Blessed Philip and Darling Patti
In which we go to crazy town (The 36th Annual Tibet House Benefit) and don't see Patti Smith
I have this working theory that I keep bothering my roommates with and it is the simple idea that everyone in this city, but also just in general is completely and totally bonkers. This is supported by every single interaction I have with customers as a barista, and every single conversation I have with literally any person. It is also supported by the concert I went to on Wednesday where it seemed like every single performer was completely off their rocker, as was every single audience member. Famous people, they are crazy just like us!
When I attempted to explain this concert to my best friend over text they said: “Wait what?”
And then I tried to explain it better and they said: “Emma that didn't help.”
And then I tried again and they said: “Emma, I will just google it.”
So for those of us to whom I don't text incomprehensible sentences every single waking moment, this is my attempt to make it so that you don't have to google this concert, and also my attempt to make sense of what I experienced for myself.
In order to fully understand this concert we have to start in 1959 when the 14th Dalai Lama, after his escape from Tibet declared a need to preserve Tibetan culture. In 1987 Robert Thurman (that is a religious studies professor at Columbia University who was previously at Amherst College, an institution close to my heart, and most importantly, the father of Uma Thurman WHO WENT TO MY MIDDLE SCHOOL), Philip Glass and Richard Gere, the lead actor of American Gigolo, took it upon themselves to make it happen. What a weird combination of people!? Well. It only gets weirder!
The concert is an annual fundraiser for the organization Tibet House and has been ongoing since 1987. This year's iteration was the 36th Annual Benefit Concert for the Water Rabbit Year. The audience seemed to be heavily focused on the Brooklyn indie crowd, but it was held in Carnegie Hall. Lots of cigarettes were being smoked in the line to get in, many a Blundstoned grizzled salt and pepper man in his 50s begged for extra tickets by the door. As is typical for me, I had stumbled into a cultural event totally by accident and had no idea what I was in for.
The concert began, as all of my best NYC experiences do, with monks (ask me about Burp Castle sometime). They were Tibetan Monks (obviously), dressed in orange, and they sang rather off key, though to be clear, I found their singing effective, and also dont think its tunefulness or lack of it was the point. Once they left a confused looking man who I initially thought was Philip Glass took the stage and began reading a long incomprehensible speech which included the words “Water Rabbit Year,” and the phrase “We must praise blessed Philip.” Blessed Philip was clearly Philip Glass, which means I have no idea who the man speaking was. At the end of it I decided that what had been said could essentially be boiled down to this:
Tibet is oppressed and under their Chinese occupation it is imperative that we preserve their culture, as this concert has done for the past 30 or so years. As we think of Tibet it is also essential to think of Ukraine, another country bravely resisting occupation in the face of a global power.
The entire audience seemed down for this message but also surprised by it, which seemed odd because again, this concert has been a fundraiser for Tibet House for the past three decades.
Blessed Philip played a piece on the piano accompanied by Tenzin Choegyal, an absolutely amazing singer known for his work in the traditional Tibetan tradition, and Saori Tsukada. It was beautiful. I felt that his page turner, a spritely young man wearing a chic scarf deserved more credit because being Philip Glass’s page turner is my worst nightmare.
Laurie Anderson appeared and had us all do a Pauline Oliveros exercise. Most of the time I am opposed to Pauline Oliveros exercises because they come across as kitschy if the vibes are wrong, but it was her 90th birthday, she is dead, and together the entire audience made Carnegie Hall vibrate. She then launched into a piece that involved electric violin, chanting about clouds, and a synthesizer.
Laurie Anderson is one of those people who is so interesting that it is hard to know where to begin. She was the wife of Lou Reed. She once made an art piece at MASS MoCA where you put your elbows into grooves of a wooden table and put your hands over your ears and then heard music through your bones. My father once auditioned to be in a piece of hers at the Aspen music festival and didn’t get the role, but will regularly say the lines he auditioned with: “I once had a dream that I was Jimmy Carter’s lover, and I was in the White House Basement with all of Jimmy Carter’s other lovers.” My mom used to listen to her on tape in socialist Hungary when she wore all black and was friends with French philosophers. She has a few experimental art pieces that are about Walter Benjamin, my favorite theorist. Once she filled her LES apartment with trees and made it into a forest complete with a canoe and imagined rivers and then her landlord got mad, and now I’ve seen her at Carnegie Hall!
