I'm an impatient girl. I always have been. I like things to happen when I decide--when I make up my mind that it's time for them to happen.
I was notoriously bad as a child and teen to tear the house apart before Christmas, looking for the stash of presents. If my mom managed to get them wrapped and under the tree before I found them, I'd spend hours shaking and turning and pondering. Eventually I learned how to slice the tape open at the seam of the paper and put fresh tape over it, so no one knew I'd been peeking.
You'd think that kind of looking ahead would spoil the surprise. Not so much. Sometimes it made it worse, because now I had all this time to anticipate the actual opening of the gift, plus the using of it. Of course, if it was something that sucked, then I just had more time to imagine all the ways I would hate it. Or maybe what I would get at the store when I exchanged it.
So here we are, in early March, and spring has totally sprung in Atlanta. Everything's mostly blooming and shining and beautiful. The weather is getting warmer, and now nightfall is later. Like a kid, I'm anticipating summer. Although "summer vacation" has taken on a whole new meaning now that I'm a mom, it's still a really great time of warmth and ease and fun. Even when it's sticky and hot and I feel like praying for snow, it reminds me of all those summer breaks with my friends, hanging out and doing a thousand things we weren't supposed to be doing, probably in places where we weren't supposed to be.
Part of the fun of warm weather was always concerts. Maybe it was a huge outdoor festival, a small club show, or lawn seats on our favorite old blankets. It didn't matter, because we were all together, in that moment, and sharing that music and that experience. Even during the crazy electrical storm at one of many Pink Floyd laser shows, or the night some guy got struck by lightning twenty feet from us at the Steve Miller concert, it didn't matter how insane the conditions were--we stuck it out 'til the bitter end and then hung in the parking lot, waiting for traffic to die down and laughing at our inside jokes. (Okay, so we were probably trying to sober up a bit, too, but it was still social.)
The weather's getting warm, and it makes me want the music.
I am absolutely that girl in the car next to you, who's singing at the top of her lungs, windows down 'cause she doesn't care who sees or hears her. There's rarely ever a day that goes by that I'm not plugged in to my iPod or CD player or just my own memories of song, my voice fully embracing the vocal challenge before me.
But the very, very best is when I'm at a show, and I'm right up front, and the music's so loud I can barely hear my own fortississimo voice over the singer's. I thrive on the uber-bass that thumps so deep that I can't tell if it's my heart or the drums beating in my chest. It's exciting and enticing and it drives my soul in ways that absolutely nothing else can. Usually, if I'm that close, it's a band I love--especially if it's a general admission show where you're all-but-guaranteed a few sore ribs if you're against the rail.
When you're that close to the stage, you can see everything, just not at once. You have to make a pointed effort to watch each musician, to look at the lights as they turn and sway above you blindingly, or to try to ignore the crew (and sometimes families) running around at the sides of the stage. But you get to see the process. You get to see what happens when the guitarist breaks a string (which seems to happen to Dave Matthews all the freaking time). You get to see the close-up interactions of band mates, good or bad. You get to see who drinks beer and who drinks water.
You forget sometimes, from that vantage point, that the band can see everything you're doing. The lights aren't always in their face like they're in yours when you're in the crowd, though spotlights can suck, I'm sure. And when you're at the front like that, you get a lot of eye-to-eye contact, especially with the singers who really work their crowds. Some are better at it than others, and some just have bad nights, certainly. Honestly, it makes you feel special when the singer acknowledges you with a wink or a nod or a smile--it's just a heart-fluttering moment to be caught up in.
And then! There are the most spectacular of evenings, when the singer (or the guitarist or the bassist, if that's where your groove is) comes to you as part of the show. They'll stop right in front of you, singing or playing while they have your undivided attention. It's this amazing little moment where you've connected with a virtual stranger. You both get it, and--the crazy thing about it--everyone who sees you gets it.
I'm a singer groupie chick (though I used to be a drummer groupie chick, but they don't move around the stage much), so I'm usually watching the singer and (gasp!) singing along, word for word and note for note to the very, very best of my abilities. You never know when they might be watching you, you know?
It's an especially intense moment if the singer gets someone from the crowd to sing with them. Usually it's a mic held down to the fan for a few seconds. But sometimes you'll see a singer who gets right in the fan's face with the microphone, singing to them and with them at the same time.
To be that person... is MAGNIFICENT. There's an incredible flow of energy that happens between the two of you. No matter how many times you've heard him sing the song, no matter how many times you've sung along in your car or your shower, he's creating that version of that music in that moment with his voice. He's putting it out there for the audience as a whole, but for you specifically, and you're taking it in and letting it wash over and through you and feeding it right back to him with your own voice. There are a million thoughts in your head at once, and you're trying hard to remember the lyrics and to remember to breathe. It's intensely intimate and fun and scary as hell, because you don't want to fuck it up in front of this person whose music obviously means something to you.
And if you're at one of those shows where the singer picks someone out of the crowd to entertain personally, it's always crazy to watch. Sometimes you feel like you're intruding on their moment. The truth is, you're not. The singing fan probably has very little realization that you're even still there, that there's anything but them and the singer and the song, which is almost guaranteed to become their new favorite.
So now it's almost time for summer and concerts and the music that I so adore. I start next week with Adam Taylor at Smith's Olde Bar. I have tickets for The Twilight Singers at Masquerade in May. Cage the Elephant is about to go on sale, and I'm hoping to get news soon of Mumford & Sons, Taddy Porter, and I know They Might Be Giants will be on tour again later this year. And, of course, my year won't be complete without a couple (dozen) of shows from The Gracious Few. (There'd better be some singing involved, Kevin....)
The problem is, I'm impatient. I want all of those shows now. I don't like waiting for booking agents and bands and promoters to coordinate their schedules and fill their calendars. I know how it works, I know what it takes to book tour dates, but it's worse than waiting for Christmas, really. I always know when to expect the tree and the wrapping. I don't know when I'll see the flashing par cans and lightly-scented fog, or when I'll hear the roar of the crowd as the house lights go down and the first strains of the opening song blast from the huge speakers, dragging my beating heart into the band's rhythm.
I'm biding my time, plugged into the iPod, going on about my day as pleasantly as possible. Smiling but impatient, breath abated. And every time there's a new update via email or Twitter or Facebook, it's like sneaking a peek at the presents and just hoping it's the special surprise I want the most.
