Once upon a time, I went to a lot of concerts. Like many of us, I got started in college. Artists such as Judy Collins, Jethro Tull, Gordon Lightfoot, and Chicago came to town, and tickets were cheap because they were subsidized by student activity fees. Fun times. One of the best tickets I ever scored was for the traveling version of Jesus Christ Superstar. For some unknown reason, even though the concert was half sold-out by the time I got to the ticket window, there was one front-row-center ticket left! I snatched that one up, and got to spend two hours right next to the performers.
After college, I lived in places where I’d need to drive an hour or more to see a decent concert. There was Heart, Kansas, Rush, the Moody Blues, and many more. These concerts were usually indoors, in huge arenas. Everybody smoked except me, it seemed. My price of admission often included a pounding headache in addition to the $20 or so in cash that I spent. One memorable concert featured Foreigner right after they made it big (some detractors might argue that Foreigner never made it big). They had already booked a small venue, and they put on a great show.
Because of those pounding headaches, my favorite concerts were those held outdoors. I saw Crosby Stills & Nash, Robert Plant, the Grateful Dead, Jackson Browne, and the Moody Blues (again) in outdoor settings.
I’ve gotten out of the habit of concert-going as of late. Traveling the 80 miles to Atlanta is a royal pain because of traffic. Macon tends to have acts that I’ve never heard of. Last week, however, I was walking in downtown Macon, and noticed the name of Conor Oberst on the marquee of a restored theater. I couldn’t pass that one up. His song Moab is one of my favorite road songs, ever.
Sunday night I bought a ticket at the door, and took my place among perhaps 200 or 250 other fans. In a place that small, there’s no such thing as a bad location. The Felice Brothers opened; after the intermission they were the backing band for Conor Oberst. I had taken up a position above and behind the mixing boards, where a row of chairs were set up. I couldn’t help but notice the song list sitting out for the sound guys. Was Moab on the list? Oh noes, it wasn’t! But there were plenty of great songs, including selections from an album that Conor had released just two days previously.
Since I wasn’t able to hear my favorite road song at the concert, here it is for your listening pleasure.
Partial lyrics:
See those headlights coming towards us?
That's someone going back
To a town they said they'd never, yeah
They swore it on their life
But you can't break out of a circle
That you never knew you were in
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
Washed under the blacktop, gone beneath my wheels
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
One year, as I made my annual pilgrimage from Georgia to the Pacific Northwest, I had just experienced a series of events where every person who was in a position to screw me over, did so. I thought about that song often as I drove. By the time I got to Oregon, all was well. There’s nothing that the road cannot heal. Thank you, Conor Oberst.
That’s my latest small-venue experience. Who have you seen/heard recently? Big venue, or small? As always, this is an open thread.
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