Concerts

There Will Be Vodka

/ Deb / Leave a comment

I bought the tickets before she actually agreed, but I had hoped that I could talk my sister into attending a State Radio show with me, scheduled for this coming March.

Luckily, she said she was in — with the caveat that, since the show is on a Wednesday, she might take the next day off, since I will be “pushing” vodka tonics on her during the show.  (This, apparently in reference to the last time we went to the ShowBox – where, I should add, she was a willing participant. (Buttercup! Buttercup!)).

I am a big fan of Dispatch….. I dig Chad Stokes, and State Radio is his post-Dispatch band, so I am excited to see them.  They opened for John Butler Trio at the Paramount last Spring, and I ran into Chad in the lobby after their set.  But I was too chicken to go up to him – and would probably have said something dorky like “I like your music”, or even dorkier (or maybe not), “my 6 year old daughter loves your music”.   (“You Know I Would”).

So maybe I will run into Chad again, and this time actually say something.   And maybe after the show, I can talk my sister into going to the Dispatch reunion show with me in Berkeley in June.  Either way, a night out with her is a guaranteed good time, and yes, dear sister, there will be vodka.

Drop the Gyro and Run

/ Deb / 3 Comments

I recently saw The Black Keys in concert.  They totally blew me away.  When others have asked me how it was, I can only describe it by saying that it was the most life-altering show I’ve seen in a long time.  This is not a designation that I award lightly.  In fact, only two other times.

The first Life Altering Concert, and really the only one that matters in the grand scheme of things:  the first time I saw Pearl Jam.  Lollapalooza 1992, Kitsap County Fair Grounds.   The lineup, even then, was phenomenal:  Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Jesus and Mary Chain, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube (who dropped more F-bombs in a sentence than I had ever heard, then or since — he had been stopped at the U.S./Canadian border, and barely made it in time for his set.  But that’s another story).

Come to think of it, these life-changing concerts have always occurred at the intersection of a major life change.  The Pearl Jam show was a month before I started law school.  DMB (Life Altering Concert #2) was around the time of my wedding.  The Black Keys show came right before the Big Birthday.  Skeptics would say that it’s not really the music that is life-changing, it’s just the timing of the concert.  But of course I know differently.

On that July day so long ago, my main reason for coming to Lollapalooza was Pearl Jam.  I was a huge fan, but hadn’t seen them live yet.  My friend and I thought they were taking the stage later, but as we sat eating lunch, we heard the roar of the crowd and…..Eddie.  We literally dropped everything (the gyro was terrible anyway), and sprinted over.

It’s funny that in a concert setting, your concept of personal space is miniscule.  Standing shoulder to shoulder with sweaty strangers is not only acceptable, it’s preferred.  We got pretty close to the stage, and while I couldn’t tell you the playlist, I do remember very clearly thinking:  these are my people.

That is what concerts are all about.   Live music is collective yet private, public but intimate, all at once.   And aren’t we all, throughout life, just looking for our people?  Our village?   We are lucky to find it in different contexts along the way – in friendships, in our profession, in our kids’ schools – people who share a similar world view, and make our daily lives better.

But a love of live music bonds us in a way like no other.  To the dude at the Gorge with the Pearl Jam tattoo, and the guy with the tattered “Drop in the Park” t-shirt (“Buttercup! Buttercup!”), I say:  I get you.  You are my people; you are my friend, even if I don’t know you.

And the friend who was at the Pearl Jam show with me that day — that life-changing show cemented our friendship, forever.  He’s always been my friend, even when we didn’t see each other for nine years.   That’s just the way it works.

"Oh, You Like the Banjo, Eh?"

/ Deb / 3 Comments

……asked John Butler of the Moore Theatre crowd, when we all cheered as a stagehand brought one to him.  “Well then, let’s have a little hoedown”.  Best line of the night; totally cracked me up.  My sisters and I have called his shows ‘hippie hoedowns’ for a long time.   It seems to be the only way to describe  their concert scene.

Recently I was popping off to some friends about how you shouldn’t go to a concert if you intend to sit down, and how it irritates me to see people sitting like deadbeats at a show.  I think my actual words were, “if you intend to sit down, you don’t deserve your ticket.  Go home and listen to a CD”.  This is mostly true, but of course I don’t really have that extreme a view on it.  I fully support sitting down when it’s a really shitty song or as a form of social protest, such as when DMB plays any of their new crap.

I just want everyone to have their Concert Moment.  That’s what I’m in it for — the one moment in the concert where you say to yourself- YES, this is why I am here.  I usually get that Moment, and if I don’t, I never go back to see the band again.

So at the John Butler Trio show, my sisters and I had the requisite group of ex-frat boys in front of us.  A small price to pay for otherwise awesome Row 6 seats, I must say.   And watching those dudes was almost as much fun as watching the band.  They danced, they sang, they did fist pumps and high fives for songs they liked.   They were having their Concert Moment, and I loved it.

My sisters loved watching them too, but more as spectacle.   Together, we have been known to wreak some havoc on fellow concert goers.  Two that come to mind are 1) the Gum Butt incident, and 2) the pelting of a couple who were making out during an entire Pearl Jam show.  Lucky for the frat boys, however, we all behaved ourselves this time.

And the hippie hoedown was a blast for all three of us, even with our differing views of the Perfect Concert.  While I love standing shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, dancing strangers, my youngest sister would really prefer not to.  She’d like to sit down, and once proclaimed that anyone standing and dancing should be banished to a “designated dancing section”.

Given that she’s entitled to her Concert Moment too, she might actually be on to something.

"Buttercup! Buttercup!"

