American Fork Events

It was a pleasure to be a part of the 2008 run of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow show this year and to be able to sing as part of the preshow. If you missed the show in 2008, be sure to look for it in future years. It is really fun and many families (even with small children) make it part of their yearly Halloween tradition.

Link: http://www.inharmony08.com/

6:00 PM. American Fork Amphitheater. Cost-Free

Featuring Singing Children of Africa, Koshare Indian Dancers, Amarume Boys and Girls Chorale, Pikes Peak Singers.

Link: http://www.chriswoodsmusic.com/

Personally, I always prefer to get the bad news over with first. So, here goes: as a fairly round guy myself, Chris Woods’ "Fat Guy" comedy song detailing the stories of two big fellows that reached national attention some years ago, was extremely painful to listen to. It was obviously meant to be funny, but very few people seemed to be laughing (except for one chuckle I heard, most people I observed were stonily silent).

Personally, the song was an unwelcome reflection on all the prejudices I’ve met with since I was a small child, and for three minutes I was a captive of school-bully-born sterotypes in song. It wasn’t appreciated and if I hadn’t taken notes, I would have instantly forgotten all the positive things I had to say about the previous songs in the set. I found it telling that he felt he had to apologize and defend the song at the same time, mentioning that his wife would never forgive him for it, but because he had written it that he was ‘proud’ of it. What a poor excuse to be proud of something. Is it worth completely alienating a few people in your audience for one chuckle?

Skinny folks, like Chris, have no idea the kind of pain that fat people, like myself, endure in a society that obsesses over personal appearance. Do these people think we don’t already know that there is something wrong with us? We’re given the message every day. Food, unlike other addictions, cannot be quit cold turkey. It is a daily struggle. You have to eat to survive. Personally, I exercise and try to watch what I eat. I have struggled with it for my entire life. If people think making fun of fat people is going to help them change, they’re sadly mistaken. That kind of alienation only leads to further feelings of guilt and helplessness and, unfortunately, a food addict is more likely to turn to food for a cure to these feelings. I could really go on about this for a couple more pages, but I’ll stop myself here.

Anyway, I should mention that I had been feeling pretty good about the performance up to the point when I was clobbered with the ‘fat guy’ song.

• The guitar driven ‘gravity’ was a nice bit of pop with clever lyrics.
• The Spanish influenced ‘forever with her’ had some fun, and quite realistic sounding, lip-trumpet solos.
• ‘I’m just me’ was cute. I think it would be great on a children’s album.
• ‘How long has it been’ is a tender, sentimental love song written to his wife.
• A song that purposefully incorporated many cliches was cute.
• ‘No habla Espanol’ was entertaining, poking fun that because he was brown people assumed that he could speak Spanish (it’s a very different thing to poke fun at yourself than another group of people you obviously know nothing about).
• He did a couple of covers on the uke that reminded me of the famous Hawaiian cover of ‘over the rainbow’ though his choices were ‘I wanna hold your hand’ and ‘I can’t help falling in love with you’.

All in all it was a pretty good set, though I feel the lyrics could have been tightened up at points. The singing and guitar playing were fine, but did not wow me. He did have a good stage presence and a personality that allowed him to speak easily with audience, which I always enjoy.

If you’re interested in hearing samples of Woods’ music, visit the link to his website above.