Last (Southern hemisphere) summer, my friend Carla from Los Angeles visited me in Uruguay with two of her three wonderful kids, Ethan and Alexandria. It was a hectic tome for me, as I had to work writing for clients, shoot B-rolls for my movie on occasion, and enjoy Carla and the kids as much as I could.
One weekend, we went to beautiful Punta del Este, 140 km from my hometown of Montevideo. In Punta, we stayed at Carla´s family´s beautiful apartment two blocks from the beach. There, I met some of Carla´s cousins, including the beautiful Shantal and her boyfriend Shant. The funny thing was that Ethan started calling Shant “a beautiful man.” The kid just took to the boy, perhaps because he was also a bit of a child at heart. Apart from Ethan´s sympathy for Shant, I also learnt that he played the violin in an LA-based Armenian band. Shant had one of those endless goatees that made him look like a member of System of a Down, which, I would later learn, is also one of his favorite bands.
Fast forward four months. I come to LA and Carla says that Shant´s band is playing at a beautiful open air venue. Of course, I said, “let´s do it!” I sort of pride myself in being able to tell whether someone is a good musician just after talking to them for a while. As I would corroborate at the Ford, my instincts were totally right about Shant´s band.
For some reason, the GPS had a problem locating the right exit for the Ford that Sunday night after Carla picked me up in Woodland hills to go to the concert. We were, therefore, a little late. Fortunately, we only missed a couple of songs, because there had been an opening act. The amphitheater was set literally in the middle of a mountain, as if they had just poked a hole in it to carve this beautiful stage, with the green slope of the hill behind it as its sole background. The place was breathtaking, imbued with all the Californian beauty that must have originally drawn the pioneers towards this beautiful land. I tried to figure out how many people there were there; probably a couple of thousands. I did some multiplying, and figured the Element band must be doing pretty well.
There were about ten people on stage. The band´s sound was impeccable, the repertoire and the arrangements were a total pleasure. This was not your average Armenian band. These guys did daring things. They would mix styles, play a Bulgarian tune followed by a pop song in English, and a soulful Armenian traditional after that. When she saw them on Youtube, after I posted some comments about the concert on Facebook, my friend Trici said they reminded her of Kusturica´s band; the No smoking orchestra. Personally, I think the secret of the band´s musical success (I don´t mean their success with the public or their commercial success in general, but the more abstract success in the eyes of musical creation and performance) lies in the fact that their outlook on all the songs they perform is utterly MODERN. Even when they play one of those beautiful sad Armenian songs of the past, they manage to imbue their rendering with a certain modern feel; this is not just that same old song; this is Element band doing that song, making it their own, and creating something entirely new.
I was particularly impressed by the band leader, who created beautiful arrangements, wrote some original songs, and would switch between an assortment of traditional string instruments, the keyboards, and what not, with incredible ease. As for Shant, whose birthday happened to be that night, he played with both subtlety and passion, and he seemed to be in the highest spirits. After all, his girlfriend had just baked-and decorated-a Pink Floyd-themed cake for his birthday.
When the show was over, I had to get an Element band CD. I chose a double CD which includes one disk of Armenian songs and another one featuring songs in other languages and from other European countries.
Days later, as I slid the CD into my Mac pro, after a long day of editing, I had a very distinct feeling on hearing the first song: listening to this music made me feel prouder to be Armenian than I had ever been before. Sometimes, having roots is all that matters; the blossoms are always sweeter when the roots are strong.