I think it is important to mention that this evening can be easily divided into two parts. People I was happy to hear more of and people I wish hadn’t been invited to perform. The people I enjoyed include everyone from the Patti Smith Band (unfortunately without “darling Patti”), Philip Glass Ensemble, and Arooj Aftab (Pink Floyd energy mournful rock ballad which challenged my general opposition to classical guitar) to Allison Russell (whose rather unimpressive band Birds of Chicago opened for my favorite folk band Darlingside at the Academy of Music in Northampton in 2016, and who massively redeemed herself here as a solo artist with incredible pipes). The people I did not enjoy included one person, Chocolate Genius.
A few of the artists seemed to have lost the thread of the point of the concert which, to repeat myself, was to raise money and awareness for the culture and struggles of the people of Tibet. One singer led into her set with an homage to acceptance of gay marriage and body positivity. These things are cool, but also are not what this concert was about.
Every performance was a surprise. The Patti Smith Band played White Rabbit because this was the water rabbit year, and the song references rabbits. The lighting of the hall seemed to brighten and dim almost randomly. If there was a logic to it I could not figure it out. The audience was terribly behaved, supporting one of my other theories that no one knows how to attend concerts anymore after COVID-19’s disruptions of live events. Yes, I know this is cool but please put your phone away!
Then Chocolate Genius took the stage and produced a series of word salad moments that left me so at a loss that at one point I had to put my head between my knees in order to not laugh so loudly that I’d disrupt the people around me. As we say about porn so we say about bad poetry: You know it when you see it.
A few notable phrases:
“95 years old she was when we brought her ship to church…. Hold me like… a nurse”
“Let the cats in…let the dogs out”
“You smell like a different girl”
“He makes you laugh and drinks juice for fun”
After Chocolate Idiot left the stage Boygenius appeared to play two brand new songs and also to play their first live gig since 2018. The screaming in the audience became notably female since of course I and the rest of the women in the audience who are sad, were overjoyed to see our three favorite sad girl performers. They promoted their new album which also seemed to miss the point of this Tibet fundraiser, but then again, it's exciting that they have a new album coming. Go Boygenius! As much as Phoebe Bridgers has started annoying me in recent times, I have to admit, her music is good. It just is.
From Boygenius to the Philip Glass ensemble playing excerpts from Einstein on the Beach was a jarring transition that caused ⅓ of the audience to leave. Congrats to them! They missed amazing minimalist music and also my roommates conversion to being a minimalism fan. The excerpt mainly made me think about how it’s really hard to count and sing numbers that are not what you are counting. Someone in NYC should put on Einstein on the Beach so that my friends who are fans of it will come visit me.
New Order (everyone except the guy who is dead) took the stage and sang an original, Kraftwerk’s Sex Objekt, and Joni Mitchell?? This reminded me that I love rock music so much and I love guitars and also it is thrilling to watch people do it well. Carnegie Hall felt like the wrong venue but who am I to complain. I paid 40$ for my tickets.
Next came the only band who seemed to understand the point of all of this. Gogol Bordello was founded in New York but they are Eastern European in vibe. My notes compare them to Whirling Dervishes and describe them as having “baffling amounts of energy.” They are simultaneously ridiculous and also perhaps one of the best bands I have ever seen. Their lead singer seemed to want us to mosh which is impossible in Carnegie Hall. He is also Ukrainian which makes the band’s desire to advocate for freedom, peace and Ukrainian victory personal. If this band’s energy were placed on Ukrainian front lines they would win the war in a matter of days.
Then everyone including the monks came out to sing Patti Smith’s People have the Power. Gogol Bordello’s lead singer took on the vocals and the monks danced, but had left their magnificent hats backstage. Allison Russell sang impressive backup and Philip Glass bobbed awkwardly.
After I left the concert I realized I’d been sitting two sections away from at least 3-4 people I knew, but I had missed this information, because unlike everyone else I had kept my phone off the whole concert.
This was the most disorganized concert I’d ever been to and every single musician was one of the best I had ever seen. They all seemed confused and like Philip Glass had called them 30 minutes before going on stage much like when you try to bring multiple friends to a bar with minimal planning. So thank you blessed Philip for proving that famous people are just as odd as we all are and also cannot stand in line or figure out what is on the agenda.
What else is going on?
My friend Eve wrote an amazing takedown of nuance free nonsense that everyone should read. It’s also about ballet.
I made a playlist:
Until next week!