I had fully expected to make the first post here one about
the wonders of the Grateful Dead. After all, I stole my blog title from the
lyrics to China Cat Sunflower (aided by my deep and abiding love of the
trombone), and their vast catalogue of both live and studio recordings is
enough for an entire blog on its own.
Last night, though, I went to see Fleetwood Mac at the
Montreal Bell Centre, and the experience was one of such pure joy that I needed
to write it down while I could still process the feelings.
I’m known for my ability to cry during pretty much any
situation, so telling you that I cried during both the mid-show Landslide and the
second encore Songbird (and, somewhat more inexplicably, during Gold Dust
Woman) is not exactly revelatory. I am also known, however, for my fairly
severe social anxiety and incredible self-consciousness, so it may carry more
weight to tell you that I danced my ass off for the full three hours, and, in
full view of the cliché, actually managed to do so for once as though no one
was watching. I also punched my long-suffering boyfriend quite hard in the arm
out of sheer excitement at numerous junctures, so it was definitely an
uncharacteristically physical night for me (in my defense, he plays the drums
on my shoulders during Dead and Phish shows hard enough to bruise both my back
and his hands, so we’re pretty much even on the “injuring each other in our
flailing musical excitement” score.)
Stevie Nicks’ dancing on the edge of the stage during Gold
Dust Woman made me remember why my fourteen-year-old self, draped in gauzy
black indefinable shawls, vowed to become
her upon growing up, and the occasional wry self-aware commentary on the band’s
checkered emotional past served to highlight how much delight the music must
bring the band members to keep them coming back together to play (a haunting,
slowed down version of Never Going Back Again, part of an acoustic set
accompanying Big Love and Landslide that was prefaced by Lindsey Buckingham
contemplating the importance of lifelong change and growth, performed only by
Buckingham and Nicks, seemed to bring this point home). I have been blessed in
the past few years to see a number of groups I never thought I would have the
opportunity to hear live, and it is fairly clear to the audience when a band
has re-assembled in order to supplement failing incomes (*cough* The Who
*cough) and when they have re-assembled because the draw of the music is too
much to fight. This felt very much like the latter.
In the middle of World Turning, the rest of the band left
the stage in order to let Mick Fleetwood solo, and it was what I can only refer
to as a fucking transcendental experience, not the least of which was due to
the many camera close-ups on his brilliantly frenzied face, eyes popping and
grinning ear to ear, a cross between a hippie and a pirate as he bellowed
somewhat incomprehensibly at the crowd while delivering on his overwhelmingly
extensive drum kit something that came close to resembling religious ecstasy. (The
Montreal Gazette reviewer referred to it in a wholly positive way as “a
crazy-eyed shamanic routine”, which seemed quite apt, if perhaps somewhat
indelicately phrased.)
I started this blog because my personal blog frequently
leans toward the depressing side of things, dealing as it does with questions
of mental health and my one-step-forward, two-steps-back approach to personal
growth. I wanted a place to record my happy thoughts, and my happy thoughts, by
and large, all stem from music. I spend, nowadays, an enviable amount of time
being content and engaged with my life. Feelings of joy, though, few and far
between enough to still matter, invariably come from song. Last night,
Fleetwood Mac helped remind me of that.
