But averages tell an incomplete story. There were the nights when he zigzagged all over the city, attending three distinct and separate musical performances in one evening. More often than not he could go to as many as four intriguing gigs at any given time, but unable to clone himself, chose the most important, the cheapest, the newest, or the most convenient. If he could be physically present at more than one concert he would.
Often he extended invitations to other music lovers but having a friend along was not a deal breaker. The truth is, he didn’t care much one way or the other. At least three quarters of the time he went alone.
He’d go from home, comfortable in his own skin, clad in jeans and a tee shirt bought at another band’s merch table, taking a train to the upper west side or a crazy quilt of transportation to some out of the way neighborhood at the edge of nowhere. He liked stadium shows and tiny intimate venues.
He’d go straight from work, dressed for the office, the oldest guy in the room, people assuming he was the manager or from the label.
Eventually he organizes himself differently around after-work performances. He brings jeans, a signature tee shirt and casual socks to work. Concerts outside of the rarified classical or New Music genres can be sticky affairs. He does not relish the idea of spilt beer on his dress shoes or briefcase. In changing from one costume to another, he refuses to be placed in a box. He had the satisfaction of surprising colleagues, who only knew the business side of him.
If good music was playing or had been played, he belonged there. This belonging, giving himself a seat at the table allowed him to stride purposefully to the bar, the front of the stage or backstage to talk to the headliner, the drummer, the raw opening band singer, the accomplished cellist. Knowing that he loved a good musical hang, and would be late coming home I insisted on a cab. He complied.
Rock, folk, hip hop. classical, avant-garde. country. Music impossible to define. Blockbuster acts almost everyone liked, folks no one has heard of but him and half a dozen people. Nose bleed seats at Carnegie Hall. Standing for hours, eyes affixed on the tiny stage. Dancing wildly among strangers at a DJ set. One of the crowd at Madson Square Garden. Folded into a camp chair in leafy Prospect Park. Every one of them is his happy place. He’s not put off by the minuscule smattering of people at a brave, first concert. He is also perfectly fine being cheek by jowl in a sweaty, overheated mess.
More often than not a concert will have a second life. He likes nothing better than to tell other people what to listen to and why. He will work his words, his photographs, his intricate impressions into a story. He will remember every musician’s name and every note. He will notice what they do not notice themselves.
He is not an epidemiologist or a fortune teller. He doesn’t know what a pandemic will be like until he is in one. One day he is squeezed around a table, listening to a vocalist with the voice of an angel, a windswept walk away from home. He thinks nothing of leaning in close to our friends, friends of friends, and friends’ new boyfriends to whisper between songs. The next instant he is locked up.
Heroes go to work and ride the subway but everyone else is on lockdown. He’s cooped up, but so are the musicians. Everybody regroups.
He shows up in virtual spaces and is not constrained by the rectangle to which he’s relegated. Singers, guitar players, people making their own instruments. He’s witness to their living rooms and basements, empty stages, the accidents happy and unhappy.
He casts live concerts, enlarged and hyperreal to the TV. He plays vinyl, old and new on his turntable. He stands before his collection, and transfixed, pulls out a CD and stares. Music accompanies him while working remotely at our dining table, soft and low. His movements are curtailed by four walls but because of screens he travels to other continents, cultures, and time zones. He is witness to musicians reinventing themselves and they see him too.
He is rapt as though this were his chosen path, the only place to be.
He must miss his former life. There was a time when he breathed the very same air as these musicians. Never once did he behave as though a Zoom concert was second fiddle. Not once did he complain.
When his turn comes, he’s vaccinated. Afterwards he remains cautious and calmly watchful. The two year old child I lost to cancer was his too. He knows that life is fragile. He is not afforded denial. He makes do without it.
When the CDC says that vaccinated people can do whatever they like, he hangs back. When they change their stance, he is unsurprised. He has an inner compass which tells him what to do. It tells him to be careful.
Like a rare jewels or diamonds in the rough, some live music beckons him and he follows. He attends a concert at dusk in a historic, old cemetery. As the sun sets he walks about, masked and in like company, from one musical station to the next. For one precious evening those living mingle with the dead.
He briefly digs in his heels about a gathering in a city park to honor a famous dead musician. It is the one time when his patience around the pandemic becomes frayed and britttle. As the guest list expands, then bloats to a number he deems unreasonable he reluctantly stays home.
He attends an outdoor concert on a brand new island cooled by wind coming off of the water.
A favorite musician plays in an apple orchard and he shows up. Musicians can be afraid too. Musicians gather a community in the freshest, safest, most fruit and tree perfumed air. They do his bidding and he theirs.
If the weather holds, if the pandemic doesn’t get any worse, if a natural disaster doesn’t threaten the shoreline, he is scheduled to go to a concert soon. He will be listening to live music. He will be listening while seated in a canoe.
From the archives:
I suffered for their art
Take This Inspiration And Shove It
Lucky
