One Mom's Thoughts on

The Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009

***with concert pictures

On Monday night, I had the pleasure (yes, the pleasure) of seeing The Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009 concert at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I admit that I had my doubts initially and that I considered myself more of a chaperone than an attendee as we twisted and turned through the streets of downtown Tulsa on a blistering afternoon with the heat index climbing to about 109 degrees.

Thanks to the miracle of GPS we arrived directly in front of the arena where I was more than happy to pay $20 to park.  Did I mention the heat?  The doors of the BOK Center were set to open at 5:30 pm so we sat in the coolness of the air conditioned car as we waited for the minutes to tick away.  From the parking lot you cold see thousands of people waiting to be the first inside.  I felt equally sorry for them and for myself – them because of the heat, for myself because of the combination of hairspray and something-or-other from Bath and Body Works that smelled a little like a pina colada colliding with a flower truck.

Then the roar went up.  When I say roar, I mean earth-moving screams.  One could only assume that the blessed hour had finally arrived.  As no further primping was deemed necessary, we exited the blissful coolness of the car for the smothering heat of the Tulsa streets.  Fortunately, we would not be bored as we awaited entrance, for the great marketing gods had bestowed upon us a magnificent t-shirt vendor whose copious menu of overpriced items initiated much debate and wonderment.  The black one?  No, definitely the pink one.  Do you like the blue one?  Yhea, but it doesn’t have the tour dates on the back.   Let’s get the pink one. 

“Who’s next?”

“I’ll take the white one in small.”

Go figure.

Less than an hour later, we were comfortably inside with our complimentary Burger King apple slices.  I had never received free snacks at a concert before so this made me very happy.  As we entered through security, I was happy to see the big cardboard signs being confiscated.  I don’t have a problem with the signs per se, but I despise having to sit behind someone who has one.  There was also a sign with the “rules” which were short and sweet:  Please don’t try to get on the stage; Please don’t record anything; Take lots and lots of pictures; Have lots and lots of fun.  Easy enough, if you ask me.

Ever have one of those moments when you wish you could go back in time and change the entire direction of your life?  I had one that night.  On June 22, 2009 at approximately 6:34 pm, I realized that my mislaid destiny was to have been the person to invent glo-sticks … millions and millions of red, blue, and yellow glo-sticks on white nylon strings and embossed with those three little words every girl wants to hear … “The Jonas Brothers”.  I fear that this revelation will now haunt me until the end of time.

As I pondered my imaginary glo-stick fortune, I was also doing some hard-core people watching.  I don’t know why the number of Dads (in attendance) surprised me, as my Dad took me to my first concert – Rick Springfield.  I remember that when we were leaving that night, my Dad looked my friend Christy and me and said, “Never trust a man wearing two different color shoes.”  Words to live by, Dad.

I also realized that I was smack-dab in the middle of a hotbed of blog post ideas:

Hey Lady ~ Everybody Knows Your Purse Is a Fake

Seriously, Your 6 Year-Old Shouldn’t Be Wearing Pants that say JUICY

What is the Perfect Toilets to Humans Ratio?

When Children Attack: You should jack that little sucker up

THAT COTTON CANDY IS HOW MUCH?  Recession-Proof Jobs

Thirty minutes doesn’t seem like a long time, but I was sharp after the two-hour Ipod festival on wheels and also began thinking about the future of the Jonas Brothers, or rather, their lack of future.  The Disney machine hasn’t had much success with longevity of performing acts, a failure I place firmly in their hands.  From Annette and Frankie to Britney and The Backstreet Boys to Hannah Montana and The Jonas Brothers, the Disney franchise is a blessing and a curse.  Disney capitalizes on and negligently prolongs a single moment in time, a tiny blip in the life of those they promote and once the performer outgrows that incredibly small framework, they are of no further use to the corporation.

Ok … shut up, shut up … it’s starting.

Honor Society … who’s that? 

