Country Music

Country Concert

            The concert that I went to was the Cowboy Rides Away Tour with George Strait and Martina McBride. The concert was held at the Xcel Energy center in downtown St. Paul. We started the night out by meeting down at the St. Paul hotel which is one of the most prestigious hotels in the area. The concert was at 7 so we had dinner and a few drinks before hand, just imagine a nice upscale hotel with a glass wall of liquor and a library ladder to reach the very top bottle on the highest shelf! It was a very fancy hotel, where the drinks are expensive and everyone is dressed in classy clothes. Well not on that night, the second I walked in you could see nothing but flannel and cowboy hats, jeans and boots. The place was pretty packed whether or not it was a Friday night or the concert but my money is on the concert. The atmosphere of the place did not match that of an upscale bar where there is small talk and it is relatively not that loud. The bar was loud and like a bar down in Amarillo, Texas where beers are flowing and people are singing out loud. However, I was very shocked once we decided to sit down and have dinner. The tables were rather big at this place, either a very long rectangle or a huge circular table draped with a white cloth to contrast the dark brown furniture in the room.  Everything was very eloquent, even the windows were big, big enough to see the entrance of the hotel and all of the cowboy hats walking into the place. Upon, looking at the menu there was one thing I noticed that stood out like a sore thumb the prices were through the roof! Anywhere from a $60 steak all the way down to a $10 piece of cheese. I had a hard time picking what I wanted but I couldn’t go wrong with some chicken wild rice soup! One of my favorite dishes and it felt good to be able to have something on the menu that’s my favorite all time, except nobody makes it better than my own mother. The texture and taste was absolutely amazing couldn’t have been happier with my pick. The rest of the group which consisted of my mother, stepdad, and a couple of their friends and family all went with steak or seafood, which I had to taste and those were out of this world. We finished up dinner with some small talk about what I was going to school for and what I plan on doing with the people I haven’t met before then it was about time to leave for the concert that started at 7. I was wearing my flannel, jeans and boots just like everyone else minus the cowboy hat but it was freezing out, the temperature wasn’t so bad but the wind made it exponentially worse. The Xcel and the St. Paul hotel are relatively close to each other and are connected just a block down the road outside of the hotel. We had to run it was too cold to walk and we just followed the pace of everyone else running around. We walked by a brown statue on the way into the building of the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, and walked up the elongated pale ramp that leads all the way to the second floor outside of the Xcel gate.  Once we reached the top of the ramp, we had to go down a pretty big flight of stairs and the view of the main floor was packed, same thing I saw at the hotel everyone was dressed in the same type of the clothes in a variety of different clothes. We grabbed a drink and went to our seat, the first act was Martina Mcbride who looked lovely, she could really sing and her songs were flowing with passion that reached the whole audience whether, you were female or male young or old. Her songs were very family oriented, whether it was about the message or actually about her family, which she would talk about most of the songs before she sang them. The next act was the main event, Mr. George Strait, he came out and the crowd erupted, I am almost positive I lost a lot of hearing in my ears after his introduction. George Strait has had 60 number one hits in the charts over his long career in the music industry he is still relevant in the country music seen because he is very likeable to every one of all ages. Typical in all concerts the singer finishes his last song and walks off the stage but comes back out and sings a few more songs when everyone in the crowd yells ENCORE! Well George did come back out and he played some songs I have heard before in a distant past.  The concert wrapped up and it was the last time the cowboy himself will be performing in Minnesota.

 

 

            The reason I agreed to go to this concert is not just because it was for class, but it would give me a better understanding of my stepdad and the culture that he is endowed in. The first thing I found relevant to the material from this class in the iceberg model. The first layer being the surface layer (pop culture); I learned that the pop culture is a lot of what they wear, jeans and boots, to see a man or women in jeans and boots and even a cowboy hat is pretty much the image of a country fan. It is a long lasting fashion scene that never really changes its image. That goes hand and hand with the next layer intermediate layer (Symbols and meanings), which it is well known the symbol of any country music fan is the American flag and a truck, ranch, or horse. They have many sayings like not until the sun goes down or work hard all day. Their cultural norms, consists of greeting and calling your elders sir or ma’am they are very proper when it comes to that. Along with greetings they either have a very hard handshake or tilt of the head between men and when it comes to women it is either a wave or a hug haven’t seen to many men to women handshakes even in my own culture. The next layer which is the deep level (Traditions, beliefs and values) one thing I noticed in the songs and from talking with people is that they are true believers in god. They are always talking about church and no matter what one should be in their seat at church every Sunday. Drawing from those cues I believe that everyone in the culture is either Catholic or Christian. There for they all celebrate Christmas and Easter, and through their symbol of the flag they celebrate the fourth of July too. Cultural values is another interesting one, when one listens to the songs of country artists they can pick up some good things, like being proper and nice and even some bad things like drinking and driving (Dirt Road Anthem by Jason Aldean). A lot of alcohol is sung about in this culture; it is almost seemingly that if a cultural is big on alcohol they are also big on guns. They value their booze, guns, hard work, and the traditional family; it is all pretty universal across the board. An interesting fact that I would love to research someday is George Strait himself. He is such a big country start and has a huge following that people just call him George; like he is their best friend it is rather interesting, because in my culture for example I don’t call the president by their first name. The next layer is the Universal human needs which are relevant in the songs you can pretty much decipher what their needs are.

            One issue that I see relevant to today is immigration, the “south” where this culture started has been very vocal about it. It may have started in the south but the value and beliefs have transported to Minnesota through song, media, people traveling, and being exposed to this culture. The country culture wants to protect America from the “invasiveness” of the Mexican people who come into this country trying to find a better life. They believe they are taking jobs from the hardworking US workforce and they don’t have to pay taxes, they want their land and jobs to be reserved for them the hardworking American.  The Mexican people are just trying to find a way to have a better life, and not to mention they are very hard workers as well. After carefully analyzing the two cultures I believe that we could mend some hatred and work with each other through religion. Religion seems to be the most prevalent belief they share, and if anyone knows the Bible the “golden rule” could lead the way for these two cultures to help each other out. Therefore the Bible could be their symbolic item that they use in the symbolic exchange process.

 Living in Minnesota I believe the country culture up here is a more flexible than some other country cultures down south, who are probably very ethnocentric. These all go hand in hand with the staircase model, I would rate the country culture somewhere in the first two steps of the stairs (Unconscious incompetence and Conscious incompetence stage). They are very set in their ways, “My way or the highway and don’t tread on me” are used widely in this culture, which makes their political stance very conservative. In the world today the NRA and gun laws are some upfront issues and the country culture has one stance that’s it, no grey area it is point blank (no pun intended) on where they stand. Even looking at the recent elections were the country culture is most relevant they will always vote conservative i.e. Texas.

            Immigration is a huge issue in today’s world; I have experienced a very conservative side of the debate. Through songs we can determine values, beliefs and symbols of a culture. I had my fare share of small talk with the people there and they all fit the country culture belief of immigration. I haven’t immersed myself in the Mexican ways but if I was to do another cultural event I would focus on the Mexican culture and try to get their perspective and their beliefs and work with both sides to strike up some symbolic exchange and shared beliefs, in order to have some harmony between these two groups.  It may not be so prevalent in Minnesota but song, values and beliefs have no borders that stop it from traveling to other cultures whether it’s a good thing or bad. I may be a small voice but maybe if I started something there could be more and more efforts to embrace these two cultures together.