Apr
6
A few years ago I bought two tickets for a Father John Misty concert here in Eugene. I didn’t have anyone to go with me, but I figured I might be able to find someone, and failing that, I could gift the ticket to someone in waiting in line or something.
Then the day approached and I still didn’t have someone to go with me and I was like that’s fine I can do this, I can go to a show on my own, and then it was the day itself and I did not go. I just … couldn’t muster the gumption. I got in my head about it and the effort of going started to feel insurmountable and that was that, two wasted tickets, and I was SO mad at myself about it.
He came back to town last Thursday and this time, I was there. With a friend, in excellent balcony seats that offered both a great view and place to sit. It was an incredible show start to finish, even the songs I was lukewarm about sounded terrific, and my favorites — Mr. Tillman, Hollywood Forever Cemetary, Ideal Husband — were just next level. The lights, the set, his band, it was all so good.
It felt like the best do-over. Maybe the actual best would have been to go by myself, to prove that I can in fact do that (and I’m pretty confident I would have), but it was really nice to share the experience. And frankly I was glad to not be alone when we got to our seats and there were people in them, who showed us their ticket with full confidence and I was like fuuuuuuuuuck, because my tickets had come from StubHub, and the venue has all these grumpy statements on their website about not being able to endorse tickets from third party sellers, and of course I figured I had bought fake tickets and NOW what??* Thankfully an usher was able to determine that the other people were in the wrong section and so I did not have to 1) engage in any sort of conflict with anyone or 2) slink away in adject humillation.
(*Actually, the now what would have been to use the two additional cheaper general admission tickets I bought as a backup in case the StubHub situation was a no-go. This time around, I was taking no chances.)
Last summer I went with Dylan to see ZZ Top at an outside venue, and that was pretty fun. Great people watching, a few songs that were nostalgic for me. But aside from that I think the last show I’d seen was maybe 10 years ago? More?
I felt so alive last week, filled with a crackling kind of energy from being around so many people who were just as into the music as I was. Singing along, bodies moving. A collective feeling. Probably many of you have actually been to concerts and shows in recent times and you’re like yeah no shit Sherlock have you tried drinking water too because wow the wetness might just blow you away, but it had been so long and also maybe I am just starved for any sort of feeling of group alignment.
I felt both older, in the sense that I was remembering being a young person at shows and having the energy to be in the front jostling with the crowd and the willingness to have my eardrums blown out by the speaker proximity, and also weirdly ageless? Like for those couple hours I could just lose myself to instruments and voices and vibes and forget that I am a crumbling stack of rapidly-expiring warranties who now takes a fiber supplement in the morning.
All to say, it was such a wonderful experience and now I have something to add to the various bucket-list goals I have for my golden years — pet a cabybara, ride an Icelandic horse in the tölt gait, visit a heavily cat-infested place such as Instanbul, get myself into the yoga crow position without breaking my nose, and for heaven’s sake SEE MORE LIVE MUSIC.
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