It is Friday at 9:45 p.m. and I have a scorching black coffee in my hand. The vocals of Saria Idana have my mind drifting to places it hasn’t been for a while.
Interestingly, this time last week I was double fisting vodka sodas in downtown Long Beach and I can tell you that my mind could not recall that night.
After a week altering hangover I thought to myself, why do I do this? I am squeezing my way through an overpriced bar just to be ignored by the bartender, and my peers are doing the same weekend after weekend.
So I reevaluated my weekend plans and looked deep into my heart, then in my wallet. It’s time for a different sort of entertainment; something Long Beach is famous for, something free.
I found my way into a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, Viento y Agua, that I have passed on my way to class nearly a hundred times.
I came to listen to a performance by Saria Idana, singer/songwriter, poet and all around artist. She’s your New York native renaissance chick and there is a buzz about her in the Los Angeles area.
I have heard of her talent here and there, mostly from my friends who are into Long Beach’s artistic underground that I have been oblivious to.
Viento y Agua was the perfect setting for Idana’s performance. Its Dios De Los Muertos theme was intertwined with portraits of Jimmy Hendrix and Bob Marley hanging on walls painted hues of purples and reds.
Amongst the scattered tea candles, coffee cups and skinny jeans sat Idana tuning her guitar.
A friend and I swiped a few seats near the front of the seemingly crowded coffee shop. There was electricity in the air. Was it the anticipation and excitement of the performance? Or was it the caffeine? Either way, there was an eagerness for Idana to begin.
The lights dimmed and she thanked her audience for coming out to see her perform, then proceeded to thank the people who stayed when they had no idea she was performing.
Idana was a very cool chick; this self-deprecating openness is pretty rare in artists. Her down-to-earth disposition emanated a refreshing and genuine interest in getting her audience to become intimate with her lyrics.
Her lyrics were deep, dark, silly then blissful. She sang “Lullaby for Palestine,” she sang about her mother, she sang about mustard.
“I admire how she’s using her voice to advocate for the injustices going on,” said Lauren States, senior at Cal State Long Beach. “The song about her mom just brought tears to my eyes. And the song about mustard really made me want a hot dog. She was awesome.”
Her guitar and vocals reminded me of my first Jewel CD, or maybe a Fiona Apple performance. There was raw talent that was seemingly all too perfect for the coffee shop setting.
But it is not too shocking to see a beautiful woman playing an acoustic guitar and sing. What is rare, is a woman that can do both and really touch your soul.
The mood of her set effortlessly switches between somber and celebratory. Her blasts of poetry entangled in her songs had me deep in thought.
Her message is identity and to live life fully in harmony with other people living with the same message. “It’s alright to tell people when life hurts. I’m committed to a world in which freedom of expression facilitates knowledge of self,” said Idana.
She spends some of her time teaching knowledge of self in an after school program called ArtShare designed for at-risk youth.
“My work as a poet, theatre artist and dancer normally has a little bit more of an agenda like when I spit something it’s some shit that I think you need to hear so we can heal the world. But when I write songs I have no agenda it’s a selfish healing,” said Idana.
If you have never experienced a coffee shop performance then you owe it to your soul and to your wallet to check out Saria Idana at her next performance on March 7th at Indigo Lounge in downtown Los Angeles. Check out her newsletters at www.sariaidana.com.
