The Gods Walk Among Us
Caught Over The Rhine at Wheaton College again last night. What a show. Any time i'm just starting to feel like i've written something halfway decent, along comes another one of their albums and immediately i am shamed, contrite, vowing never to touch my Tacoma again. Never fails. Kim Taylor opened the evening and, in fact, may soon be headed for the same category as far as i'm concerned.
Nice atmosphere, too. Coray Gym was virtually unrecognizable from my days of 4 a.m. ROTC calisthenics. The college decided to remodel it a year or two ago, and it turned out so nice, they decided not to use it for athletics anymore. For the show last night CU put up some tables with white linen tablecloths and pillar candles in between the rows of padded seats. There were more candles burning on stage, and Caribou coffee for fifty cents in the back. Kinda fun to be back on campus for a bit.
I like concerts with lots of people on their feet and dancing, but i love most the ones where people are rock-still with listening, every hair of their bodies rapt in alignment with the sound. Last night they were dead silent until the last echo of the last note of each song died away, till that magic collective exhale is past and as one the crowd leaps to its feet cheering. Musicians like these were put on the earth so that we mere mortals could learn proper humility. I love watching the downstage eyespeak at a show like that - a grin when someone else is ripping a particularly fine solo; a flash of secret humor unknown to the audience; the sheer enjoyment of a climactic point in the music. It's just another gig in another city, but they are loving it.
Music like that can be listened to in a car, in a house, but that's not really enough. You have to be there in the moment, in the wavering candlelight. Your job is irrelevant, your unpaid bills forgotten, your whole erstwhile life on hold while for one brief night you exist solely in that wash of sound. You can feel nothing outside, only inside, your heart expanding like slow-motion TNT until your breath catches on its way out and you realize with wonder that for the last two hours, you've hardly been breathing at all. It's good to have your heart expanded, time to time.
Nice atmosphere, too. Coray Gym was virtually unrecognizable from my days of 4 a.m. ROTC calisthenics. The college decided to remodel it a year or two ago, and it turned out so nice, they decided not to use it for athletics anymore. For the show last night CU put up some tables with white linen tablecloths and pillar candles in between the rows of padded seats. There were more candles burning on stage, and Caribou coffee for fifty cents in the back. Kinda fun to be back on campus for a bit.
I like concerts with lots of people on their feet and dancing, but i love most the ones where people are rock-still with listening, every hair of their bodies rapt in alignment with the sound. Last night they were dead silent until the last echo of the last note of each song died away, till that magic collective exhale is past and as one the crowd leaps to its feet cheering. Musicians like these were put on the earth so that we mere mortals could learn proper humility. I love watching the downstage eyespeak at a show like that - a grin when someone else is ripping a particularly fine solo; a flash of secret humor unknown to the audience; the sheer enjoyment of a climactic point in the music. It's just another gig in another city, but they are loving it.
Music like that can be listened to in a car, in a house, but that's not really enough. You have to be there in the moment, in the wavering candlelight. Your job is irrelevant, your unpaid bills forgotten, your whole erstwhile life on hold while for one brief night you exist solely in that wash of sound. You can feel nothing outside, only inside, your heart expanding like slow-motion TNT until your breath catches on its way out and you realize with wonder that for the last two hours, you've hardly been breathing at all. It's good to have your heart expanded, time to time.
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