OK, not bad.  The look a little older than the JoBros and they do that speed guitar with up-and-down-jumping thing like Green Day.  Three songs.  In-and-out.  Next.

Jordan Sparks … from American Idol

WOWZA!  Very sexy in a short, strapless black dress and some gladiator stilettos and sings like an angel.  I didn’t know any of the songs, but they all had a good beat and I could probably dance to them. 

The Main Event

The fog rolled in.  The scaffolding folded down onto the stage like a huge black spider.  Men in harnesses shimmied into the rafters.  Spotlights flashed about and funny JoBro videos played on the jumbotrons:  with The (Burger) King on the road; Joe dancing to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”; the one where Joe hits Nick with the wiffle ball bat.  Tens of thousands of young girls screamed as long and as loud as they could.  Glo-sticks haughtily laughed at me from all directions.  The music started.

I’ve been to a lot of concerts, good ones and bad ones, expensive I-just-made-a-down-payment-on-your-sea-plane ones and the kind you get to see for free for fighting the crowd at the fair on a sweaty Saturday night, but I have never felt the kind of electricity I felt when the giant spider awakened and rose into the rafters of the BOK Center on Monday night.  It was inspiring.  Days later, I’m still excited about it.  Was it life changing?  Probably not.  But, was it perception changing?  Hell yes.

The Jonas Brothers you see on the Disney Channel are not The Jonas Brothers you see in concert.  On television, they are silly, goofy, lame, overly theatrical bozos with a handful of dreadful songs inextricably attached to some lucrative production contract.  In concert, they are energetic, talented young performers whose understanding and execution of stagecraft made even their weakest songs seem like anthems.   They worked a stage that was easily as wide as a soccer field, comprised of various platforms and pods and walkways for a full two hours, constantly in motion and with a look of enthusiasm and freedom that I have rarely seen on any performer’s face. 

I was blown away by the technically masterful lighting and sound and a mechanized stage that made Tommy Lee’s tumbling drum chamber look like a cheap carnival trick.  They performed with a four-piece brass section and two violinists, guitar players and drummers.  They themselves played drums, guitars, piano, and I even think one of them played the ukulele at one point.  Things came out of the ceiling and out of the floor, which spun around like a record at times and even turned into a trampoline on which some pretty good acrobatics were performed.  Platforms rose twenty feet into the air and a huge crane arm equipped with big hoses, lifted out and carried two of them over the audience where they sprayed everyone with water before circling back.  It was almost a full sensory attack … and I liked it.

I also liked the “Battlefield” duet in which Jordan Sparks rose out of the floor wearing a long flowing white dress and sang with Joe.  I liked the little theatrical number in which a full rainstorm erupted on stage.  I liked the end of the concert when everyone came back together and they all held hands and took a bow and thanked us for being there.  I liked it!  I really liked it!

I really liked it, but that doesn’t change the fact that The Jonas Brothers are the property of the spiraling Disney time machine deathtrap of image-laden backpacks and notepads, which capture them as children and not as the young men that they actually are.  It’s only a matter of time before one of them gets all sexed up and does something, as most all teenagers do, that enrages the kiddie faction of their fandom, but when that happens, will they find appeal with an older and more similar peer group that has dismissed them as a dim-witted television kid act … it’s hard to predict, but I hope so.

I know that a lot of you won’t agree with me (hell, I’m surprised if anyone is still reading this) and I know some of you would like to “string them up and beat them until the candy comes out”, but for just one second, please humor me and just close your eyes.  Just close your eyes, and now … imagine that … they’re white.  Ooops … wrong show.  I meant realize that they’re just kids living their dream and wearing purity rings and not getting into any real trouble yet, other than the occasional scuffle with Taylor Swift.  The Mom in me is totally okay with that, 7 days a week.  Bring it on, JoBros!   Good Luck and Godspeed.

And you know, it could be worse … they could have a stupid semi-sexual name like Nickelodeon’s "The Naked Brothers Band" or more shockingly, "Morningwood".  Seriously … “Morningwood”.