1/11/2024 0 Comments Neon pink garageband icon![]() ![]() “I don’t know what the rumors are, but we’re not taught that ‘homos are going to hell’ on Sunday in church,” he says. But, perched on a black sectional couch in his living room, Glenn says that he still identifies as a Mormon. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially calls gay sex a “serious transgression” – the same category in which it puts rape, murder and theft – and spent an estimated $22 million fighting LGBT rights in California in the battle over Proposition 8. In five weeks, Provo – an 88 percent Mormon town, in which rock clubs don’t sell alcohol, only soda – will get the news, along with the rest of the world, that Glenn has been quietly sharing with friends and family for a couple of months: He’s gay, has known he’s gay since he was six years old and has been living a closeted life for decades that choked his spirit and threatened his sanity. “I wonder how he’ll feel in about a month,” Glenn muses when we clear the throng. At one point, a bespectacled young guy presses his face to Glenn’s hands and reverently sighs, “I should be on my knees.” Neon Trees are the city’s biggest export, a New Wave-pop powerhouse with two double-platinum singles, a Buick commercial and a couple of big Glee covers. All evening, Glenn can’t make it more than 10 paces without someone, usually a giggling, polite, teenage blonde, asking for a photo. ![]() He strides a few doors down to the city’s other club, Muse, to check out a rapper in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles get-up called Atheist. Tyler Glenn of Neon Trees gleams like a fluorescent highlighter as he emerges from the city’s largest rock venue, Velour, wearing a long green coat that’s the color and texture of a tennis ball, plus a Freddie Mercury T-shirt and leather pants. Listen to Neon Trees’ “Sleeping With a Friend” Provo, Utah, is home to 112,000 people, 61 Mormon churches, four coffee shops, two music clubs – and, on this crisp Friday evening in February, one bleached-blond pop singer enjoying a rare night on the town.
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