So the Bright Eyes show was absolutely amazing. And I'm not just saying that. I had been repeatedly warned that their shows tend to be not that great. Unprofessional, short, and drunken were the adjectives of choice. So I was prepared for them to suck, even at Radio City Music Hall, and I was willing to come back and report to you that my beloved Bright Eyes were a disappointment live.
But before I tell you how wrong I was, can we talk for a second about Radio City? Have you ever been there? It's massive and grand with a ridiculous amount of orange fabric everywhere. I mean, just look at this:
But what blew my mind were the acoustics. They were spectacular. I thought the thing about live music was that the quality is never as good as a studio recording, that you went because the immediacy and energy made up for it. But I was wrong. Apparently, all you need is a really great sound mixer and one of the most famous venues in America to make absolutely gorgeous live music.
And of course it helps if the band is genius. Bright Eyes really had their shit together last night. The lyrics were brilliant, the trumpet player kept making me shiver, and they covered my favorite Tom Petty song in the whole wide world. No one seemed drunk, either.
I have something to confess, though. I cried. I cried at the last Modest Mouse show, too. I haven't been crying too much these days, but there's something about the intensity of a live performance that just gets me. They're hunched and screaming up there, they're thrashing their instruments, and the way my collarbones vibrate it's like they're telling me they know. It doesn't matter if the song's about war or love or New York, when it gets to the part where the guitars are wild and the singer is pushing the last bit of air from his lungs, my eyes start to burn and I have to look up and remind myself that I'm happy.
I wonder if this will continue, if I'll always cry at live music, if it will always make me think of my brother. I don't mind if it does. It's cathartic. When I left the Bright Eyes show the air was brisk and I was spent and calm. If I felt a little sad, it was the sweet kind.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Play For Me, I'll Cry For You
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2 comments:
a couple of weeks ago i couldn't listen to ANY music without crying: not blues, not james taylor, not bob dylan, not motown. the music started a flood of feeling and then a little seizing up of breath that turned into a sob, followed by full-blown water works. i think if i went to a live performance, particularly of a group i loved, i'd dissolve in a puddle on the floor. i'm glad it was cathartic for you and was even more than you expected.
Mir, so glad the show was all that and more.
I am afraid the tears will continue, seems to grow worse with age and more losses.
I cry at almost every live show I go too. The most vivid time I can recall was seeing Aaron Nevile sing Amazing Grace, in an out door amphitheater in Greece. Yannis and I had made it up to the front stage of the Neville Brothers show just in time for Brother Aaron.
The last time I had heard Amazing Grace had been at my cousin Jeffery's funeral. Oh how I loved cousin Jeff he was always so good to me. I hope Kyle gets to meet Jeff. Anyway, Cousin Jay ,(Jeffs older brother) is an amazing musician and he played the electric guitar at the alter in of the First Congregational Church in Milton. This had been our Nana Whitham's church and several of us cousins grew up attending that church, I being one of them.
Meanwhile, cousin Wally (now called Walden) sang and if you have ever heard him sing I can say no more. my words could never describe that performance.
So here I am in Greece and Brother Aaron starts in with his Amazing Grace and my tears begin. By the time he was finished I was just grateful I had the crowd keeping me from falling to the ground. I bawled like you would not believe. I was so glad it was dark and that it was impossible to take your eyes off of Aaron so no one noticed the out of control bawling American.
A good thing about Yannis was that he totally got me at that point. Greeks are so much better at grieving then we are.
Now we have Dorian's rendition of No Woman No Cry locked in our memory forever, talk about tears....
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