Two grand nights to mark a grand milestone
My writing worlds collide
I'm cross-posting something I wrote on another project of mine - a live music review site - for three reasons:
There is a section about death I've thought about a lot in the past 12 hours
The second artist I talk about is the reason I started this whole book project in the first place. At a show of his the idea just slapped me in the face
I like it, and like any ego-ravaged writer I want more people to see it.
Thursday morning, for the first time in my life, I woke up beside a 50 year old woman. On one hand that admission makes me a little disappointed in the younger me who clearly lacked either ambition or game. But, more significantly, it fills me with joy to enter the fourth first-digit era with my wife, Tricia, certain in the knowledge that the best is yet to come with the 5s despite me having very little to complain about with the 2s, 3s or 4s.
It can’t come as that much of a surprise that we marked her half-century with a show on the big night - and another the night after for good measure. And though only one of the shows was my idea, and neither of the nights were about me, I think it was a pretty grand way to mark the big event.
As with so many things these days, there was a sense of grappling with a past that stubbornly refuses to also be the present in our decision of destinations. A newish but favorite club walking distance from us closed without warning last weekend. It felt like a kick on the gut, and we couldn’t help but wish we’d done more to help them survive. So we went to another small venue in a new location we’d been promising to get to without ever taking action. We can’t save the tragically challenged live music business with just our two wallets, but damned if we won’t try.
The star of the birthday evening was Bobby Dove, a wildly talented country crooner we’d first seen a year and a half ago during Stampede in great set on a patio at a brewery. The perfect setting for anything, really. This setting couldn’t compete with that, but it was a delight nonetheless.
The show was great. The pedal steel guitar yet again proved its primacy in the tiers of instruments. Bobby told a story about a woman in a truck at a gas station that afternoon that contained so much pent up rage and confusion about humanity that I truly felt seen. And any place that has a special of a burger, fries and a pint for $18 like The Blues Can does will never not have my loyalty. But it’s one more complicated moment that will stick with me from that night.
Later in the set there was a couple dancing in front of the band. A two step, I think, though you shouldn’t quote me. I was sitting close to Tricia, my arm around her like the player I am. I watched her as she watched the dancers. She loves to dance. She used to dance a lot. And I could see that a part of her wished that she was dancing up there with them. But she met me. I was, like some giant Footloose villain, very committed to not dancing, and through dumb luck on my part she was committed to me. So she became largely a retired dancer. My self consciousness and lack of rhythm was the foundation of my determined commitment, and a nightmarish episode at a wedding at the hotel at the airport 25 years ago made me never want to dance again. But at that moment, as I looked at her I felt very much like I’d let her down. Not that night. All nights. I imagined finding a dancing teacher who could work miracles. We’d have several secret sessions where I broke barriers and discovered a side of me that had been hidden for five decades. There would be a montage where you could see my fight against adversity and remarkable progress. Then I’d surprise Tricia with a dance lesson. I’d pretend, convincingly, I’d never met the teacher. I’d act nervous, and confused by her directions. But suddenly, the other students in the class would pull out hidden instruments and start playing a song - the kind only experts can dance to. And I’d grab Tricia and dance with her in ways she deserves, but that she’d never even imagined. Ways that would make Patrick Swayze just raise his hands in surrender. That would wipe away this sense of guilt I’ve always carried. The one that comes out whenever she watches dancers. So, if anyone knows a magic teacher…
Dancing, or my inability to do so, came out again tonight in the second show. Through magical circumstances, Tricia was birthday-serenaded by one of her favorite artists playing one of her favorite songs. It’s a love song - a rocking commitment to sticking together through anything you might face. We imagined it as our first dance at our wedding. It was narrowly the second choice - the first being a song called Highwire by David Francey that is incredibly beautiful, but would only work if no one really listened to the lyrics and thought about what they actually said about relationships. This tune, Kris Demeanor’s Back Door, was lyrically perfect. And amazing. But I would have needed a full body transplant to dance to it. We settled instead on a Postal Service song that is maybe a little less ideal, but beautiful nonetheless, and well within my exceptionally limited hoofing wheelhouse.
That Tricia had this song dedicated to her is one of the many magical things that have come from this A Young 50 project of mine. After seeing Kris play dozens of times over the years without ever talking to him, I finally broke down and bought him an afternoon’s worth of beers one day last spring. And I wrote about it. And I’d like to think he’s a friend now. Last week he emailed me to tell me about this show. I told him it was the day after Tricia’s birthday, so he’d made me look like a hero with the invitation. He asked what old song she’d like him to dust off for the occasion. And there was no question in my mind. So he dedicated it to her. And hugged her after the set. And I felt as I watched that no matter how dismal the world might seem, it’s also a pretty amazing place.
Kris was dressed in a shirt and tie, which seemed like an aggressive choice of outfit given the hyper casual coffee shop setting. But midway through the show he explained that his partner’s father had died a couple of weeks ago, and this has been his outfit. The best way to honor the dead, he hypothesized, is to wear their clothes. I think there’s something beautiful to that. But everyone I’ve known who has died has been much smaller than me. I wondered for a long while after he said it if there was a metaphor there - some sense that I couldn’t shoulder their legacies even if I wanted to. Or maybe I just need to make larger friends.
This writing project has been, and continues to be, my favorite thing I have ever done creatively. But at times I’ve gotten impatient that the audience doesn’t grow as quickly as I’d like, or that sometimes things I write aren’t embraced quite like I’d like them to be. But these two nights I was struck hard by something. We saw four different artists in total - Emily Triggs opened for Bobby and their band last night, and Ella Jean Haggis enthralled while opening for Kris tonight, then accompanied him through his set. All four are incredibly talented, providing countless combined moments of awe that people can do what they do, and can think to express themselves like they do. Besides that, what they all have in common is that they were all playing in front of far too few people. Tiny fractions of the audiences they deserve. And while that has to frustrate them all on some level, you would certainly never guess it from watching them. They’ve worked endlessly to achieve their mastery, and they just showed it off to whoever happened to be there to see it. They did it, I imagine, because they couldn’t imagine not doing it. And they do what they need to do - from Bobby deciding to be a classic country crooner while growing up in Montreal to Kris opening his set singing German verses from his family bible while holding a puppet’s head - without a lot of regard for what will best grow their audience. It perhaps not what I was supposed to be inspired by coming out of these shows, but I find myself there anyway.