I was glad to be back in my home town knowing that only a couple more days The Graduate concert would in town. This band is from the central Illinois and is a hometown favorite. If Central Illinois had a music scene, these two bands would be the front liners. I?m glad to be from the same place as them. I even know them and talked to them many times before. This gives me a great feeling that I have a chance to actually talk to one of my favorite bands of all time. This is every music lover?s dream.
When the concert came along, I was on the road headed towards the Vineyard Café. I didn?t know where it was at first until I realized it was at a church. This was my first rock concert in a church so it had to be good. Most concerts around where I live are actually at churches and American Legions anyways. I got inside and felt excitement around me. There were members from each band there talking to the fans before hitting the stage. Once they hit the stage, they would tune up to the speakers. The Graduate took the longest for some reason. This didn?t affect me at all because I was too anticipated to see them live. I?ve met them before at Ambrose and talked to them about their music. I listened to their debut album at least ten times before the concert. I knew all the words to their songs and what songs they were going to play. So I didn?t need a printed program for the concert. The Graduate started out with a techno instrumental song called Interlude. This song gets goose bumps every time because it?s quiet at first and then gradually gets louder. The song led to a song about having a split personality. Once the leader singer started singing, everyone in the crowd was singing with him. It was basically a sing off and I was even part of it. With great emotion, I belted out every word to every song. The Graduate kept the showing going and showed that they had talent. Their guitarist would be playing keyboard then would switch and play the guitar riffs for the chorus.
The music itself was amazing. They made their own sound of the genre we call alternative music. I haven?t heard a band like them before. They ended playing another keyboard entrance song. This song is called Sit & Sink and ended up being a crowd favorite because it involved the crowd to sing at the end of song. The repeated words of ?Let?s just drink, sit and sink? flooded the crowd with excitement. The Graduate made the concert more a modern classical with the eerie keyboard in most of their songs and how each song can relate to anyone in the song. A big hit was The City That Reads. It talks about loneliness during Christmas and how you want to be with your love one during the holidays. The City That Reads is actually Baltimore, Maryland and it won Best Baltimore Song last year. This shows that everyone get lonely. One of my favorite parts of the show was the band?s reaction to the crowd. They loved how everyone was jamming out to their music so they ultimately played their best. This concert is one of the best concerts I?ve ever been to. The music and lyrics were so clear that I thought I was listening to the album in on my iPod. The themes of each song were different each time. It was like listening to every element of life and how anything or anyone can affect us. The Graduate ended with The Formula. This song is epic and they even pulled out more drums to make the song have a drum solo rather than a guitar solo. It reminded me of African music and how it?s all percussion. I love it because I was a former percussionist in my high school?s band. The song become more instrumentation and syncopated until the familiar word came to the mouths of the crowd. ?Lets just drink, sit and sink? was heard all over once again showing the ending of the show altogether.
The performance itself was amazing and now I want to see them again. It showed me the music culture in my backyard. This shows that music around the world and even my home state can be different and influence people around the world.
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