Groban phenomenon pleases some, annoys others

In fact, my friend is the president of Grobanites for Charity, a nonprofit, volunteer-based organization that raises money for the Josh Groban Foundation. My friend spends hours upon hours every month organizing and tending live auctions and Internet auctions. Soliciting donations of things such as Josh photos and pillows quilted with Josh’s likeness.

The charity has raised more than half a million dollars since its founding in 2004. The money goes to causes for children around the world: an orphanage in Africa; Nelson Mandela’s foundation to help fight HIV in Africa; rebuilding a school music department in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Two weeks ago, my friend treated me to a Josh Groban concert, including the Grobanite Charity Meet & Greet, where fans volleyed bids for autographed photos and framed CDs. I watched a woman happily pay $400 for Cardboard Josh, the life-size cardboard display that once stood in some record store hawking Josh’s CDs.

I met a woman with a Josh monogram tattoo.

Then I went to my first Josh concert, a fact of which I was repeatedly reminded by people who routinely attend several or even most of Josh’s concerts across the country during any given tour.

At a Josh concert, there are two things: Josh and the phenomenon of Josh. All I have to say about Josh is that his is a baritone voice that happens once about every 200 years. That and the “Romeo & Juliet” theme sung in Italian made me cry.

But the Josh phenomenon …

Grobanites have all the songs memorized (except the Italian ones). They wave light sticks to and fro during the crescendo of Josh’s finale.

Now, there is any number of wildly popular phenomena that tempt me to look down my nose at people and wonder what’s to become of America. “American Idol.” Reality TV. White zinfandel. Anna Nicole Smith, alive or dead. World Federated Wrestling. Misogynist hip-hop.

But just about the time I am tempted to look down my nose at the Josh phenomenon, I remember I’m the same guy who owns and wears a polystyrene cheese wedge as a hat when the Green Bay Packers play. I’m the guy who wept when, in his Christmas stocking, he found the Beatles’ “Let It Be Naked,” a remix of the Fab Four’s swan song album. I’m the guy who, if Neil Young would sit down in front of me with guitar and harmonica, would sit until Neil was done playing. Wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t sleep. Wouldn’t go to the restroom.

OK, I might not wave a choreographed light stick.

Review-Journal concert reviewer Jason Bracelin thinks Josh is too dramatic (April 9). An “orchestral soap opera” … “A Hallmark card come to life” … “A tar pit of sentimentality.”

OK, Jason, we’re agreed that Josh does, as we songwriters say, pump a lot of sunshine. But Josh is 26 years old. Not everybody can be as jaded and angry as Alanis Morissette was when she released “Jagged Little Pill” at age 21.

You said that by show’s end, “Groban’s over-emotiveness becomes downright draining.” OK. So you and I prefer our singer/songwriters to frequent places a bit darker and edgier. But I swear to you the audience I attended with wasn’t drained, except with joy. These people are convinced Josh is an avatar of light and hope. And the Josh Groban Foundation gives away its money to real and worthwhile causes.

John Lennon understood himself to be an inspired prophet for world peace. Because he had hair that terrified my parents, because he wrote phenomenal pop songs and played in history’s greatest pop band, I decided he had something incisive to say about the Vietnam War.

But if John ever donated half a million dollars to children’s charities, well, it never made the news.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com.