing and a half-song intro/reprise that reminded me quite a bit of Jennifer Knapp. During most of the set she played acoustic guitar, and she struck us as the usual folk/rock chick who liked to write songs about traveling and boys with vague spiritual references in them. I didn't think she was in any way connected to Kevin, actually, since the Café had four different performers on the bill that night and I figured they had all been scheduled independently, but I started to catch on that she had some association with the Christian music industry when she mentioned being out here earlier in the year with "Michael W.", which I figured meant Michael W. Smith. Turns out I had seen her twice before, playing violin at the MWS/Third Day show I attended in May, and also for Jennifer Knapp last year. This was her first time performing her solo material in L.A. - she doesn't have any CD's available just yet as far as I know. Anyway, I found her guitar-based songs to be fairly derivative, but still enjoyable with the help of her backing band. I can't remember any titles except for a humorous little treatise on a boy who treated her like a queen but never loved her, entitled "Why Did You Have to Be Gay?" Now that's not the type of song you hear from a Christian singer everyday! Little things like this made Christa a good choice for an opening act for Kevin - this was in no way billed as a "Christian" concert, and the crowd certainly wasn't like your typical "Christian" crowd (nor were they drunk and rowdy or anything), and due to those factors, it was a much more comfortable environment for everyone involved - including the artists, who didn't have to feel like someone would slap their hands for enjoying a drink or using a little PG-13 humor. Let's see someone try that on the next Michael W. Smith tour. Alright, so enough of the miscellany... on with Kevin's set. Kevin and his three-piece band took the stage with little fanfare - he was basically waiting off on the sidelines to be introduced. No flashy lighting, no pre-recorded tracks - just the rumble of Eric Cole's guitar to lead off a raw version of "Return of the Singer". Ironically, that's probably the least unique thing about Kevin as a performer - he'll forever be starting off his shows with the first track on his album. If you've never experienced Kevin live before, he has an interesting was of dancing and making jerky motions as he moves around the stage (how he does it without tripping over any wires is beyond me), and he'll often change the words to his songs unexpectedly or interject little side comments. As I mentioned earlier, this makes singing along difficult, but it also makes people pay attention because they're not exactly sure what he'll do or say next. And the people were definitely attentive. By the end of the first song, they had crowded around us and were dancing around and having a good old time. My girlfriend snapped what pictures she could before the crowd swallowed us whole, but even then we were still only a few feet from the stage, which actually made it weird when he would come down and look his audience in the eye as he stood and sang right in front of them. After years of performing, I guess he's not particularly shy, and in a place like the Hard Rock, it was easy to feel like he was probably looking into the eyes of some of his most devoted fans (he mentioned that according to SoundScan, L.A. has been the city where the most people were buying his record - he actually lives out here now.) Aside from "Return", we got a handful of other notable tracks from Stereotype Be - "Existence", "Angel Without Wings", and the ad lib-friendly "Blind". These songs sounded a bit scant without the piano, electronics, and Eastern-style strings (respectively) that gave them personality on the album, but the band did their best to make up for that by giving the songs a rockier backdrop that actually suited Kevin's stage presence quite well. He's the kind of guy who knows he's not a big rock star in global terms, but he loves to act the part even when playing for a hundred people. It's kind of a role-playing thing and it gives his songs a little extra punch. He also seems to love to pay tribute to the musicians who inspired him on the way, whether it be by way of a cover song, or just a stylistic shift like the Frank Sinatra-esque bridge of "Angel Without Wings" (sure, the album version sounds more cohesive, but part of Kevin's charm is that he likes to be weird and change things up unexpectedly - even if I was prepared for this because he did it last time I saw him, too). I was a bit bummed that he stuck to pretty much the same songs he had played in his short set last time around - it would've been nice to hear some more musically interesting songs like "Dead End Moon" or "The Secret Circle" reinterpreted with a live band - but no worries, Kevin and co. had the goods to make up for it. Those goods, of course would be some new material. Kevin let the first new song out of the bag early - it was a punchy pop/rock tune called "Seek", which employed some interesting metaphors to describe the "hide and seek" game that man seems to play with God. Surprisingly, that song's chorus was a rather straightforward paraphrase of the "Seek and ye shall find" passage from the Bible - something unusual for Kevin, and for a minute I suspected that ForeFront Records had pressured him into throwing Christian radio a bone at least once on his new album. But then I remembered that Kevin was no longer with ForeFront. He actually addressed this when explaining why he didn't have any copies of Stereotype Be available to sell that night. He said his record label let him go because he had "too many