/ Deb / 2 Comments

My sister dubbed it a “90’s Love Fest”, and that’s exactly what it was. Complete with Doc Martens and long shorts, worn with a long flannel, slyly shouldering a vintage “Drop in the Park” tee shirt.

I’ve been to lots of Pearl Jam shows over the years, but have never seen the grunge look out in such full effect as on this evening. Perhaps Brad’s first show in years, and the potential of a (surviving members of) Mother Love Bone reunion, were enough to bring them all out. At any rate, The Showbox was packed, and we were all ready for a little walk down Seattle’s musical memory lane.

And what a walk it was. I lost track of the number of different musical collaborations up on stage….various versions of back-in-the-day Seattle bands, culminating with a reunion of the surviving members of Mother Love Bone that blew my mind.

I never again saw the dude that I had seen in line with the “Drop in the Park” shirt, but it hit me at some point during the evening that he could not have been at that show, unless he was about 10 years old at the time.  A free Pearl Jam concert at Magnuson Park, three weeks into my law school career — I was at the show, instead of in the law library, which kind of speaks for itself.   I bought one of the shirts but never wore it and ended up giving it away…..(so who knows, maybe my old shirt was at The Showbox with me,  on someone else’s body?)

It was refreshing to see the ubiquitous Seattle drink-in-hand head-nod: that disinterested method of rocking out that I only see from vintage Seattle concert-goers. And no cell phones taking pictures; it could have been 1992 all over again. Except for the fact that I now have two kids (and an awesome husband who offered to stay home so I could have a night out with my sister).

The cab dropped us off at 2:30am, and I spent the next day paying for it. Totally worth it though; as my husband quipped, “that’s the life of a rock star, man”. Exactly.

Good Tunes, Like Sisters, Come in Groups of Three

/ Deb / Leave a comment

For anyone who has ever said that I am too structured, check out how I’m living on the edge these days:

Instead of listening to designated playlists, or “shuffle” on my ipod, lately I’ve been listening to songs in alphabetical order.

I love things in groups of three, and I love juxtaposition (both the word, and the actual effect). Imagine my delight when the following three songs played in this order:

1. Don’t Disturb This Groove (The Station);
2. Don’t Drink the Water (DMB); and
3. Don’t Stop Believing (Journey)

I laughed out loud at how different these three songs are, and how I love them all nearly equally, for very different reasons:

“Don’t Disturb This Groove” conjures visions of my middle sister, cruising her Honda with the sunroof open, the wind fluttering through her big hair. I don’t know if she ever actually listened to this song (as opposed to the Color Me Badd that I know for a fact was blared), but it’s all within the same genre….the 80’s/90’s slow groove….whatever happened to that?

“Don’t Drink the Water”…..both of my sisters, numerous DMB shows at The Gorge (“there’s plutonium in the water”?). Dave opened my favorite show ever, in Vegas, with this one. Good times all around.

“Don’t Stop Believing”…..again, my sisters, this time with a K-Tel tape and a boombox, and a family camping trip to Yellowstone, listening over and over until the batteries warbled it to a stop.

Three little tunes, different stages of my life, peacefully co-existing side by side in the digital age. Perfect.

Jerry Garcia in Solid Gold

/ Deb / Leave a comment

Today I listened to an old Dave Matthews Band show from August 9, 1995. This was the day that Jerry Garcia died, I had just taken the Bar Exam, and, three years later, it would be my wedding day.

This is what music is all about for me. I remember that exact day so clearly — driving in my old car, a.k.a. “Solid Gold”, when I heard that Jerry had died.  I was bummed that I had never gotten around to seeing the Dead in concert. I was never really into their music, but I have always loved the pot-smoking Dead Heads.   It was on my list of things to do, but darn law school got in the way.

The other thing that occurred to me was that, in 1995, I was barely a DMB fan yet.  Otherwise, I probably would have been at that show, which was in Eugene….and was a great show. My DMB memories of that 1995 summer, though, consist of a Madison Park apartment and the guy who would, exactly three years later, become my husband.

On that August day in 1995, I had no idea where I was heading, or how big a part of my life DMB’s music would become. What if I had been at that Eugene show? Or what if I had gone to a Dead show before Jerry died? Would things have turned out differently somehow? (or, to borrow a line from Dave…..”could I have been anyone other than me?”)

And yet, of course, the beauty was in not knowing what would unfold. The years since then have been filled with love, great music, and more happiness than I could have asked for.  Many years and countless concerts, and two kids later — I listen to Dave from long ago, and marvel at it all.

The Playlist of Me

/ Deb / 1 Comment

I have a horoscope hanging by my computer: “They say if you do what you love, the money will follow. They don’t say how long it will take to get there, however. It could be a while. Do what you love, anyway”.

I used to be a lawyer. I might be one again someday; both of my kids are now in school and I find myself searching for the next chapter of my life as I transition out of stay-at-home-mom status. I think I used to love being a lawyer, but I can’t really remember why.

What I do love is music. Especially live music, which is central to almost all of my favorite memories with my husband and my sisters. I listen to music every day without fail — in the car, the kitchen, while on a run. It is a daily barometer of my mood and my energy level. Some days call for Pearl Jam, others call for David Gray. (Sidebar: the iPod has got to be one of the best inventions of all time. Where else could you have all of your music in one place, and divided into playlists to suit your every whim?)

I especially love where music takes me….how a song can remind you of a precise moment in time, and of the “you” that existed then. Nothing else does this like music. Every day, we build and edit our soundtrack.

So I thought it would be fun to blog about my daily musical life. I don’t claim to have cutting edge tastes or be an expert. In fact, a lot of my favorite music is downright cheesy. But music is a big part of who I am, and since I am trying to re-discover who that is, music seems like a good place to start.