Romantica creates magical experience

-- Bob Longmore

On one of the first cool autumn nights of the year, the Varsity Theater, in Minneapolis, was a floating lounge built in a dark and abandoned movie theater in the heart of Dinkytown. There was a cozy yet capable bar at the front, a low stage in the back of the room, and chairs and tables, like the ones found in city backyards on the first day of spring, strewn in between.

Inflatable couches lined up to form a temporary parlor in front of the bar. Peppering the room were potted trees big enough to create a sense of separation from your neighbor, but not so tall that a person couldn’t see the eyes of Romantica singer Ben Kyle as he shivered forth a throaty falsetto. The remainder of the band stalled and rested their arms at their sides as the swell of Kyle’s voice pushed the air out of the room.

The few conversations in the crowd stopped and the rest of our brains paused for a beat; waiting for our collective breath to return. Our heartbeats slowed, waiting for a flutter to start them back up. As Kyle’s face released itself from its contortion, we all inhaled with him, the band kicked back in, and all of our blood began to flow once more. It was a magic moment shared.

Listening to Romantica’s album, "It’s Your Weakness That I Want," it is hard to imagine this magic is rare for the band. When talking to Kyle about those special moments he says, "It is transcendent. For a few moments you are in another place."

Later, driving home, oblivious to the city traffic, I am ignoring the radio and I am ignoring my wife while the song "Honey" plays on a loop in my head. "Honey just one more bottle/ for the battle inside my head." Then in the next line, Kyle and Susan Enan’s voices rub together like angel wings to resonate against the R & B groove. "Honey just one more shot/ is it Camelot? Or you instead?" only I didn’t know that lyric until I looked at the liner notes. In my version it was "Honey just one more shot/ ‘cause it’d counteract what you been saying." I was thinking about how I love when lyrics are a snapshot of a moment (even if they aren’t the lyrics you thought they were) and how that snapshot could be two different pictures to two different people.

"I hear from people who say they have been moved by the music. It’s kind of a privilege to have that effect," says Kyle. I think he is talking about these snapshot moments when he says, "You communicate through your music."

When I think of how music moves people, I think of how it moves me on an emotional and psychological level, not a physical level. I was thinking about what Kyle said and I flashed back to the concert at the Varsity Theater. During the song "There She Goes," I had my eyes on a girl with black-rimmed glasses as the band sang, "She’s walking down the boulevard/ paying absolutely no regard/ to the people that she passes/ in those red-rimmed glasses."

With her friends gone, the girl sat alone, moving her lips slightly. She was silently singing along and gently rocking her head from side to side. Even though I am moved by the longing in the line, "I’d like to get to know you/ but I’m afraid to show you my sins." I know she is seeing a different snapshot. By the time the band gets to the catchy-as-all "Ba-ba-ba's" her shoulders are bouncing, her head is bobbing and with her eyes closed, she moves, involuntarily dancing in her seat.

Kyle has been singing his whole life. "It’s always been a part of me," he says. So, when Kyle is singing the song, "Sanity," and the air is being pushed out of the room, my blood is begging to be pushed through my veins and my lungs are pleading to fill themselves. When the band has filled the room with this magic, I don’t know what snapshot Kyle is up there trying to tell me about, but I’ll be damned if I don’t believe every word he has to say.