thoughts". Funny thing, the Christian music subculture. It doesn't tend to encourage uniqueness and thinking for oneself - which are pretty much the core values expressed on Stereotype Be, and which will likely crop up again on Between the Fence and the Universe (that's the working title for the new disc). New material from that album also included "21st Century Darling" (I may not be remembering the title exactly right on that one), a feisty rocker with verses in 11/8 time that had something to do with time travel, "Camera", a solo piano piece about people-watching in a coffeeshop, and "Irish Hymn for the Masses", a mid-tempo anthem designed to honor Kevin's heritage and to encourage all the little people out there not to let themselves be squelched by the big guy. The band (which included a bass player and drummer borrowed from Luna Halo) really ripped into the new material, and I'm hoping the rockier side of Kevin's personality gets committed to tape this around - as much as I loved Stereotype Be, its one weakness was thin production on the songs that really seemed to want to let loose. As mentioned earlier, no KMax show would be complete without a few interesting covers. Aside from the Sinatra bit during "Angel Without Wings", he also provided us with an interesting take on the old folk song "Greensleeves" (you know the tune, it was lifted for the Christmas carol "What Child Is This?"), which Kevin also performed on the piano all by himself, segueing neatly into U2's obscure ballad "October". Kevin is definitely one of the most U2-obsessed performers in Christian music - it seems he can't get through a show without a reference to U2, and at times you'd swear he wished he were Bono. Too bad I never got the chance to hear him cover "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me". The encore (which may or may not have been planned) featured just Kevin and Eric, softly picking out a fluid melody on his electric guitar while Kevin fused together "Hallelujah" (you know, the song they used in that sad scene in Shrek) and the old Evlis Presely standard "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You". "Hallelujah" seems to carry deep personal significance for Kevin - he seems to play it at every show, and it's almost as if he wishes he had written it, or at least beat Jeff Buckley to the chance to popularize it. I can see why Kevin likes it as well - it weaves together musical terminology and some clever rhymes with Biblical metaphors that ring true (i.e. they're too honest for Christian radio) and a heartbreaking melody. Of course, that song is also a showpiece for Kevin's voice, which pretty much goes all over the place, bending and warping each "Hallelujah" into a passionate cry that communicates a deeper understanding of the word. In addition to being a great performer, Kevin is no slouch when it comes to speaking. For all of his rock-star antics, he's actually quite mellow when he speaks - and funny in a dry, witty sort of way. He didn't waste our time with long, esoteric rants that only a theology student could begin to grasp or anything, but he did come off as a man who was not ashamed of his faith, but who also wasn't going to bend to the stringent guidelines of the industry that liked him better as one-third of dc Talk. He made a humorous comment about being "God's little Frankenstein", and later expressed admiration for Frank Zappa (whose picture he had seen on the wall) by calling him a fellow freak and affirming that God loved him too. It's refreshing, and all too uncommon, to hear Christians speak casually about matters of faith from stage. Either you have your hardcore "We're gonna proclaim the Gospel in its entirety during every show even if it means the audience gets short-changed by about three songs" bands that end up mostly preaching to the choir, or you have those "Christians in a band" scenarios where often times, they'd rather not say anything at all about their faith for fear of being mislabeled. With Kevin, it comes off a lot more as "This is an integral part of my life so of course I'm going to mention it" type of thing. He's not out to convert mass numbers, he's just being who he is, who God made him to be. And he does it in a way that (at least I would assume) is non-threatening to people who may not share those beliefs. Though it was after midnight by the time Kevin's show ended, I had to pop in as a small line of devoted fans was forming and give him my two cents. It wasn't just so I could meet another member of dc Talk (though I am two down and one to go on that count!) - I really wanted to encourage Kevin by saying that he was doing right in following his heart and being an encouragement to all the freaks out there. Maybe I don't understand him as much as I wish I did, but you know what? That's what keeps me coming back. Because I feel like Kevin, even when he makes aesthetic decisions with his music and performance that I don't particularly care for, seems to understand me, and my desire to hear music that thinks outside the box. That's something that a million Bible-paraphrasing Nashville songwriters could never replaced. Mark my words - he'll be missed in that community. But a very selfish part of me is perfectly happy to have him here. Who says everyone in Los Angeles is fake and impersonal? Set List: Return of the Singer Seek Existence 21st Century Darling Angel Without Wings Greensleeves October Camera Blind Irish Hymn for the Masses Encore: Hallelujah I Can't Help Falling in Love with You My Ratings: Kevin Max: 4.5 stars Christa Black: 3.5 stars Show Overall: 4 stars Websites: http://www.kevinmax.com http://www.dctalk.com  |
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