A Review Of A Rare Performance Of John Cage's 4'33 In Chicago Last Night

Wherever you go in the Windy City, at whatever time of the night, there’s a good chance that you’re only a stone’s throw away from a rock concert. Why are there so many bands in Chicago? I guess it’s because all these music lovers move here to try and write for CMG, but most of them are rejected and are left with nothing else to do with their time. We all know the next best thing to writing about music is playing it, so it only makes sense that these rejects would start bands and play shows.

Anyway, there are concerts going on all the time. But it’s not every day that you get the opportunity to experience a live music event that could change your life. Unless you write for CMG, like I do, because then you can get on the guest list for all the best shows, every single day of the week. Like that time I saw the Arcade Fire play their very first show to six people in a coffee shop uptown. They weren’t called the Arcade Fire at that time, and they had all different members, and they just played acoustic covers of Bob Dylan songs. After the show I said, “if you guys wrote your own songs, you could be huge.” And now look where they are. And once, in the early nineties, I saw Radiohead doing karaoke at a sushi bar—Thom sang that Boston song, “More Than A Feeling.” Not bragging here, folks, just reporting. Did I ever tell you that I heard Beck whistling “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” on an airplane? He was sitting a few rows in front me, and I never got a good look at his face, but you could tell it was him ‘cause of the hair. That’s journalism, baby.

What was I talking about? Oh right, life-changing concerts. No matter how many groundbreaking shows I’ve seen—and believe me, I’ve seen ‘em all (remind me to tell you about Dom and I seeing Wayne Coyne get five stars on “Through The Fire And The Flames” on Guitar Hero 3 sometime, shit was off the hook)—nothing could have prepared me for witnessing what very well might have been John Cage performing 4’33’‘ at a bus stop last night. If you don’t know what 4’33’‘ is, what are you doing reading our site, you philistine? Just kidding. I only know what Wikipedia tells me about it. Basically it’s this groundbreaking song that John Cage wrote in like the 20s or something that’s just four and a half minutes of silence, which might sound kinda dumb now, but you’ve gotta remember that in the twenties that would have been, like, pretty much revolutionary. And last night, my dear readers, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing John Cage himself perform the piece—in its entirety, no less!—while he was waiting for the #3 bus at two in the morning.

What happened was I was coming out of Denny’s—I had a Grand Slam, delish—and my iPod batteries died. I guess I forgot to charge it that morning, but in the silence I had a kind of awakening: there were, like, all kinds of sounds that were just going on all the time, and I thought to myself, “isn’t THIS music, really, if you think about it?” And that’s when I looked over at the bench where the bus stop is: an old man was sitting there, and he was staring at me and giving me a funny look, and even though he didn’t say anything and I don’t really know what John Cage looks like, I just knew it was him. It was as though he was just sort of telling me with that look: this is music, and I am John Cage.

I know what you’re thinking: John Cage died more than twenty-five years ago. And you know, that might be true, but isn’t it also true that while he may be dead, his music lives on? Just think about that. We’re talking about one of the most important composers of at least the last two thousand years, here. And the dude’s still got it. I’ve never really listened to much of his stuff, but apparently it’s as good as Spoon and A Sunny Day in Glasgow combined. Some say better, but to those people I say, “did you even read Conrad’s review of that shit? 88%. We don’t just give these scores away.”

Overall, I give the concert an 85%. It would have been a bit higher, but the bus stop smelled a like urine and I had a serious case of gut rot from all the Denny’s coffee. So if you ever get an opportunity to see someone who might be John Cage, and it might seem like he could be playing 4’33’‘, I highly recommend checking it out.