Michael Franti & Spearhead's Uplifting Rebel Music

Entering the warm undulating buzz that is the Wiltern Theater, I am struck by three things:

1) The huge and stark backdrop image of a hand holding up the two-fingered peace sign against a red and white shooting range target. Bullet holes surround the hand.

2) The lean 6'6" man with sparse dreads down to thigh level and a brown Gibson guitar slung equally low, a look of joy on his face.

3) The excited yet peaceful unity and responsiveness to the music in the crowd.

Michael Franti goes three for three, but for real y'all. Healthy Green translation is in the house - political, spiritual, cultural, moral, embodied, ecstatic - yeah!

Though the man is all himself, what ensues is a concert that leaves me making comparisons to Bob Marley, John Lennon, and Peter Gabriel.

Bob Marley for the sheer spiritual joy of performing music that feels like a celebration of life in the face of difficulty and that claims a historical and contemporary context in it's expression.

John Lennon for the idealism, the realism, the lack of fearing either the power of authority or the audience's resistance to the truth.

Peter Gabriel for the ability to blend the rock and world music idioms and create a sound that truly affirms music as a universal language.

Franti layers ska-punk velocity, one-drop reggae swagger, infectious funk, a tip of the hat to hip-hop and near-anthemic rock and roll into his masterfully executed show. His band featured an old-school master bass player in  Carl Young, who sung harmonies and anchored the set with unbelievably precise and complex yet rock solid lines - whatever the the style, Manas Itiene, a Nigerian drummer with extraordinary chops and a beautiful floating African falsetto voice, Raleigh Neal on tasteful keys, and Dave Shul, a bad-ass, pint-sized Latino guitar god who shredded and strutted away under his sideways beret.

The show was note perfect: seamless transitions, uncontrived crowd participation, and an arc of well ordered songs studded with potent socio-political commentary. The highlight found Franti reading a favorite from a recent write-a-letter-to-the-president contest from a young girl, who suggested that wars be fought, if they had to at all, with "those really big water pistols." But anyway, she continued - we learned in my 2nd grade class that you should solve your problems by talking to each-other.

It's naive of course, but touching and real, and it goes to the heart of what Michael Franti is able to achieve, and why I said above that he "goes three for three:"

1) the protest oriented, consciousness raising, political commentary-based content of his work is front and center, uncompromising and outspoken. (Watch him sing "We can Bomb the World to Pieces, But We Can't Bomb it into Peace" to U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq in the video above..."

2) At the same time the energy running through both his music and his presence is optimistic, positive, uplifting, life-affirming.

3) The songs themselves stand on their own as intelligent collaborative expressions from deep in the belly of the love of music on it's own terms.

Franti puts his money by his mic-stand too. He recently returned from a visit to Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories, where he made a documentary film called "I Know I'm Not Alone"about his experiences and the people he met.

I think, in terms of the Clare Graves Spiral Dynamics model, that Michael Franti is a living ambassador for healthy Green. Multi-cultural, humanistic, protesting oppression, calling for unity, he manages to do all of this without resorting to the castrated vague relativism and superficial Pollyanna sweetness that Green can fall prey to, especially in his 415 spiritual neighborhood. (Click and then scroll down to the last paragraph on the linked page..)

He hits that rare sweet spot defined by the ability speak difficult truth while maintaining a palpable connection to humble and compassionate presence, all over an unstoppable rhythm.

During the anthemic crowd-pleaser, Everyone Deserves Music, Franti lifts his arms up in the air and declares "rich and poor people deserve music, Israelis and Palestinians deserve music, Sunni and Shia deserve music, Americans and Iraqis deserve music, gay, straight and freaky people deserve music, black, white, yellow, brown, red, purple and pink people deserve music, everyone deserves music!"

Power to the Peaceful, amen.