What This Year's Grammys Could Be Like...TWLOHA All-Star Concert at House of Blues on Sunset

By Laura Medina

From what is a simple story of a nineteen-year-old, named Renee Yohe, attempting suicide written by Jamie Tworkowski grew a non-profit helping many other teens who suffer from isolation and depression.  This non-profit, "To Write Love On Her Arms" a.k.a. "TWLOHA," further grew into a movement when many other adults, who remember and still deal with their depression, join the non-profit.  It's a way of these adult reaching to the younger generation.  The mission spread like wildfire through-out the music industry when Renee Yohe decided to express her experience through a movie and her new musical duo, Bearcat.

This has metamorphosis with this zeitgeist of confessional, meta-physical, humanity-filled movement in hip-hop, namely Macklemore, using hip-hop's maverick heritage in standing up for the ignored, the neglect, and the underdog, standing up for the millions of little people, uniting in a musical  movement which materialized into "TWLOHA," the all-star music "HEAVY AND LIGHT" tour and concert at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip.

This TWLOHA tour represents the brightest and smartest of today's rock and pop right now, the emerging generation of rockers on the horizon.  Yes, Millennials' best, brightest, and humane rockers who have set the air waves ablaze on iHeartRadio and mainstream radio, such as Mary Lambert, best known for singing on Macklemore's anthem "Same Love."  

The aptly-titled tour, "Heavy and Light," reflects the the depth of celebrated musicians and established celebrities opening up their own wounds of depression and disappointments, interjected with life-affirming sets from Mary Lambert, The Summer Set, and Switchfoot, reflecting that age-old adage that life is full of black and white and a lot of gray in-between.

Now, this point in this multi-act set is important.  After telling people she's a Christian lesbian who felt was important to sing on this little-known rapper's "Same Love,"  Mary casually informed the audience for doing that, she's nominated for a Grammy.

TWLOHA Tour is a sign of things to come within the music industry, where it reaches beyond materialism and hedonism (even though we still enjoy and cherish as a part of human nature) to using the music industry' influence in social causes and changes.

From there on, there was a swell of unity among the Millennial audience.  Not rowdiness but a deep-felt sense of unity of a new, humane movement swelling up.

TWLOHA Tour is more than just a movement but a showcase of a new class of rockers, rockers who became stars because of the internet, such as 2013 Macy's iHeartRadio Rising Star Campaign winner, The Summer Set.  Justin Bieber may be in the same age group but The Summer Set's lead singer Brian Dales ain't Justin and the audience cheered.

This all-star gathering of Millennial confessional rockers cumulated into three and a half hour concert, interspersed with Anis Mojgani the poet; Kevin Breel, the stand-up comic who openly talked about the ironies of being a stand-up comic who attempted suicide then Hollywood society-figure/talk show host,
Amanda de Cadenet talked about being a teen drug addict who became a teen mom at seventeen.  Now, Kevin and Amanda are considered the elder statemen for this Millennial audience.  The audience showed utmost respect for these elder statemen because they saw and heard clarity, honesty, not the usual show business illusion of good times and glamor.  They admired me for hearing they are not alone.  This goes across the generational lines of X and Y, soon Z.

 

This heart-felt, confessional three and a half hour concert materialized into a life-affirming finale when all the bands and singers joined Jon Foreman and his band, Switchfoot for all-star finale sing-along.

If Baby Boomers had laid claim to Monterey International Pop Music Festival and Woodstock as their own musical generation then this rare, historical finale occurred when Emo Rock's latest and brightest converge together for a thirty-minute jam session until midnight.

Keep your eyes out for Mary Lamber, The Summer Set, and Switchfoot on Sunday at the Grammy Awards.