Rock star reality
I’m sure you’ve seen parts of the reality shows Rock Star: INXS and Rock Star: Supernova. Two seasons is ample enough exposure to allow even the most disinterested viewer to catch at least a snippet of the goings-on.
I’ll admit that I’ve watched portions, mostly as the number of contestants dwindles to that select one or two. I think that INXS’s choice of J.D. Fortune was inspired, although the jury’s still out on Lukas Rossi. I haven’t heard enough of Supernova to say if I like their sound one way or another.
I do like the fact a couple of international bands picked Canadian guys as frontmen and each man has an interesting story to tell when detailing their individual roads to success.
Both Fortune and Rossi have paid their dues, so to speak, and to sing lead for groups like INXS and Supernova takes them from bar band to star status nearly as fast as you can say David Lee Roth.
What brought this to mind was an impromptu concert Saturday night in our living room, courtesy of our five-year-old daughter and two-and-a-half-year-old son.
If you’ve followed this missive with any regularity, you know that our girl has wanted to be a singer for quite some time, although her recent interest in ballet suggests that a song and dance career (can you say Broadway?) might be the final destination.
Our big boy apes what his sister does and the fact she was in full concert bloom only encouraged him to greater heights. Needless to say, the house was alive with the sound of music.
She was in a rocking chair, fully reclined like Sinatra in his prime, belting out a tune that was light years away from anything ever recorded by the Chairman of the Board.
She’s at the ‘make up the words’ stage of her professional development and the sky’s the limit. She informed me that she was going to dress me up, uh-huh, uh-huh; do some songs, uh-huh, uh-huh; kick me out, uh-huh, uh-huh; really shout, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Let’s just say, as well, that her voice is powerful, but strident. As my mom used to say, “she can really holler out fire.� Problem is, there’s a lot of room left for melody and rather than sit back and enjoy the lyrical precision of her effort, I find that I’m on the edge of my seat, ready to dash from the room to escape the piercing impact of her vocals.
Not to be outdone, our young man has put his hands on a battered karaoke microphone that his sister once used and has since discarded, and he’s standing on a chair in the middle of the room.
To be honest, he doesn’t have his sister’s pipes. However, he’s got the moves. He bobs and weaves like Stevie Wonder and he always seems to know where that microphone is relative to his mouth.
Somehow he recognizes the importance of the mechanical device and uses it to full (albeit minimal) advantage. Of course, he doesn’t articulate the words as precisely as his sister, but he can “la-la-la-la-la-la,� with the best of them.
And when the two of them rehearse at the same time, it’s fair to say the noise could wake the dead!
I even went so far, after a solid 20 minutes of cacophony, to threaten them with a one-way ticket out onto the deck if they didn’t either tone it down several thousand decibels or simply knock it off.
Each time I offered this, they merely looked at me and then one or both picked up where they had left off. Don’t get me wrong. I loved every minute. On the other hand, the ringing silence that occurs once they’re done indicates your eardrums can handle that kind of ‘music’ only for so long.
However, the concert concluded with the arrival of bedtime (mine, not theirs!), brushing teeth and a bed-night story. When they were finally asleep, I trudged over to our bedroom and collapsed, wondering if this is how J.D. Fortune or Lukas Rossi started out.
If I ever interview them, I’ll ask. I think I know the answer already, but I have to be sure. I don’t want any surprises as our kids get older and decide that being a rock star is the reality they wish.
