By Rich Honiball
“Sometimes you have to look at old things in a new light” is a quote by John Coltrane that we discovered on the wall of a New York restaurant one night. I came back to our office in Dallas and immediately wrote it on my white board, then stared at it for days. It was at a moment when we were discussing the future direction of our brand and following Mr. Coltrane’s advice, we challenged our team to start looking at our past in a new light. What we discovered was a rich heritage of innovation and accomplishments that became an inspiration for our future…not simply by repeating the past but re-crafting it in a fresh way while adding newer and more relevant product to our current assortment.
When I was originally approached about the idea of having Kelis close out the last day of our #SlacksAreBack Showcase at the Haggar Slacks Lounge during SXSW, I bristled at the thought of serving up a “Milkshake” as the final course after a well crafted assortment of artists. This was our first time participating with SXSW and with FILTERonRainey and while this event at the Clive Bar was important to our brand, I personally felt like I had a lot at stake and wanted to trust that every artist would be right for our brand and message. However, after reviewing the new work from her upcoming album, I realized that her sound has evolved from the “silly but fun radio hit of 2003” into a rich, funky, passionate soul vibe that I personally believe will wow her current fans and bring new ones to the Kelis bandwagon. Fans like me. And fans like every person that witnessed her perform at the Clive Bar early Friday morning.
GREAT PRODUCT SOMETIMES TAKES MORE TIME THAN YOU HAD PLANNED
Kelis was scheduled to perform at midnight giving her crew exactly 15 minutes to set up after Cody ChestnuTT took the Clive Bar on a lively journey that had the capacity crowd moving and grooving. Her sound crew came out and made the decision that the current set up simply would not do, given that she had a twelve-piece band in tow and Kelis wanted the sound to be perfect. So the wait began. Given my role in convincing our team to sponsor this event and approving the acts, I will admit that my heart rate elevated a tad. The woman from FILTER who had recommended Kelis noticed that I was a bit on edge and she said “when she starts singing, everyone will forget the wait…as long as she is good.” An hour and a half later with a 2:00am curfew looming, Kelis took the stage and the crowd that had started to grow impatient, in a nanosecond was eating out of the palm of her hands as she delivered the first few versus of “Feeling Good.”
Her delay in taking the stage wasn’t the “diva” like behavior that is often attached to other singers known only by a single name. It was because, as she put it, “I’m not going to sing until I’m all ready”, meaning that until the “product” that she had for us that night was as close to perfect as possible, she wasn’t going to simply dish it out. Given that Kelis is a certified chef with a food truck in Austin during SXSW, her dedication to perfection is refreshing.
DON’T BE DEFINED BY YOUR PAST, BUT DON’T ABANDON IT EITHER
While Kelis served up her new work like her first single “Jerk Ribs” with an artful passion, she didn’t avoid past hits like “Millionaire” and her biggest hit “Milkshake”. Instead she reinvented them in a way that brought her past audience forward and opened up her work to those who would have otherwise brushed passed her older songs. She explained, through her music, that this wasn’t a reinvention or even a comeback, she was merely evolving her sound and keeping it relevant. And she did so in a manner that made the entire set list work together in a way that seemed effortless.
SOMETIMES, YOU JUST HAVE TO GO “A CAPELLA” (But it helps when your team joins in)
Then there was that moment. I was with my boss, our president, who stayed for the entire show. Neither of us realized what it was at first; the sound cutting out in the middle of a song was seemingly from a faulty microphone, tough to tolerate given the 90 minutes that the crowd had waited for her crew to get it right. But it turns out that the sound had been purposely cut off by a member of the venue staff given that we had hit the dreaded 2:00am curfew and the penalty for ignoring this was very steep. Kelis, realizing what had happened, briefly paused, looked to her left and to her right, motioned for the crowd to hush and she continued singing the song, a rich, soulful version of her 2010 hit ironically titled “A Capella”. Her back up singers quickly joined her in true a cappella style and encouraged the audience to join her in the “symphony” and quickly, the sound began to carry throughout the venue. As the rest of the band joined in, someone unknown flipped on the power and for the last couple of minutes of the song, the venue exploded into this magical journey that ended with the sound being cut off for a second and final time by a panicked staff member just as she finished the song.
Kelis, after working all day at her food truck serving up real jerk ribs and bringing her best to the stage that night could have easily said good night and walked away as the sound was cut off at curfew time. The set she performed would have still been great and few could have blamed her. But she knew better. She knew that the audience deserved more, so she picked up the performance and carried it forward on her own. Her team supported her as best they could, not complaining about the situation but doing everything to deliver as best they could. And the audience when they sensed what was going on became part of the story. Even those like Allen Stone (recently signed by Capital Records) who had performed earlier that day joined in, encouraging the audience to carry the rhythm by dancing and clapping away, earning a smile and an acknowledging wave from Kelis herself.
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| Kelis' Food Truck at SXSC |
One member of our team, sensing the moment as he stood in the audience, grabbed his iPhone and captured the last three minutes of this impromptu reminder. A reminder that great product takes time (and if it is truly great, it is worth the wait), that you should value your history and let it influence you but not define you, and that sometimes you need to push forward “in the moment” even it is easier or more convenient to walk away. And if you do this, sometimes, it may just become EPIC.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, the short video that we have should be worth a thousand fold – yet it will barely do the moment justice. Understand the person who recorded this did so on an iPhone and only after the “moment” had begun, that at the back of the venue you could barely hear anything, and that when you hear the crowd erupts, it is when the power/sound was turned back on. I doubt that Kelis knows much about our participation in this event and my early hesitance in having her close out an important showcase for us. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter because she closed down the show better than I ever could have planned, I’ve probably watched the video ten times already and each time makes me smile more, and know that I have to raise my game to ever have a chance to be in her league.
Enjoy!
(video and photo credits: Troy Steakley)
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