http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_18093889?source=most_viewed
Wallace Baine: What James Durbin's 'Idol' odyssey means to Santa Cruz's image of itself
The gods of network television and the gods of weather -- each capricious and cruel deities when they have a mind to be -- must have had a conference call late last week to decide to step out of the way and give Santa Cruz a break. There's no other way to explain what happened at the Beach Boardwalk last Saturday in what was the largest mass celebration in Santa Cruz since ... well, at least, since the day that the young man in the center of it all was born.
Mayor Ryan Coonerty perhaps pulled a rhetorical muscle or two reaching for superlatives in declaring 2011 "James Durbin Year." But, in trying to express the scope and magnitude of Durbin Day, he had it about right. Those who saw it happen are likely never to see its kind again. A moody overcast day ripened into a golden afternoon creating what the photographers like to call "magic hour" lighting, and close to 30,000 giddy, grinning fans created some magic of their own.
But the magic of the day wasn't limited to the concert on the beach. Perhaps the most vivid take-away for me took place an hour or two before James Durbin even reached the Boardwalk's bandstand. In the auditorium at the Louden Nelson Center, Durbin entered to a roar of Beatlemania-like intensity from about 300 kids from local theater groups.
When he took the stage and began to talk to the young performers, their faces glowed with a kind of guileless unbounded joy that adults just aren't capable of. To send him off to the beach, in a delightful reversal, the audience serenaded the entertainer, and the kids' version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" -- Durbin's unofficial theme song -- was so exuberant you'd thought each young singer was auditioning for "Idol" right there on the spot.
Naturally, there are those dubious or indifferent to the Durbin phenomenon, which is as it should be given that one of Santa Cruz's defining characteristics is a deep suspicion of mainstream pop culture, especially anything that emanates from Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire. The naysayers will tell you that the Durbin story is just an example of how silly and sycophantic people will act in proximity to fame; that "American Idol" is to good music what Cheez Whiz is to gourmet cuisine.
But it's Durbin himself who undermines these kinds of criticisms. If Santa Cruz had instead produced another kind of "Idol" finalist, a leather-lunged Celine Dion clone, or a gee-willikers country crooner, that person would have been celebrated with heartfelt enthusiasm, sure. But that singer would have eventually taken his/her place among the undifferentiated masses of "Idol" singers that came before.
Durbin's popularity has reached the level of mania because he presents an image of what Santa Cruz believes itself to be: pugnaciously independent-minded, proudly rebellious, a maverick who relishes swimming upstream. The history of "Idol" suggests that it almost always rewards the safe and malleable pop/country singer, and if it was Durbin's first and only goal to win "Idol," he would have gone that route. Don't believe for a second that this young man couldn't have wowed America by doing show tunes and country songs. He certainly could have.
But, as he has said, his goal was in blazing a trail for hard rock and metal in "Idol" -- not to conform to "Idol," but to make "Idol" conform to him. And that takes a whole lot of talent and several truckloads of moxie.
Still, what has deepened Durbin's connection to his local fans is his back story. Famously diagnosed with Tourette's and Asperger's, Durbin represents a kind of against-all-odds story that should inspire the most jaded observer. Yet he has talked very little about his growing up, I suspect, from a reluctance to exploit his story. When he took precious time out from his homecoming to visit with a few young people with Tourette's, he afforded them the respect to do so without the media in tow.
Even though I've been writing about and watching him over the last couple of years, I don't really know James Durbin. People assume that I do, but I don't. Still, I've talked with dozens of people who do know him, or his fiancee Heidi, or his mother, or his late father. And this subgroup forms his most fervent core of support. For them, what has happened to James is nothing short of a miracle, an object lesson that talent goes nowhere without hope and perseverance.
As he made his way through his crazy homecoming, I was struck by Durbin's humor and heart. He said all the right things, at all the right times. At the bandstand, he started his concert not with a song but by sitting on the edge of the stage and gabbing at his 30,000 fans as if he had a few friends in the living room, not exactly an "Idol"-style opening. Later, he jumped in the crowd, outrunning his security people. He picked kids out of the crowd to join him on stage. He lingered on stage signing autographs "" all very un-rock-star-like behavior.
It was as if he knew that he was modeling what a Santa Cruz pop star should look like. All eyes were on him, and that seemed to energize him.
But his effect at inspiring others was best illustrated back at the Louden Nelson Center when he was asked what advice he might give young performers. Citing a staffer he came to know on "Idol," Durbin repeated the four words he has made into his mantra: "Own it. It's yours."
His power to inspire, however, may have already taken hold earlier when a boy stood up, grabbed the mic and said to James Durbin with a jaunty wag of his finger:
"You are the biggest thing to ever come out of Santa Cruz," then with a dramatic pause and in a sly, friendly, watch-your-back-Durbin tone, he added, "... so far."
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Absolutely fantastic article. Really caputures the magic and emotion that was Durbin Day.
A Fan
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