M.I.A. in Central Park - as viewed by an angry man

I haven't willingly listened to a commercial radio station in years. I have been held captive in offices where bitter, heavy-set secretaries voice their Displeasure with the world by cranking up a scratchy, transistor radio to piercing levels so we can all enjoy "On the Dock of the Bay" for the eight billionth time (this song also finds heavy rotation among hobo crooners on the subway). Abrasive commercials, pseudo-DJs, the heavy rotation of 10 songs, Over and Over and Over- how could I NOT miss it? Nearly as punishing as their broadcasts, commercial radio stations love to promote/sponsor concerts while displaying a staggering lack of understanding of both entertaining or their core audience. On Sunday, Kat and I subjected ourselves to the laminated sheen of commercial concert bliss at a Central Park Summerstage show featuring M.I.A.

Kat's theme music for the last few months has been M.I.A. If you don't know what M.I.A. is, I forgive you. 'It' is a Sri Lankan/Brit woman who raps world issues over fantastic Indian/techno style beats. She completely rocks and is on the verge of being consumed by the American Hipster Hype Machine who loves to worship it's God, then dismantle It at the first sign of national attention. Kat has been using M.I.A.'s debut album, Arular, as her personal theme music for the last few months and had this date circled on her calendar for weeks. Getting me out of the cave was no easy task. I was in the midst of a Hate-The-World phases wherein mania strikes and I cannot write or focus on anything. Eventually, I become irritated by everyone and am reduced to performing cross-hatch, pen drawings for hours on end or picking off Nazis with a sniper rifle from the comfort of my computer chair. Kat has seen plenty of these episodes and quickly dismissed my protestations - she wouldn't be denied. So, at 1pm we boarded the subway and hauled our asses down to Central Park.

Central Park really is an amazing place. It's easy to forget that when you have to cross it twice a day, 3-5 days a week. The park is Huge and on any given day, there are thousands of people from dozens of nationalities doing thousands of different things. Impromptu roller skating rinks shared spaces with jazz bands, frisbee games, pot smokers and crazy people - it is one of the best places in the world to people-watch. On Sunday, there also happened to be thousands of people standing in line to see M.I.A.. Kat and I immediately abandoned all hope of getting into the small, outdoor theater and staked out a spot on a woodchip-as-lawn area with the growing mass of eager fans. It was a people-watching smorgasbord. Hula-hoop dancers enjoyed the Indian-techno tunes while a bearded, dreadlocked soul danced solo for a good hour before an atractive pair of pretty, Indian women joined him. Soon, there were 15-20 people spinning and hip-swinging -hula-hoops and frisbees were flying everywhere.

Then the radio station DJs took the stage. They asked the crowd a half dozen times who they were there to see (M.I.A.) and were they ready to go crazy (yes). They turned over the DJing duties to DJ Rekha who did her best to destroy all momentum for dancing fun. Can someone explain to me how these people get their jobs? It's always a relief to have DJs play something different but I have two words for you - beat matching. If people are grooving out to a song, then you'd better have something that they can fold their rhythm into when it ends. Playing an energeitic groove then following it with a slow, disjointed beat Kills the Momentum. Could you Please quit turning the music down every 30 seconds to complain that the audience isn't as enthusiastic as you want them to be? Last note - quit explaining what kind of music you are going to play next. I don't care if you think that you're gonna 'get hardcore, now'. This DJ must've told us she was 'getting hardcore' three times as if she kept loosing her hardcore and was trying to re-start the engine.

Have I mentioned that I've been having some anger issues, lately?

All right... fine. I'm complaining about the opening act. The real reason Kat and I were bruising our asses on tree roots was to hear M.I.A., right? So, how was she?

Well, you'll have to find someone else to answer that. Two and a half hours after the concert started, we were still waiting for M.I.A. We had endured DJ Rekha, Mr. Vegas (a reggae DJ who equally sucked) and Diplo. This was interspersed with a cavalcade of radio jockeys who would not stop asking us who we wanted to see (M.I.A) and were we ready to go crazy (yes). Kat's ass was hurting, the cute, Indian women had abandoned the dancing an hour into the concert and our people-watching had morphed into a lot of people looking around at one another and wondering 'Can I go now?'.

I had a writing workshop back in Inwood at 7, Kat had lost her groupie zeal and we figured that we'd endured enough.

Alas, I believe that Kat and I will have to wait for the Hype to fade before we see the Experience that is M.I.A.