"LIVE MUSIC IS BETTER"
Bumper Stickers Will Be Issued
World is spinning 'round
Whirling like a top
My head is reeling
Can't seem to make it stop-Haynes/Trucks
Music is my religion. It brings me joy, light, peace, energy, knowledge.
My spirit can rise from the dusty dirt up to the glittering sunshine with a beautiful tune or finely written song.
These two apostles, Warren and Derek, have given me some transcendent moments as I have sat, danced and twirled while they weaved musical magic before me.
We need this alchemy and beauty in our lives. We need to expand our attention spans.
Y’all need to spend sometime absorbing some live music or listening to more than a few songs. You need to take the time to LISTEN and truly HEAR the word.
Music is not a background for your life. There are many people like me who feel that music is their religion. The venue, the pub, the concert hall, the opera house, is their church.
I know where to go when I need some religion.
How do I know there are more like me out here or pray to the same god as I?
I have met them, danced with them, talked to them, sweated with them, hugged them, and looked into their eyes and saw the bliss and joy that music has given them.
Here is where the magic happens.
Throwing yourself into live music brings you one more truly heartwarming, soul enriching moment that needs to be kept alive. As Jeff Tweedy implored the crowd to keep the beat with their handclaps at a gig in Westville, Connecticut in 2022:
“If we stop playing can you keep the beat. We were not allowed to do this thing we all love ( as he gestured at the band and crowd) and live for for quite awhile (meaning lockdown) This is why we come together.”
Live music is all about community.
It always has been and always will be.
From the front or back porch, to the community town hall, in the cafes, the concert halls and the stadiums and in the fields we come together to commune. We come together to be a community and to share our energy with each other and the artists. The flow between stage to audience and back again is where the enchatment happens.
Don’t miss it.
This community has kept me alive, vital and filled with joy for my entire life.
I may be preaching to the choir….but if you have lapsed, I am preaching to you.
From Jimmy Smith preaching to me at the Jazz Tent at NOLA, David Lindley at The Bottom Line in N.Y.C., to the many festivals and and buskers and hundreds of artists and couches and yards where music has been epresented to me, the people I have met while accepting my sacrament have coloured my life with stories, freindship and love.
As we move forward through these weird ass times, we need communtiy for so many things. We need to be active, resist the evil, be joyful, educated, fed, sheltered and loved and more. Within all of those acitivites we build up our community and sense of belonging.
Please, do not forget to find joy and community in music. We need that more than ever right now. We need some warmth, love , connection and dancing to ease the heaviness that we are being dealt each day.
You can turn it up at home and dance by yourself or with your family.
But I do hope, and I plead with you, get out and support LIVE MUSIC.
Let it run through your bloodstream and give you life.
Get amongst your tribe, or find your tribe, you will not be disappointed.
Praise The Song!