7.6.13 More AT&T Live Proud

Breaking the Silence





In two consecutive, hot July days, some very emotional and exciting events took place. They made my heart feel like it was going to burst out of my chest, all air stuck somewhere high in my throat. Miraculously though, there was no crying, all that courtesy of Mr. Adam Lambert.


The San Diego homecoming concert, Adam’s family and friends there, was bound to be special, but what really made it exceptional was something else. With the burning colors of the Californian sunset behind him, the stage open and airy as if it weren’t attached to the ground but hovering somewhere between the land and the sky, memories of Adam’s first concerts after the release of Trespassing flooded my mind. I remembered the novelty and the excitement of them being laced with a certain undertone of worry, a little bit of tension to his shoulders, a little effort to his smile. I remembered problems with the sound and Adam’s angry hand flailing. It was all very cute and understandable: bringing the new material to stage life is not easy. And it was all gone by San Diego.


The absolute confidence and surety of his performance, the steady perfection of his voice, the trust and comfort with his own songs were disarming and overwhelming. There was no wavering, just a steady flow of the most amazing content he has to offer. All the possible reasons swirled around my head, but none of them stuck. Was it singing at home, in front of his family, or the natural build up towards the end of the Trespassing cycle, or his personal mindset at the time, I really don’t know and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it happened. Adam has always been very emotionally transparent, his state of mind and heart mirrored in gentle nuances of his face and voice. Seeing them tell stories of happiness and contentment and observing Adam’s obvious thriving progress was like reaching the top point on a rollercoaster ride. The fact that Adam does not move in straight lines but in unpredictable cycles and curves does indeed leave you sometimes gasping for air, but it also gives you the fantastic rush of giddy peaks, and reaching the peaks with Adam? Priceless. It is what all this is really about.


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A day later, another peak of a slightly different kind was reached. He performed at the Playhouse in Hollywood, at an event benefiting Trevor Project and AT&T’s Live Proud Campaign. Adam helped raise 50,000$ which will go toward LGBTQ texting program – they are going to be invested in communication, in sharing, in breaking the silence. Adam thanked everyone for it, for coming out, for sharing what makes them proud. “Sometimes we feel like we don’t have a voice”, Adam said. He helped them, himself included, get their voices heard. By putting an equation mark between his singing voice and the LGBTQ voice, Adam helped fight for equality. But, calling it a fight sounds too invasive to me, calling his voice a weapon too belligerent. Adam’s acts of kindness and generosity, together with his open and honest art, are indeed great contributors in the journey towards the victory. It turns out that sometimes, it takes an exceptionally beautiful voice to get them all heard. What an absolute cosmic justice it is that, apart from harboring the immense talent, his body is also a proud owner of an equally beautiful heart.



By the end of the night, there were ten great songs; there was great music, the joy and triumph palpable in the air, the excitement of pride and victory tingling under the skin. Adam sang his heart out in all ways possible. One of the people in the audience was Greg Hernandez, who wrote:” I happen to know Adam was only obligated to do three songs so him doing so many more – and giving it all that he has – shows how passionate he is about Trevor Project and his fans.” It was just one sentence in his personal blog, easily missed; no one reported about it, Adam did not say a word about it. That sentence is the reason why I use my voice to speak about Adam Lambert. I am not a singer, I am not an LGBTQ community member, and yet here is Adam enabling me to speak up. The ways in which this man breaks the silence are limitless and the places where he does that stretch over both sides of the equator, across all the meridians, from Syria to Serbia. In countries like these especially, where the Internet is our plane ride, our summer vacation, our visit to the Louvre, our attendance to Adam’s concert. Adam’s voice unites us.


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PS/// About the ugly purple triangle shirt he was wearing – yes, I said it was ugly, and I will say it again, because it was just too much. I know what the inverted triangle means, and Adam being all meaningful on top of everything else going on was too much for my poor heart to handle. I find it a perfectly legitimate way to fight those tears from the introduction, thank you very much. Ha, an ugly shirt! Ha, a nipple! For however sentimental Adam stanning normally is, it never lacks some good, old fun