The weekend is in sight…..right?!
The Black Keys
Show-vember is here!
I’ve taken a long absence from the beloved comfort of this blog. Not that I haven’t wanted to sit down and live in my head……write words that I fuss over and then, when I hit “publish”, panic like a young mom dropping her kid off for his first day of preschool. I always want to do that. Over the past few months, though, my life has been consumed with sunshine, family, and work that actually earns money.
But now the rain is here, I’m in modified hermit mode, and, after not seeing any concerts since August, it just so happens that, for the first 2 weeks of November, I have tickets to four different shows. I’m officially calling it Show-vember, and have decided it’s a sign to come home to my little corner of cyberspace.
It’s always interesting how concerts end up getting lumped closely together for me. I can go for a few months without a show, and then it seems that all the shows I want to see are bunched together within a short time frame. I take them on like a musical triathlon – proper pacing being of utmost importance. My personal long-standing record was established in 2001: three different shows in three states, within the span of a week (if it matters: Ben Harper in Seattle, Dave Matthews Band in Las Vegas, and Sting in Chicago. Ben is the only one I listen to anymore).
And so I’m gearing up for some great music from artists that I love, in a month that thumbs its nose at dreary weather with many fabulous things: my birthday, Thanksgiving and the Apple Cup (“We’ve Got a Thing…”). And now, also……The Black Keys, Ben Gibbard, Chadwick Stokes and the White Buffalo. Happy Show-vember to me (and also to you….go to a show, I promise it will make November bearable)!
Drop the Gyro and Run
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.
The Keg’s Around Back
I’ve never had the experience of meeting someone and wondering where they had been all my life. But now I can say that I have had it with a band.
Holy crap, how did I not know about the Black Keys? I am completely hooked on them these days, thanks to my youngest, more musically hip, sister. I felt like a kid in a candy store when I realized that they have more albums than the one she initially gave me.
Gritty, grainy, stripped down – makes me feel like I should be watching them play in a party house with a beer-soaked floor, keg cup in hand. Which is a good thing…figuratively, anyway.
Corduroy Notes 