A Delay; An Inspiration

In the words of a great little band called Spoon, "Everything hits at once." So true. Your free wireless that you've been pirating for over a year suddenly disappears, your personal life gets... complicated, school starts back up and your summer comes to an end far before you're ready. But those are all just excuses.

On Saturday I saw something that inspired me. I can't really remember the last time that this happened, and it's all I've been looking for in the last few months. I wanted to experience something overwhelming, something almost unpleasant in the amount of power it had over me... I wanted to feel helpless and in awe.

I saw My Morning Jacket perform at Edgefield. And before you roll your eyes and expect just another concert story, let me preface it with this: it's my job to go to concerts. And just like anything else that you make a job out of, it can become mundane and exhausting and something you start to resent. This summer alone I've seen somewhere around 50 shows - that's fifty-something concerts of standing in line to pay $10 for a beer, getting shoved by drunk assholes trying to get their girlfriends closer to the stage, having to fight with will-call when they lose your photo pass... It can wear on you, to say the least. But Saturday, for the first time in I-can't-remember-how-long, none of that mattered.

I'll refrain from delving into lengthy, flowery descriptions of what it felt like to be drawn to the stage lights, literally pulled closer to the sound, putting my arms over my head not to dance along but simply to feel more of the music, and simply say this: I remember now what I am supposed to do with my life, how hard it is going to be to do it, and why I will try anyway each and every day that I'm alive and breathing.

Reviews to come:
Raconteurs, (Roseland, 9.16.8)
My Morning Jacket, (Edgefield, 9.27.8)
Silver Jews with Monotnix(!!!!), (Wonder Ballroom, 9.30.8)