Monday, December 1, 2014
Old Friends
This past weekend I had a chance to reunite with some dear people I knew in my early 20's at a bar in Maumee called the Village Idiot. The Soledad Brothers, a band formed by a couple of my friends, were doing a kind of reunion tour and it was timed perfectly for people coming back to town for the holiday. As well, another close friend of mine was in town with his wife and baby boy and were staying the night at our house. This was a good chance to unwind from Thanksgiving, get away from the propriety of family, and cut loose like we used to. So I dragged my buddy out of the house, despite his exhaustion from having to care for his kid and socialize with his family, and we headed to town. Even though we got there at a time which would have been considered rather early 20 years ago, the bar was already packed deep. I like the Village Idiot but it is a small place and they still have a kind of innocence when it comes to bringing in bands because they leave tables right in the middle of the room and serve pizza well into the night. Their pizza is fantastic but it creates havoc when there's 150 people milling around between the bar and the bathroom. Even as we walked in I saw my people, and we were able to get our drinks and weave our way back to the mid 1990's.
It was as good as it had always been. I know they would hate me for boxing in their band but the best way I can describe it is blues-rock, influenced by the Rolling Stones and that particular branch of the pantheon of rock music. They hadn't played together for quite some time but those guys are so good it was like riding a bike. They had played together for years, touring Europe and the U.S. and tightening their style into a taut, sinewy core. With them providing the soundtrack, about 20 or so men and women who had, decades earlier, burned in the brightness of youth, collected together to marvel at the passing of the years. There were a few people who I hadn't seen in a decade, and we spent a lot of time joking around and catching up. To say it was surreal wouldn't be accurate... it was more... refreshing. Everybody was in great spirits and the music was loud and we all stood in front of the stage bobbing our heads to the beat like we were young again.
I was lucky, all those years ago, to be introduced to a great group of people who were very good at Rock, and they introduced me to several tiers of bands and music that probably would have taken me years to uncover by myself. We were also very young and waking up to a new world where we were unbound by old conventions. We didn't have to answer to our parents, and we had a license to go crazy. They all listened to music with a passion and they formed bands on a yearly basis, mingling and experimenting with styles and playing in clubs and bars all around town. In fact, these people and their love of music changed my life entirely. I listened to music differently after those few summers, and had totally different priorities. Coupled with my time at college, I had shed a self that was too small and young and had my eyes opened to an alternate life. For most of my adult life I've been reconciling myself to that brief explosion of madness.
Truth be told, though, so much has changed in the 20 years since I had been friends with that group of people. The center never does hold, and we were all scattered to the winds to live our separate lives. As much as we try to hold onto our place, this is what life on the river is, dynamic and ever in motion. I needed something else from this night, however. Something that perhaps the others didn't need because they were realists at a time that I was idealistic. I needed to be on their level. When we were young they were much more experienced and worldly than I was. They had all grown up together and I was coming in from the outside, both physically and metaphysically. I was very green and wet behind the ears when I hung out with them, and in that strange time of our mid 20's when I was awakening, they were all getting married or settling into jobs and planning out their next steps. So in the ensuing years whenever we got back together I gooned about the old days, and acted like a fool. I needed to be in that youthful sun again while they were living in the now, and I couldn't figure it out and it depressed me. It was my wife that gave me the perspective to realize that I was being the guy who couldn't let go of the past, and that they weren't the same people they were when they were 21, and they didn't need to relive those old days again. They weren't the kind of people who went to high school reunions to rehash old glories on the gridiron, and that was exactly what I was doing. So Friday night I went to the show to say hi to my old friends, introduce my good friend to them, have a few beers, and enjoy the show without any expectations. It made all the difference. Everybody was in the same place and the same time, we all had wives and husbands and kids at home to check on, and I walked out of the bar at a reasonable hour without saying goodbye to anyone. I might finally be learning how to be on the river.
Until we meet again...
It was as good as it had always been. I know they would hate me for boxing in their band but the best way I can describe it is blues-rock, influenced by the Rolling Stones and that particular branch of the pantheon of rock music. They hadn't played together for quite some time but those guys are so good it was like riding a bike. They had played together for years, touring Europe and the U.S. and tightening their style into a taut, sinewy core. With them providing the soundtrack, about 20 or so men and women who had, decades earlier, burned in the brightness of youth, collected together to marvel at the passing of the years. There were a few people who I hadn't seen in a decade, and we spent a lot of time joking around and catching up. To say it was surreal wouldn't be accurate... it was more... refreshing. Everybody was in great spirits and the music was loud and we all stood in front of the stage bobbing our heads to the beat like we were young again.
I was lucky, all those years ago, to be introduced to a great group of people who were very good at Rock, and they introduced me to several tiers of bands and music that probably would have taken me years to uncover by myself. We were also very young and waking up to a new world where we were unbound by old conventions. We didn't have to answer to our parents, and we had a license to go crazy. They all listened to music with a passion and they formed bands on a yearly basis, mingling and experimenting with styles and playing in clubs and bars all around town. In fact, these people and their love of music changed my life entirely. I listened to music differently after those few summers, and had totally different priorities. Coupled with my time at college, I had shed a self that was too small and young and had my eyes opened to an alternate life. For most of my adult life I've been reconciling myself to that brief explosion of madness.
Truth be told, though, so much has changed in the 20 years since I had been friends with that group of people. The center never does hold, and we were all scattered to the winds to live our separate lives. As much as we try to hold onto our place, this is what life on the river is, dynamic and ever in motion. I needed something else from this night, however. Something that perhaps the others didn't need because they were realists at a time that I was idealistic. I needed to be on their level. When we were young they were much more experienced and worldly than I was. They had all grown up together and I was coming in from the outside, both physically and metaphysically. I was very green and wet behind the ears when I hung out with them, and in that strange time of our mid 20's when I was awakening, they were all getting married or settling into jobs and planning out their next steps. So in the ensuing years whenever we got back together I gooned about the old days, and acted like a fool. I needed to be in that youthful sun again while they were living in the now, and I couldn't figure it out and it depressed me. It was my wife that gave me the perspective to realize that I was being the guy who couldn't let go of the past, and that they weren't the same people they were when they were 21, and they didn't need to relive those old days again. They weren't the kind of people who went to high school reunions to rehash old glories on the gridiron, and that was exactly what I was doing. So Friday night I went to the show to say hi to my old friends, introduce my good friend to them, have a few beers, and enjoy the show without any expectations. It made all the difference. Everybody was in the same place and the same time, we all had wives and husbands and kids at home to check on, and I walked out of the bar at a reasonable hour without saying goodbye to anyone. I might finally be learning how to be on the river.
Until we meet again...
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