damn, that was great. too bad i didnt go.

Shellac fucking rules.

for music with a spiritual focus, the definition of progress is drastically different.

Jandek show I happened to catch in June was boooring. The guys he played with were fantastic —I could have done without his repetitive, sub-beat drivel droning over the top of it, though. Heretical? Maybe, but there you go.

(I also imagine that The Representative's live performances vary wildly in quality. This is the only time I've seen him, so far.)

Meh, I say. I've seen plenty enough spiritual bands, some of my own religious persuasions, some not. Morgan Heritege [sp? I'm pissed] were awesome. Burning Spear less so. Does Sizzla count? I thought he was rubbish. Does Bounty Killa count? He was easily the best Jamaican artist I've ever seen. To be fair, the best 'spritual' things I've seen have been groups that have never, and will never, release a record, or have a myspace, or perform outside of their Mosque/ Church/ Temple/ Synagogue (etc).

Fine, but there are plenty of different types of spirituality out there, and not all of them are so easily pigeon holed. I think "progress" is a rather silly thing to dwell on in any genre to begin with, and it was you who brought the concept to the table here.

All I asked with this thread was whether peoples' actual experience in seeing any number of artists in whatever genre (with whatever claims to spirituality or not) lived up to the legend they had heard to begin with. For me, Burning Spear was not at all a let down, but wasn't quite at that pinacle. It has nothing to do with "progress", it has everything to do with the show I saw. I'm glad that for me this less than perfect (but still quite good) performance didn't cause the spiritual crisis it apparently would have for you. I hope that every time you see any reggae artist they are flawless, so you never have to reassess your spiritual beliefs...

Personally, I will always be significantly more into works than faith when it comes to somebody performing music for me, but to each his own.